Agreement preserves timberland

SEATTLE — A $22 million deal King County has reached with a timber management company will keep developers off more than 90,000 acres of the old Snoqualmie Tree Farm once owned by Weyerhaeuser.

Logging will continue on the Cascade foothills property east of Seattle. It’s now known as the Snoqualmie Forest.

“Instead of a suburb envisioned for this area two decades ago, we will leave a legacy of open space, timber jobs and a buffer for the Cascade wilderness for generations to come,” King County Executive Ron Sims said after signing the agreement Thursday.

Under the agreement, which is expected to close later this fall, Boston-based Hancock Timber Resource Group would retain ownership of the land and continue to log it. The county would hold development rights to a swath of the Cascade foothills that’s nearly twice the size of Seattle.

John Davis, Hancock Timber’s western regional manager, said the company is committed to conserving ecologically sensitive land.

“Snoqualmie will remain a working forest with all of the economic, conservation and recreational values that come with a working forest,” Davis said.

The deal also includes the purchase of 150 acres along the Tolt River to protect chinook salmon spawning habitat.

Gene Duvernoy, president of the Cascade Land Conservancy, applauded the agreement, saying it “fairly compensates the landowner … while ensuring that the foothills forests will remain green and productive — providing ecological and economic benefits to everyone in our region.”

The 90,000 acres is part of a tree farm Hancock Timber bought from Weyerhaeuser in March 2003, after a proposed deal with a Seattle conservation group fell through.