This is the likely story that I always get told.
I was in a hallway, and when you arrived, several
other people, you're a popular guy, is the moral
of the story, approached us in a way that made
you think I had set up an ambush. Well, they
approached us in a rather menacing way and literally
surrounded me. Welcome to County Connection.
the official podcast of the Washington State
Association of Counties, where we dive into the
legislative issues shaping the future of our
communities. From budgets to public safety, infrastructure
to elections, we'll break down what's happening
in Olympia and how it impacts counties from across
the Evergreen State. Stay informed, stay engaged,
and join us as we amplify the voice of Washington's
39 counties. Welcome, everybody, to the County
Connection podcast, the official podcast of the
Washington State Association of Counties. I am
Paul Jewell, the host and government relations
director for WASAC. I'm here today with a very
special guest, Skippy Shaw with the Nature Conservancy.
Welcome, Skippy. I think this is the first time
you've ever been on our podcast. Is that right?
That is correct, Paul. How many podcasts have
you been on in your life? I can't recall another
one. So this is your first podcast ever. I think
so. This is an exciting moment. I do have, this
is a weird story for me to tell, but. My husband
does a sports podcast, and when we were early
dating, I used to force him to do a pretend podcast
with just me and him about football kickers.
Really? Why? That no one will ever listen to.
Why did you do that? Because I really enjoy talking
about kickers, and he hates them. So that's my
only experience. I feel like we need to dive
into that a lot deeper. I did come up with a
theme song, and I think the name of the podcast
was Colonels of Glory. Colonels of Glory. Yeah.
So since you mentioned your husband's podcast,
what is the actual podcast of your husband? He
is a host on the fantasy football podcast for
theringer .com. Okay. So if we've got any fantasy
football fans out there amongst our county commissioners,
you can have a new podcast to check out. Danny
Kelly. All right. Shout out to Danny Kelly. Yeah.
He's going to love this. good you're out promoting
look at you good for you you're a good partner
he does not need my promotion well skippy thanks
for joining us yes appreciate it um You know,
we've had this podcast going for a while now,
and this time of year, of course, we are in the
thick of the legislative session. I shouldn't
really say that. It's still the first week, but
it's a short session, so it feels like the thick
of it. And you and I worked together a lot during
the legislative session, at least we have in
the past, on a whole host of issues, a lot of
which tend to focus around timber and some other
natural resource -based stuff. Oftentimes, we're
battling for the same thing. pot of money over
there in the capital budget for a project you
want or a project that I want or maybe one that
we both want something like that but we're working
together this year on another initiative and
I thought it'd be really cool if you came by
to talk about it so even though I didn't give
you really much of a choice ambush but thanks
for coming anyways yeah I'm happy to chat yeah
well you were here last week and you had a chance
to talk with our legislative steering committee
members about it as well but the issue is really
funding for wildfire and for forest health treatments
and for wildfire preparedness why don't you give
us a little bit of a rundown yes so this is all
about a commitment the legislature actually made
in 2021 with the passage of house bill 1168 and
they passed it unanimously bipartisan support
it was a bill was in support of that as well
yeah you worked very hard on it and it was a
commitment by the legislature to fund every two
years forest health wildfire response and community
resilience to address our wildfire and forest
health crises at the level of $125 million for
the biennium, because that's how we mapped out
how we had to scale up the work and get it done
what we needed. Now, that worked great when we
had more funding in the general fund, but when
the budgets got tough last year, it was hard
to meet that commitment. I empathize with that,
but we got a cut of $60 million for that good
work. And that translates to real things for
real people and real risk to community. So we
are coming back together, the group that fought
for the passage of the bill, to show that these
dollars have gotten on the ground. We still care
deeply about them. And even in tough budget times,
it needs to continue to be a priority. You know,
we couldn't agree more. And our legislative steering
committee endorsed this policy and certainly
supported. Your work and then also WASAC putting
some resources behind this, which we plan to
do. We'll be cooperating with you guys this year.
