Title
Special Recognition - Proclamation Declaring Support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager Recommendation:
Proclaim support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Report
Issue:
Whether to proclaim support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Staff Contact:
Susan Grisham, Executive Assistant, 360.753.8244
Presenter(s):
Joshua Chaney, Representative, Environment America
Background and Analysis:
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was created by Congress 54 years ago and works to preserve the United States' natural and cultural resources and improving access to the outdoors in urban and rural communities. The work of the LCWF has been a critical tool in creating, enhancing and conserving national parks and historic sites, national wildlife refuges, watersheds, forests, wildlife areas and state and local parks, trails, and ball fields.
During the last 54 years, locally LWCF funding has preserved and enhanced public lands that are critical to Washington and Olympia including: Capitol Lake Park, Woodruff Park, Yauger Park, Percival Landing North, Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, Olympic National Park, and Mt. Rainier National Park among other projects.
LWCF takes a portion of royalties from offshore oil and gas development and invests that money in protecting America's important public lands for future generations. The LWCF is authorized to receive $900 million annually, this threshold has been met only twice during the program's existence and, instead of being fully funded, nearly every year substantial sums of funding are diverted to non-conservation related projects.
Although only receiving a fraction of its intended funding over the last 54 years, LWCF has led to the protection of land in every state, has improved access to these public lands, and has provided matching grants for the creation...
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