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The feds want to open up public lands, possibly to loosen up the regulations governing resource extraction of all types.

From coal to oil to rare earths to timber.

Meanwhile, the state of Washington is considering taking some of its land out of the mix.

On top of that, our state and federal budget cuts sure to make managing our public lands that much harder.

So tonight we sit down with Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove up the Grove to talk about the challenges associated with balancing conservation with producing revenues as budgets come under increasing pressure.

Lands Commissioner Dave up the Grove is next on northwest now.

Music Did you know that in Washington state, 30% of all the land is owned by the federal government?

On top of that, a lot of state owned public land sits right next to it.

So managing it all is complex with competing agendas and attempt from one to shift cost to the other.

And both state and federal lands having the potential to produce revenue in Washington schools benefit from timber sales and budgets are tight, but people in this state also put a very high value on conservation.

So there's a basic tension between the desire for money and the desire to protect the state's most valuable resources.

Into that pickle voluntarily walked Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove.

Dave, thanks so much for coming to northwest now.

Great to have a conversation about the DNR and all the responsibilities that you have.

I jokes coming into this segment that you took this job voluntarily which which we appreciate.

Let's start a little bit with a discussion about the state trust lands.

I'm going to use round numbers and I'm sure screwed up.

But you got a couple of million in conservation and a couple of million in in production for timber sales.

How how does that trust land work for revenue?

And where does that money go?

Yeah, it's in our state has an interesting story when it comes to our public lands.

When we became a state, the federal government gave us a bunch of land.

And then our state constitution has language that says we need to manage this in trust to help fund school construction.

For K-12 construction and our universities.

We also, during the Great Depression, acquired a lot of land from the counties that we manage also in trust to generate revenue for local governments like counties and all the subdivisions, fire districts, library districts, hospitals, hospital districts, it gets passed down.

And so when we steward these public lands, we have certain constitutional and legal responsibilities in how we manage those.

And, it isn't as big of a part of K-12 education as one might think.

In fact, if you take just those federal lands that I talked about, and you add up all of the money generated for school construction on those lands, those account for 1.5% of the state share of new school construction.

That's a mouthful.

What it means is, if you pass a school bond and you get matching funds from the state, 1.5% comes from those federal trust lands.

Okay, the courts have said not only do we have a responsibility to manage these on behalf of the trust, but also for the public, and that means we need to balance the interests.

That's what I wanted to get to next is, you know, a piece of land is worth more than just the timber on it.

There's environmental, there's climate mitigation, there's hiking and fishing and water quality, all the things we like.

And that's one of the basic tensions you have to deal with as the as the commissioner.

Correct.

The strive for revenue.

Hey, let's take these lands and leverage them and.

Well, no, let's let's set some aside and use them for other things.

How do you get that right?

Yep.

That is the classic tension in this job.

And I ran for this office with strong conservation values that I bring with me.

And I'm leading with them.

And I want us to do more for habitat and climate.

And I believe we can do this and still support a strong, healthy wood products industry.

Still meet those legal obligations to the trust.

Our agency, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, has always led the way for sustainable management of our natural resource.

We have some of the best practices in the world, and I want us to do more, but it is always a balancing act.

I remember when you first came into office, you wanted to identify 77,000 acres and and do some mapping, find some.

It's not technically old growth.

It's pretty old growth.

Well, just let's just say that it's pretty old growth.

Put that together, set it aside, study it and figure it out.

Where are we on that kind of lost track with that?

Where is that 77,000 acres?

Have you figured it out if you set it aside, what's going on?

Yep.

We have about 1 million acres, roughly of land that is currently being managed for revenue for timber harvests.

Within that million acres, we've identified about 100,000 acres.

This is rough numbers of what we call structurally complex forests and older forests.

These are the forests that have different layers.

They have the most biodiversity, they store the most carbon.

And we took some time to first of all, do some better surveys and work to determine and model.

Where do we have these and how much do we have?

