Submitted by San Juan County Land Bank

Governor Inslee spent part of his Labor Day weekend touring the San Juan County Land Bank’s Mount Grant Preserve and the Island Rec’s Linde Field last Saturday. The governor’s visit was motivated by both organization’s submittals for grant funds from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office.

Mount Grant Preserve

“The state is incredibly fortunate to have the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program to help local communities with these kinds of projects,” stated Lincoln Bormann, director of the San Juan County Land Bank. The land bank applied for $1 million in the local parks category for Mount Grant. “WWRP is very competitive because of the high demand for conservation and recreation projects across the state. As a small community we were very fortunate to rank quite high in the scoring process.”

The land bank also applied for over $1 million for the Zylstra Lake acquisition to provide water access; a project that also scored well. In both projects, the land bank partnered with the nonprofit San Juan Preservation Trust.

“The Trust’s public fundraising campaign for Mount Grant made a huge difference in the grant process,” said Bormann.

The success of each of these projects will be determined next year in the state’s capital budget process.

Luckily, our legislative delegation is extremely supportive of the program and it’s fantastic to have the chance to show the Governor what Mount Grant means to the community,” said Bormann. “It will take a joint effort to get WWRP funded at a level where communities like ours can benefit.”

The state Recreation and Conservation Funding Board and the nonprofit Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition have requested $120 million for the program.