By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – 24-year firefighter, 2-term State Senator and Clallam County resident Kevin Van De Wege announced his campaign Tuesday for the office of Washington State Lands Commissioner.
In Olympia, Van De Wege chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks, which sounds like a good warmup for the job he’s seeking. Van De Wege agreed, and said he considers this campaign the culmination of his political career.
We spoke with him on Wednesday, and asked about his priorities should he get the job. He says preventing wildfires tops the list. Here in western Washington, Van De Wege believes doing that crosses over into another major issue – sustainable timber harvesting.
“I mean, going back to wildfires, I think that has a lot to do with harvests. Right now, whether you’re doing a private or a public harvest, you fill out a forest practices permit. And when one of those is granted, I’m a firm believer the trees should be harvested. Right now, we’re seeing a movement where even after that’s granted, there are people that are saying, ‘No, we shouldn’t harvest those trees.’ And when we do that, particularly when we do that to trees that were planted forty years ago with the intention of being harvested, we put our forests at risk, because that forest is very likely to have a bug infestation. But, even without one, it’s going to burn. And forest fires give no benefits to the community. If we harvest those forests and plant new trees, we sequester carbon, we create jobs, and we reduce the likelihood that we’re going to have a forest fire.”
As Lands Commissioner, Van De Wege would become the head of the Department of Natural Resources, replacing Hilary Franz who recently announced her campaign for Governor. One of Franz’ most controversial policy decisions came in November of last year when she announced a “forever ban” on commercial net pen fish farming in Washington state waters. That had an immediate effect on our community because the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe was in the process of seeking a lease from the DNR to raise steelhead in net pens in Port Angeles Harbor.
Did Van De Wege agree with that decision?
“She didn’t issue permits for those, and I agreed with her decision on that, although I don’t think we need to write net pens off forever. Our growing populations are going to need protein, and aquaculture could potentially be an avenue for that. I just think it has to be done correctly. It has to be permitted and regulated, obviously, use native fish. So, I think there is space for those to happen, but net pens have had a tough history in our state as of late.”
Van De Wege says over the years he’s developed strong relationships with both environmentalists and with the timber industry, and understands there needs to be a healthy policy balance between the two. That said, he told us he’s a little concerned about some of the environmental stances some folks are taking.
“The term Legacy Forest is a fairly new term that was coined because they couldn’t say “old growth”, because the stands of trees have not reached old-growth status. So, we have this term Legacy Forest that people are using as a means not to do harvests. And to me, that is concerning for the reasons I mentioned. If we don’t harvest them, they’re highly likely to burn, and we’re getting no jobs created out of them. And we’re upside down on sequestering carbon. And that to me is one of the biggest things we can do environmentally, especially at the DNR, is put in programs that really sequester carbon and make our environment overall much better.”
Learn more about Kevin Van De Wege, his background and his policy positions by going to his campaign website at kevinforlandscommissioner.org.