NEAR OLYMPIA, Wash. - It's a place so environmentally significant that federal and state agencies teamed up with private and tribal groups to buy it. Now we all own a place that time forgot in Totten Inlet.
But if you want to see it, you'll need a paddle.
"Kayaking is pretty much your only option." says Laurence Reeves of the land conservation group, Capitol Land Trust.
Reeves, along with representatives from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Washington state Department of Ecology, and the Squaxin Island Tribe, will take any opportunity to paddle out one the last remaining pocket estuaries in the inlet. It's a place where freshwater streams pour into a naturally protected marsh that fills with salt water during high tide. That gradual and regular mixing creates an ecological food bowl where animals, fish and birds come to eat and be eaten.
"These types of habitats are either filled in or diked or dredged, destroyed when development comes in," explained Biologist Ginger Phalen of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "62 percent of the Puget Sound pocket estuaries are already gone."
So when Washington state won the largest share of a $19.5 million in federal coastal protection grants, buying this 20 acre piece of property was a no brainer.
"Great piece of property," said Biologist Scott Steltzner with the Squaxin Island Tribe. "It's just amazing when you find a willing landowner and you diverse habitats like this all in one area."
"This property was on the market for sale for development, for residential development." said Eric Erler, Executive Director of the Capitol Land Trust.
So, when Capitol Land Trust learned of the available funds, it made the land owner an offer to pay fair market value to preserve the property forever.
"This land was an investment. They needed to recoup that investment. But if they had their choice between all things, they're very happy to see the property is going to be conserved," said Erler.
Buying the property also saves the Inlet from another bulk head that protects property against erosion but robs nutrients from the Sound by preventing it from chewing away at the trees and vegetation on the high banks. They call the tree-covered high banks feeder bluffs and most of those have also been lost to private development.
The property is bordered by private property on both sides, so it's only accessible by boat. But anyone willing to make a short, scenic paddle across the sound, is welcome to visit.
It belongs to nature and the public now.
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