The second thing we did is we took time this last year meeting with schools and counties and tribes and, and environmentalists and timber industry.

And what we've done now is I've signed a commissioner's order directing our staff to identify of those 100 and some thousand acres, identify 77,000 of them.

And secondly, to begin to explore alternative management strategies other than our traditional timber harvest, getting to cut out.

Yeah, yeah.

And so this could mean several things.

It could mean ecological forestry.

You know, the kind of thinning for forest health.

It can mean selling carbon credits.

Nowadays most governments and timber companies, you can get paid for doing more for carbon.

And very importantly it also means exploring acquiring replacement timberlands.

Are you trying to kind of get rid of this idea of, of forestry based horticulture, where even age stands kind of go away, clearcutting goes away?

Is that model changing a little bit?

Is that something you're looking at?

That model is already changed.

We don't technically clearcut.

We do what's called variable retention harvest.

And I understand it often looks like a clear cut.

Depending on what you were, you retain.

But yes, when I talk about ecological forestry, I mean things that are more gentle than that variable retention harvest.

We also don't do monocultures anymore.

We replant and try to recreate the diversity of the forests.

But I think there are ways to continue to innovate and diversify how we're managing this small subset of ecologically rich older forests.

But it's going to be hard work.

The commissioner's order, the first step, a lot of challenging and important steps to get ahead, mapping and and access and all of those things.

Well, for example, we don't have the authority to sell carbon credits.

We need the legislature.

We may need some changes in how we finance the agency if we want to do more ecological forestry.

The Board of Natural Resources, a six person body in state law, actually sets the timber harvest levels.

And so there's a lot of work still to be done, but I'm trying to stay out of it, you know, trying to lay out a vision of innovation, diversifying and trying to do more for habitat and climate.

So we're back to this just basic discussion of this basic tension that you face.

On the one hand, you have this idea, you know, amongst the environmental crowd to some degree.

Should we even be funding school?

Should we should we we we be relying on these lands for revenue at all.

And the other one is, well, listen, if you don't allow Plum Creek or somebody like that to monetize their land, if they if they're just, they're not holding it.

Just, just for, for a, for a collector's item, they need to be able to monetize it.

And if they can't, they're going to sell it and it's going to get developed.

So again, you're kind of in this situation where neither one of the alternatives, you don't want to over monetize it.

But by the same token, you don't want it to go just to be paved over someday.

How do you get that right?

Well, one important distinction is between the private timberlands and then the public ones.

About 70%, seven 0% of our forest products or wood products come off of private timberlands.

And that's not what we're talking about with this particular management plan.

We're talking about the state lands which make up 30% of our forestry products.

And we're talking about changing the management on maybe 7% to those acres.

And and replacing the revenue.

So if we're not, as you called it, clearcutting or we call it variable retention harvest, if we're doing ecological forestry, we won't make as much money to schools, but we might get some carbon credits to help offset some of that.

We also can acquire replacement timberlands just this year we bought the legislature has funding program 6000 acres over in Clallam.

If we hadn't bought those lands, they probably would have been converted into what I call McMansions, you know, big housing projects.

And so we can acquire lands and keep it in working forestry.

We also have some land currently set aside for the spotted owl that's turning out not to be good owl habitat for various reasons.

The local climate, if we're, you know, deferring the harvest to some of these older forests over here, maybe we can move some of those into production.

So it's going to take a whole suite of creative thinking to do this.

And like you said, I agree we shouldn't be pitting school kids against trees.

This was a Gilded Age system made 150 years ago.

In my ideal world, if I were the czar, we would manage these lands for environmental sustainability.

First.

And if we can generate revenue, great.

But I recognize we have a constitutional responsibility.

I have to comply with state laws.

And so how do you fit these conservation goals that I believe are important to the state of Washington?

The people value these for recreation, esthetics, climate, habitat, water quality, all the things, all of those things.

How do you fit those values into that, the current construct we have, and I think it's the challenge that every commissioner faces and I'm I'm just leaning into it, maybe a little heavier.

