PORT ANGELES — A large owner of private timberland in two areas eyed for inclusion into the Olympic National Park doesn’t want to sell.
Forestry company Merrill & Ring owns three-fourths of the private land in the Ozette Lake area and half of the land in the Crescent Lake area that the park has proposed for acquisition, according to Norm Schaaf, vice president of timberlands and administration for the forestry company.
“At this point we’re not interested in selling,” Schaaf said at a Port Angeles open house hosted by the park Friday.
Boundary expansions
Schaaf was among the 70 people who turned out for the open house to discuss the park’s draft general management plan.
The Port Angeles open house was the fifth hosted by the park to present information and take written and verbal comment from the public.
The draft plan presents four alternative concepts for managing the park during the next 15 to 20 years.
Three of the alternatives, including the park’s preferred concept, propose boundary expansions.
The park is proposing in its preferred alternative — known as alternative D — that it buy 16,000 acres of private and public land, most of which are actively harvested for timber.
Most of the private timber land is owned by logging companies, with the public land belonging to the State Department of Natural Resources and Olympic National Forest.
Park: Willing sellers
All purchases will be from willing sellers, the park has emphasized.
Earlier in the week, Barbara Maynes, public information officer for the park, said that the park had not researched information about who owns blocks of land within the proposed boundary expansion areas, although it is aware that most of the private land is held by private timber companies.
“When we’re just putting a draft on the table, we don’t want to research title,” she said Wednesday, emphasizing that the draft plan is in the beginning stages of development.
Purchases will “all be done on a willing-seller basis,” she said.
“It’s a long process before the plan is finalized. . . We are at the very preliminary beginning of those steps.”