Action Plan to Save LBA Woods, Again

By Anne Kilgannon

Black Hills Audubon played an important role in saving the LBA Woods from being clear-cut and turned into housing developments. Concerned citizens worked for several years to raise awareness throughout the City about the environmental damage, flooding, loss of habitat and the destruction of a potential local treasure of an urban forest. We were finally successful in blocking development and convincing the City to buy the two land parcels for an addition to the adjacent City park in 2017.

But the Park is still threatened by development: the City still plans to construct a major connector road right through the forest, a road planned in the 1970s long before anyone envisioned a park and long before climate change was much discussed and long before residents changed their priorities and let it be known they valued parks and nature over roads and “convenience.” Please read the following Fact Sheet and find a list of actions you can take to—once and for all—Save LBA Woods.

STOP THE ROAD

The proposed Log Cabin Extension Road through the LBA Woods is an Environmental Tragedy

A Road the Public Does Not Want. When the Log Cabin Extension road first appeared on regional transportation plans in the 1990s, the LBA Woods, a forested oasis in an urban setting, was slated to be cleared for a major development. Now, instead of moving vehicle traffic in and out of the development, the proposed road would instead cut through the heart of 133 acres of mature upland forest.  Saved from development by a broad-based community coalition, it is now public parkland of regional significance.

Yet, the City of Olympia is sponsoring a road cutting through a natural treasure that is contrary to responsible stewardship of the environment and fails to prioritize the health and well-being of the community.

The road will turn the park and woods into a place where the sights, sounds, and smells of nature are replaced by noise and pollution from automobiles, motorcycles and trucks endangering wildlife and park visitors.

Our Government Leaders Cannot be Sincere about Climate Change and Support the Road.  For the City of Olympia to support the road they would need to ignore or deny the environmental impact of clear-cutting and paving a road through native forest.  They would need to dismiss the rising levels of C02 from automobile emissions, the ecosystem dynamism lost, and of the opportunities for carbon sequestration squandered.

Olympia City Officials Try to Pacify the Opposition to the road by saying it won’t be built for 10 to 20 years and there is no urgency to take the road out of the plans. However, the longer it remains in the plans, the more Olympia and Lacey and developers will spend on projects anticipating the road will be built.  Unless the road is removed from the plans, the weight of these “investments” and the foregone opportunities for alternatives will make it nearly impossible to stop the road being built through the LBA Woods.

Plans have impacts.  The Council needs to act now so that the planners can begin planning for a world where a road does not desecrate another natural habitat.

Demand the Council take a vote now to remove the road from its plans. The Council strategy is to make building the road the default position, allowing them to avoid going on the record. But doing nothing leaves it in the plan and makes it more likely it will need to be built.  Removing it from the plans makes preserving the woods and protecting the environment the new default position.  The Council could, at any meeting, take a vote to instruct their staff to begin the process of removing the road from all plans.

What we can do to get the Olympia City Council to Stop the Road. 

• Join the Stop the LBA Woods Road mailing list to learn more about opportunities to be heard.  Request to be put on by emailing, stoptheroadlba@nullyahoo.com.
• Write to the Olympia City Council.
• Use your voice at the public comment period at City meetings. (Sign up for emails to learn more).
• Call and speak with Council members about how you value nature and the environment more than roads.
• Ask candidates about their position on the road.  Support those who will protect it.

Visit the StopTheRoad website. https://tinyurl.com/StopTheRoad

BIRDS OF THE LBA WOODS (81 SPECIES)

List compiled by Bob Wadsworth, Black Hills Audubon Society   (Updated April 2020)