So add another layer on to this birthday cake that we're building here with the feds, who seem to be going kind of the opposite direction in some way, where it's going to become all about resource extraction on certain federal lands and whatnot.

It's kind of a double whammy in some ways when it comes to fire prevention and, and fire mitigation, because both the state and the feds have backed out of that commitment a little bit.

I, you know, you were featured, you know, one of your interviews, was featured in our fire on the rise and, special that ran recently here on northwest now.

And, you know that it's a double whammy.

You weren't happy about it, then?

I'm sure you're still not happy about it.

Yeah, well, I don't think the state Department of Natural Resources is backed away from managing our forests to reduce fire risk.

The state legislature backed away.

They took away half of our funding.

That's what I'm for, being able to do that.

But we'll spend every penny they'll give us.

And what I what we're talking about is, particularly in Eastern Washington, primarily, we have forests that are not in their natural condition.

We have suppressed fire for so long that they're really crowded.

So now when they catch fire, that whole thing burns up and it's dangerous and it destroys the whole whole forest.

And we want to get in there and thin those forests.

We want to do prescribed fire, you know, intentional, low level fire.

But if your neighbors, the feds aren't doing it.

Yep.

What good does it do?

We have a really cool program.

They call it the Good Neighbor Authority, where the federal government will reimburse us for doing work on the federal forests.

And we've got about 25.

Yes, we've got about 25.

Oh, will they actually pay the bill?

Yeah, that's a whole nother question.

We actually have a very good working relationship with our regional Forest Service.

It's a partnership that's strong.

We value that.

And we've, actually done work in about 25,000 acres of federal land.

I want to grow that.

I want to do more.

Anyone involved in this space can look up at a hillside and they can say private timberland, state land, federal land and see the difference.

And, the federal government does need to do more work to manage those forests.

But the flip side of that is we shouldn't be clearcutting our national forests to pay for tax breaks.

And that's what the president said.

He wanted to make money by aggressive, intensive logging in these national forests to pay for his tax plan.

I mean, this might be a checkerboard kind of deal that you see.

I mean, is there a chance that if if you know, they've talked to also about just outright selling, public lands for federal property, is there a chance a once in a generation opportunity could come up to acquire some choice tracts that butt nicely up against state trust lands?

And if so, is it does it seem like we have the budget to do that?

But I mean, that could happen.

Maybe, when that federal discussion was taking place about selling federal lands, we had those discussions internally.

We would welcome the opportunity to grow our trust holdings in the forestry space.

It allows more management flexibility.

We could, you know, do more ecological forestry over here and do forestry, you know, take on new lands.

The question is, where do those capital funds come from?

And it would be up to the legislature and their capacity right now because of the operating budget shortfall means I don't know if the state, but would have the resources, but I would jump at it.

I would recommend it.

Yeah.

Maybe it's bonded.

Yeah.

And I mean, that's what the state does with their capital budget and they have capacity limits.

But at the end of the day, my philosophy is public lands belong to We the people.

They're public lands.

They're our lands.

They don't belong to industry.

They don't exist just to make money.

These are special places that, for the life of our country, have been here.

And we don't want to over extract or, sell off our national parks and national forests laid over the top of this.

If you've been reading articles and maybe seeing headlines for the folks who follow this a little bit, talk a little bit about what the Roadless Rule is, which is something we've heard coming from the feds.

How would that affect state lands?

Give me a little one on one and one on the Roadless Rule.

Sure.

The this will be very 101, but the federal government adopts rules for how they manage those federal forests, and they have some restrictions and limitations on building roads through these undisturbed areas.

And, Trump administration has proposed repealing that to make it easier to go build roads to access them for logging.

Our agency does not support repealing the Roadless Rule.

Our fire professionals tell me the existing rule allows enough flexibility to do what's necessary to prepare for and respond to wildfires.

And I was going to say that's because one of the problems is as soon as you punch a road in somewhere that's upping increasingly, the chance for a fire start up and some argue the flip side is that it can allow you access to put out fires and prevent.