We see this as really important funding as well
for all the reasons that you mentioned. On top
of the fact that, well, there's a couple of things
that are really important to us. First of all,
the state of our forests in Washington state
has deteriorated over the last, you know, several
decades, 50 years probably, to a point where.
these wildfires, when they start, they're hard
to stop. They're hard to contain. And the intensity
of the wildfires that we're seeing today, because
of past suppression tactics, right, and because
of past forestry strategies and forestry policies
that have resulted in many landscapes now that
are overstocked and completely neglected, we
just... You know, we're ripe for really, really
dramatic events. By dramatic events, I mean not
good dramatic events. And we've seen some of
those already. And, you know, if you think back
to the Labor Day fire a couple years ago, think
back to the big fires in central Washington that
we've seen in the last few years, and then even
in the two most recent years, a lot more wildfires
on the west side of the state as well. You combine
those conditions with climate change, right,
and retiming of moisture and a reduced snowpack
and things like that. that uh and we have to
do something right or or we're going to be too
late um and what we worry about is if we don't
continue this investment we're going to go backwards
yeah and lose all the progress that we've made
yeah uh and we're really kind of signing our
fate into the future of going to be too late
yeah it's scary and So it's tough when you're
living with hard budget dynamics, but something
we reinforce when we're talking to our legislators
is they're going to pay for this in a much bigger
bill if they don't make these investments now.
We show that these dollars get you an eightfold
return on that investment. For a dollar you spend,
you get $8 in impact back. If you don't fully
fund this, modeling shows the state can expect
like $1 billion in bills coming their way from
a variety of sources, in particular the suppression
costs. It's a lot cheaper to prevent than it
is to suppress, right? To react to a wildfire,
to put it out. And the costs in the suppression
are just part of it. It's the recovery that...
costs a bunch of money on top of that. And if
you can avoid all of those costs with just an
ounce of prevention, everyone's better off, right?
Yeah. And even the specific modeling we did around
this specific funding and in our state shows
also when we do these dollars, we're not only
saving for a bigger bill down the road and reducing
our risk for our communities, but we can model
that we can reduce tens of thousands of acres
of catastrophic wildfire when we're doing this.
forest health work this resilience work and getting
a response ready yeah so the the three components
of this are you know better suppression um preparedness
response equipment things like that at dnr Investments
in local communities, so training for the local
communities and equipment for the local communities
so their fire folks are ready, capable, and able
to respond. And then the fire suppression pieces
around forest health treatments, whether it's
thinning or ladder fuel removal or shaded fuel
break creation, different strategies like that.
And you guys actually at the agency do a lot
of that work. um on your own lands don't you
on the nature conservancy yes we've actually
put $1168 on the ground on our own lands to create
fire breaks to help protect nearby communities.
And you do some prescribed burns too, right?
Yes, we love prescribed burns. Which is a big
tool here. Yeah. Why don't we talk about that
briefly? Yeah, I would love to. Why is prescribed
burns such an important piece? Because fire is
a piece of the landscape. Most of our state,
maybe not as much the west side, but the east
side is a fire adapted landscape. It needs fire
in a lot of ways. And when we prevented fire
from being on the ground. in that low, slow form
it could take if it was off and intermittent
and used accordingly. That really kept up the
health of our forest, and we started to suppress
too much of it. And we forgot the use, especially
by a lot of our indigenous communities. They
knew how to use fire on the ground. They knew
the tool. They didn't need it for the landscape.
We've neglected that, suppressed it as a practice
for far too long. We just felt momentum shift
on the embracing of what we call good fire, prescribed
fire in the last decade. And a lot of that was
funded by 1168. The training exchanges, the support
for prescribed burn associations, just getting
more staff at Department of Natural Resources
doing prescribed fire work. all that is getting
lost with these cuts. But prescribed fire is
just such a cool, powerful tool for thinning
out forests, for getting those underbrushed young
trees, getting those cleared out so you really
have forests looking like they really are historically
looked, which is not jam -packed. And we show
that forest health work is great, but when you
match it with prescribed fire, when you get that
catastrophic fire coming through, the... The
catastrophic fire changes behavior dramatically.
It slows down. It rolls low. It becomes way less
risky for communities. Yeah, you don't get it
climbing into the crown to the trees. It just
burns around the base of the trees. I can tell
you, I've hiked through. I've been an avid hiker
for most of my adult life and I've hiked through
a lot of areas, both in central Washington, North,
you know, Northeast Washington, the Northern
Cascades, Western Washington, et cetera. And
sometimes I deliberately hike in areas that have
had recent fire. Yeah. Just to kind of see the
landscape differences. And look for more else.
Yeah. Well, there's that too. Don't tell anybody,
but the huckleberries come back first as well.
Oh, that's good to know. And they come back fast.
And when there's an open canopy, sometimes like
commercial blueberry size. I'm not going to tell
you where they are, but I had the most prolific
huckleberry picking year this year I've had in
years. It was crazy. I got like. I went two trips
and I got three gallons. And what did you make?
