DESCRIPTION
The Chelan-Douglas Land Trust placed an additional 20 acres into a conservation easement. The conservation easement area is an intact unconfined floodplain, channel migration zone and riparian buffer on the White and Napeequa Rivers. The easement extinguishes development rights and limit other uses so as not to conflict with habitat conservation values. This easement builds on the 2010 conservation easement placed on 40 acres of Tall Timber Ranch property and will join the hundreds of acres and miles of riverbank on the White River CDLT has previously protected.
The White River is a Category 1 Watershed, designated as Key Watershed in the Northwest Forest Plan, and 'is a critical spawning and rearing habitat for many species.' (Biological Strategy 2003). The February, 2009 RTT Priorities ranked the White River as 1st priority for protection. The conservation easement will protect this pristine area from the negative effects of residential development including: sedimentation, bank armoring, removal of LWD, removal of riparian vegetation for river access, water and air pollution.
This project provides a conservation easement on 20 acres including 1100 feet of riverfront along the White River, its confluence with the Napeequa River, and 2200 feet along both sides of the Napeequa north of the confluence, for total of over a mile. It connects the two easements acquired under Phase 1 of the project (SRFB #09-1477), that protect 40 acres contiguous to the east and west of this site, including 3,055 feet of frontage on the White River and 4,025 feet on the Napeequa River.
The White River watershed has some of the best aquatic habitat and healthiest native fish populations found in the Columbia basin (USFS 1998). Three federally listed fish species - endangered spring Chinook, endangered steelhead, and threatened bull trout - use the White River for migration, spawning, and rearing. The river also provides some of the best spawning habitat for sockeye, one of only two remaining stocks in the Columbia Basin.
