PROJECT STORY

Pat Powell talks about the transaction

By Dan Pedersen

The Boyer-Borden transaction connects several previously protected lands on Ebey’s Prairie and Crockett Prairie. It extends similar conservation easements to formerly unprotected farm lands ranked as high priorities by both the Land Trust and Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve.

"We’ve adopted each other’s land protection priorities,” said Patricia Powell, Land Trust executive director. “The Reserve doesn’t have any money right now, so the Land Trust has been securing various federal, state, and county grants and private donations to put all this together.”

The transaction also accomplished something else that makes Powell happy. “I love being able to figure out ways to meet our desire to protect prime farmland in Ebey’s Reserve while, at the same time, meeting the desires of different landowners,” she said. “Freeman Boyer ends up not having to own the property. He gets the money, but also doesn’t have to see it developed. The Bordens have more land that gives them more opportunities for sustainable farming and land management. And, more of the historic landscape and breathtaking views within Ebey’s Reserve will always be here for the public to enjoy.”

The Land Trust staff began working on the transaction in 2006 by writing and submitting grant applications and has been going strong ever since, with land-protection specialist Chris Hilton in the lead. “She’s had to do the hardest part,” Powell said, “developing the complex legal documents with our attorney and shepherding all the technical steps through closing.”

Funding stewardship forever
The deal required not only agreement among all parties (two private landowners, local, state, and federal agencies, and the Land Trust) but also careful legal review by the attorneys for each of the six parties. The Land Trust assigned its agreement to purchase 45 acres from Boyer to the Bordens, who simultaneously sold a conservation easement on all 83 acres of their now-more-than-doubled farm to the Land Trust.

“They are also donating to our stewardship fund to help pay the ‘forever cost’ of monitoring the land and any possibility that we would have to enforce the terms of the easement on a future owner,” Powell said. “That’s a really important part of this. We have a ‘forever’ obligation to these properties after we protect them with conservation easements.”
To fund this transaction, the Land Trust is using $1 million in grants, including $500,000 in farm and ranch land protection grants from the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service and $500,000 in farmland preservation grants from the state Recreation and Conservation Office.

County as an important but silent partner
“The conservation easement will be held jointly by Island County and the Land Trust,” Powell said. “We have signed a co-holding agreement with the County that basically says, from start to finish, we do all the work — talking to property owners, getting the grant money, doing all the real estate work, and closing the transactions. We work with the landowners to get them on board, get the money, and make the deals.”

“On the Borden conservation easement, the Land Trust wrote, submitted, and presented the federal, state, and county grants and did all of the legal and real estate work. Island County and the Land Trust co-hold the conservation easement, but basically, the Land Trust does everything — the monitoring and working with landowners every year. The only time the county would come in is if we have an enforcement situation that’s going to court, which is a rare thing.”

Powell continued saying, “We’ve been very successful to raise nearly $6 million of federal, state, and county grants for farmland protection in Ebey’s Reserve over a period of several years. Our success was due, first, to picking the right properties with willing landowners and then working really hard to successfully compete for funds against stiff competition. Yes, we’re tired, but seeing hundreds of additional acres in Ebey’s Reserve protected forever for food production and public enjoyment makes us both joyful and grateful.”