And, what I've been told again by our fire professionals is that the current roadless rule allows us the flexibility we need to address fire, and it's really just a tool to gain access to more extraction than these national forests.

And I you know, my hope is that, that repeal won't move forward.

But it's worth noting that's just one of many repeals of federal environmental rules impacting public lands.

You know, there's a public lands rule that manages BLM lands.

It's being proposed.

Wilderness.

Yeah.

Yep.

There's, you know, a lot of changes that reverse longstanding policies.

And I think that's why it's more important than ever that Washington state on our state lands, stand up for the Evergreen State values and manage our lands in a way that serves all the public well.

Of course, meeting those trust responsibilities, because we're seeing pressure in the other direction from the federal level, and maybe Good Neighbor helps you get in there a little bit, do some management off of it.

Yeah, it keeps our employees working.

It makes those forest healthier.

It helps with legitimate interests in wood supply.

You know, we we want to make sure that we have the wood products we need.

That's another thing to balance.

And and that's a great program and a great tool.

And we can get in and do the kind of forestry that, meet our state's values and help the federal government manage those lands.

Your chance to talk to the Washington State Legislature going into the 2026 session.

What are you asking for?

What's what keeps you up at night?

What's at the top of your list?

Yeah, my personal top priority and the top priority of the agency is restoring the funding that was cut for wildfire prevention and response.

I've been traveling all over the state all summer, meeting with legislators, highlighting the work we're doing.

The legislature made a commitment a few years ago of 125 million a biennium, you know, every two years, for wildfire prevention response, 120 million for our agency that allows us to purchase equipment like helicopters, allows us to thin those forests.

It allows us to give grants to local fire departments, all kinds of stuff that prevents and helps us respond quickly to wildfire.

Last year, that funding got cut from 120 million in half to only 60 million.

If we don't restore that funding, we're going to see more fires, bigger fires and a much higher cost to taxpayers.

Because here's the little secret people don't know.

We're like an emergency room.

You know, you show up at the emergency room and you get care.

We're going to put the fires out if we have to partner with Idaho or Oregon, we get the resources.

Then we send the legislature the bill.

And by law, they have to pay that bill for putting out the fires as well.

Planned.

Now, this year, that bill is going to be about $280 million.

Just to give you a sense, it is way more cost effective to prevent the fires get on them quickly and put them out than to have to pay after the fact.

Yeah.

So even the legislators who don't have rural areas and they care about health care funding and school funding, it'd be wise to fund a wildfire prevention response to free up money in the budget.

Our last six minutes here, Tom's other pet project, salmon recovery.

Talk a little bit.

By the time this program airs, the the floods will probably be about a month in the rearview mirror.

But on beyond that one incident, hydrologists have been telling us for years that the hydrology of the state is all whacked out with climate change, and we get these big flushing events in juvenile salmon.

You know, struggle and all the problems with the hydrology and the riprap rivers that we now have where everybody's getting flushed right out, right out the door.

How do you mitigate that, especially knowing that we're going the wrong way on greenhouse gases?

And, and unfortunately, even Bill gates has said that the dollar we put in here isn't affecting what's China, what China is doing.

It's they're making a meaningful impact is so difficult.

So when I lay out that kind of nightmare scenario, a difficulty in moving the needle with the obvious effects that are having negative effects on on salmon recovery, what does Dave up the group do first, when it comes to climate, we shouldn't give up.

We need to work on reducing the climate pollution.

But we also, like you said, need to also address what they call mitigation that is dealing with it.

It is climate change is here now and we're seeing the harmful effects, longer fire seasons, more destructive wildfires and changes in our hydrology and ocean conditions.

At our department, we do some really positive things.

One, we, manage our state aquatic lands, and a lot of the work to recover these salmon populations means restoring some of the habitat along Puget Sound.

That nearshore environment, that's where those forage fish eat that the salmon eat, and then the orca eat the salmon.