What did you go to? Oh, well, Huckleberry Pancakes,
of course. Oh, that sounds delightful. And then
Huckleberry Cobbler. But we digress. Yeah, sorry.
Getting back to prescribed fire, walking through
a landscape that was overstocked. and had not
had these treatments, right? It had a lot of
ladder fuels on the ground where the fire got
into the crowns of the trees and just devastated
the forest. It's a dramatically different experience
even five or ten years after the fire than walking
through a healthy forest that has very large
trees where the trunks are actually separated,
right? Where there is distance between the trunks
themselves, between the stems, and where... um
work has taken place over the years to keep those
ladder fuels down i walked through this was just
a few years ago i was at skimini lodge for a
conference and i had an opportunity the pacific
crest trail comes down actually to the Columbia
Gorge right there on both sides of the river.
I don't know if you've ever had a chance to jump
on it there, but you can jump on it there and
then climb up. You go over the Bridge of the
Gods if you want to, and you can go that way,
or you can stay on the Washington side. And a
fire had just gone through an area in that region
in the gorge where the Pacific Crest Trail was,
and they had done some treatments near there
a few years before. And there's just beautiful
old growth dug for... trees in there and you
could see um within the last two years the the
scars were still on the trees right uh and they
were 40 feet up but the trees were all alive
yeah and the forest was already coming back it
was that dramatic right after two years whereas
you go to central washington on the east slopes
of the Cascades where some of the pine forests
were, where a lot of the devastating fires have
occurred over the last several years. And even
six or seven years later, those places look like
a bomb went off. Yes. Right? Because they were
so badly burned. The heat and the size of the
fire and the flame lengths just destroyed all
the trees and sterilized the soils in many places
where it's going to take a lot longer for it
to come back. Yeah, you're not going to get those
seeds coming back and you're probably going to
have to do some intentional seed replanting work.
So that kind of treatment that you're talking
about, right, that we have taken off of the landscape
over the years, that we know that indigenous
residents used as a tool, that we know that,
frankly, Mother Nature uses and used as a tool.
Our landscape has been essentially shaped by
fire in the Pacific Northwest, especially before.
We came here, and we've changed so much of that.
We need this funding to correct a lot of those
practices and correct that landscape back to
a more healthy environment that's more fire resilient.
And if folks haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend
there's a good TED Talk by a scientist, Paul
Hesburgh, that really breaks down what he calls
the tree problem for our state. Anybody named
Paul is going to give a good talk. I know. I
thought you'd like that little nod. But it's
a really good recap of the science that shows.
And a lot of imagery showing us examples of what
our forests look like when they were actually
in that fire adapted state. And people look at
landscape and they see a jam packed tree. And
they're like, that's beautiful. And actually,
our forest didn't really look like that. No,
there was a lot more broken canopy. Yeah. And
a lot more variable age stands versus single
age stands that we have now. In many areas, it's
a monoculture compared to what was on the ground
in the past with a lot more variety. All interesting
stuff. We've digressed a little bit, but it just
kind of goes back to why this funding around
that original House Bill 1168 is so important
and why cutting that funding is so potentially
devastating. Where is the legislature going to
get the money, right? Every podcast that I'm
talking about right now during the legislative
session about legislation. It almost always comes
back to money anyways, but even now, because
of the budget situation, it's even more so. If
we're asking them to... To fill another 60 million
bucks, right? That's not a small chunk of change.
No, it's not. Where is it going to come from?
You know, they've got a new piggy bank over there
in the Climate Commitment Act. Is it going to
come from CCA dollars or is it going to come
from somewhere else? Have you guys weighed in
on that? Have you made recommendations on where
you think they should be able to get the money?
For this year in particular. We want to be clear
on what the cuts mean, and that's our lead message.
Like, you're having a tough budget year, budget
writers. You know what your resources are. We
just want to show you the why. Now, that's not
always fair to budget writers. I agree with your
point. So long story short, when 1168 was passed,
we certainly had a lot more cash on hand. So
when it didn't have a dedicated funding source,
it was workable. When it depended on those general
funds, it was workable. That's obviously not
workable. Yeah, in the last few years, they've
been raining money over there. I know they would
never admit to that. But, I mean, it had been
raining money on the legislature the last few
years before we got to 2025. And now that we
can't count on, you know... Quite a chunk of
change being left for discretionary spending
with the general fund. Yeah, the real question
over our heads, it's a longer -term question,
is we probably need a dedicated funding source
to continue this work at the scale we know we
need. Now, what that dedicated funding source
is, I think there's a lot of different conversations
happening. There's including some bills in the
legislature thinking of ideas. Those aren't going
to solve our issue and our cut this year. DNR
originally proposed a dedicated funding source.
for this particular bill, this strategy. One
of the first bills, yeah. One of the very first
ones that they proposed. I think it was an extra
excise tax on... Wasn't it on the homeowners
insurance? I am not sure those details because
you were around at this point and I was not yet.
