Mt. Hood Meadows Land Trade

COOPER SPUR PROTECTION UPDATE

In 2009, Congress passed a bill which President Obama signed into law which provided the Forest Service with a year and a half to complete a land trade and permanently protect thousand of acres on the North side at Cooper Spur as Wilderness. Over five years have passed and the Congressionally-mandated land trade still has not been completed. The good news is that work on the land trade is still moving forward, although at a much slower pace than hoped.

In response to a recent inquiry, Mt. Hood National Forest Supervisor Lisa Northrop reports that the necessary fieldwork has been completed to begin the land exchange process. As required by the legislation, the Forest Service and Mt. Hood Meadows are in the middle of negotiating a conservation easement for the protection of wetlands and public hiking trails on the property in Government Camp.

Once that easement is finalized, the Forest Service will begin preparing an analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act and an appraisal of the properties. The parties hope that will occur sometime in 2015. Once the required analysis and appraisal are completed, the parties will have to figure out how to equalize any difference in value between the land that has been offered up on the North side of Mt. Hood in exchange for the land on the South side in Government Camp. There are many steps that still remain, and we remain cautiously optimistic that this historic agreement will be achieved within the next two to three years.