And so we're out there.

We're restoring eelgrass beds and meadows and kelp beds and nearshore environment.

We have teams out there that partner with local governments.

We also work uplands and our river systems.

The forestry activities we have can impact the hydrology of those systems.

So we do environmental analysis to make sure that, operations aren't impacting those river flows.

But I don't think it's just climate.

It's development in this state that's, you know, paving over, paving Paradise, put in a parking lot and stormwater and, and you're impacting these rivers and the, the hydrologic system, the salmon recovery need a dedicated fund.

Should a piece of the Climate Commitment Act come to salmon recovery.

What's your thought on that?

I'm open to it.

There's a piece that goes we call natural climate solutions.

There is a bucket of funding from the money generated from the climate Commitment Act that goes to natural climate solutions using forestry and revegetation and and also to fund projects for mitigation and whether it's salmon recovery or whether it's broader ecosystems.

I love that funding pot.

And I'd be open to if the legislature wanted to divide it up more, because I don't want us to be the generation that loses the iconic king salmon.

You know, the Puget Sound orca.

These define us as a state.

And if we don't get serious about clean water, about habitat protection, that could happen in our lifetime.

Noah and other federal partners pulling back, the big West Coast funds, along with the smaller regional funds, have have have gone away when it comes to salmon recovery.

The state obviously can't make up that gap.

That can't come as good news.

No, we're seeing a lot of chaos and uncertainty at the federal level that's putting our grants throughout our work at risk, whether it's our wildfire prevention grants, our aquatic lands grants.

There's a lot of uncertainty as to the future.

And we've seen cuts as well.

We rely on the federal government to the tune of about $200 million at our agency.

And so when when they cut back these programs, it really impacts our ability to do the work people value here in Washington state.

Do you see recovery goals starting to slip backwards?

Do you think we can maintain them with what's available?

I don't know if you've taken that granular of a look at it or not, I haven't.

It's always hard to measure if you're keeping things from getting worse more slowly.

We are not hitting our salmon recovery goals and nearly any basin watershed in this state, and it causes pause.

I think a lot of us think, you know, we're pouring all this money into it, yet we're it's like we're on a treadmill.

In a lot of cases.

I find some comfort in knowing that if we hadn't done this work, they may be extinct already.

And so we need to continue to find ways to improve what we're doing.

We need to make some hard choices, and we need to invest in the things that work with, state leaders that come into this program.

I want to give you the last minute 20 here.

What can people who are watching this program do for you?

What do you want to hear from people?

Do you want them to contact their legislature, legislators on fire prevention?

I mean, how how can they help DNR do its mission?

I'm going to reframe it a little bit more.

There's nothing that I'm asking specifically of people, but I think it's a recognition, an appreciation of the value of our public lands.

I said it before.

They don't belong to industry.

They belong to we the people and the quality of life they provide.

I grew up as a young Boy Scout teaching environmental science to kids on day Bob day, leading treks for the North Cascade mountains.

I want the next generation to have those experiences to get out, enjoy the outdoors.

It's where you develop a conservation ethic and to just to stand up for those public values that these lands belong to all of us, and they're we ought to manage them so that they'll be there not just for our kids and grandkids, but for the next generation.

And last but not least, shameless promotion.

If people want to learn more and get involved with the department, dnr.war.gov.

That's DNR dot a.gov.

We have tremendous resources on our website or they can follow me on social media on Commissioner Dave up the grove.

All right Dave, thanks so much for coming in northwest now.

Thank you.

Normally, if the federal government was walking away from forest land management, I would say this is a perfect time to spend a big chunk of money to buy some choice tracks, or use the Good Neighbor Law to at least get long term rights to manage sensitive areas or rights of ways that butt up against state lands.

But with increasing state taxes likely to put revenues into a classic death spiral.

The bottom line is that the state probably won't be able to come up with the money, and that is just a shame, because this may someday prove to have been a generational opportunity.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at kbtc.org, Stream it through the PBS app or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

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