Oh, you're calling me the old man. Yes, I am.
But there have been some ideas. Someone called
me old Wasak yesterday. Well, now I'm going to
call you old Wasak. Uh -oh. I should have never
admitted that. But I also will say that the conversations
we're having and some of the work we're doing
to research different funding sources, this was
all like, you know. 2018, 2019. Those are very
different times. So I think we need to probably
restart that conversation and figure out what
makes sense considering the current budget dynamics
and the current changes in the budget. And I
think I really appreciate how many legislators
recognize a dedicated funding need for this and
are putting together proposals. We will be engaged
in those conversations, but my focus is making
sure the legislature... understands what those
cuts have meant for communities because that'll
help give them the information they need for
how to prioritize and how to decide these. And
I should say, in the governor's proposal, he
did restore $30 million back from the Natural
Climate Solutions account. That's a cap -and
-invest revenue account, sourced revenue, sourced
account. Yeah, you got it right. And I'll say,
I don't... I don't think a dependence between
this commitment and the work needed on Climate
Commitment Act revenue is a good idea because
that is short -term funding that will be depleted
every year. But it's certainly in the description
of the Natural Climate Solutions account for
the Climate Commitment Act. Yeah, it's an appropriate
use of the funds, right? It's an absolutely appropriate
use. When you say this doesn't have a dedicated
funding source, basically what you're saying
is the decision to continue to fund it at the
$125 million level per biennium is really subject
to the whim of the legislature. But even if it
gets a dedicated funding source, and by that
you mean some sort of new revenue that is passed
or maybe even existing revenue that's assigned
to it, that's not a guarantee that the legislature
will continue to fund it at that level. in the
future, you know, those dedicated revenue sources
can be swept up during difficult times and put
to other means. We certainly both experienced
that situation. And that's why I don't think
any of us forgot this, but I do feel that a lot
of us learned last year the importance of the
band we'd built for the pastors of 1168. We probably
needed to stay in some sort of coalition space
long term should have done did a gig at least
once every six months you know just a reunion
gig once a year because can i be the bass player
i always wanted to be a bass player do the i
don't know i can't do any instrument can i be
in the background clapping you know there's always
the tambourine i can't even or the cowbell Okay,
I can do the cowbell. I can absolutely do the
cowbell. Think Saturday Night Live, Will Ferrell,
more cowbell. And everyone equates me with him.
We're like two kindred spirits. No, I think cowbell
for me for sure. We experience this with a lot
of big things that have happened. We get it done.
We're like, great, this is cool. We did it. And
actually, it's a follow -through. It's the yearly
work. It's a reminder that really keeps the work
going, gets the work done. And last year, I think
we had a lot of stuff on our plates with a dramatic
change in a budget reality. And this year, we
took a breath in interim and realized... You
know, if we come back stronger together, we can
probably protect some of these dollars in this
commitment. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for coming
by, Skippy. It's good to see you. I'm so glad
that I got ambushed. Just to remind everybody,
what does the Nature Conservancy do? Oh, yes.
We are a global conservation nonprofit. We are
all over the world. In Washington, we own and
manage over 70 ,000 acres. We do science. We
do on -the -ground forest management. We do prescribed
fire burns ourselves. I have a wonderful team
that works on state policy. I don't know what
else, Paul. What's your role over there? I'm
the State Government Relations Director. Okay.
We probably should have done that at the beginning.
No. Everyone wants to hear it at the very end.
All right. Well, thanks for coming by. I know
that this was a little bit of a surprise, but
you did fantastic. Sure. And if folks want to
reach out to their legislators or they want to
do something to help us with the 1168 funding,
what can they do? We are going to have a lobby
day of anyone and everyone that cares about this
funding on January 29th. welcome so not next
week but the following week yes that's right
okay and we're going to be focusing on as well
a sign -on letter from organizations to budget
writers as well as a dear colleague letter which
means legislators writing a letter okay to their
fellow colleagues and i will offer that if anybody
who's listening wants to get involved in that
and you need more details and more information
feel free to reach out to me and i can put you
in touch with skippy thank you paul all right
we'll take care we'll see you next time all right
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