Ebey's Landing Administrative History

Chapter Nine:
MANAGING RESOURCES

The EBLA trust board took an interest in all of these matters. One additional natural resource controversy, the Barstow pit (as the issue was locally called), embroiled the trust board in prolonged public debates about kettlehole terrain.

In 1979, Island County began acquiring what eventually amounted to 160 acres of kettlehole terrain in the old Barstow Donation Land Claim, southeast of Lake Pondilla (the lake itself is a kettlehole). The Island County Engineering Department planned to dig a landfill in the area, build a road shop, and hold the land as a future source of gravel. Both the Island County planning department and the trust board opposed the project in 1986. The board cited as justification the project's probable visibility and the geological uniqueness of the kettleholes. When the county officials promised to create a visual buffer, the trust board relented. But, as planning progressed over the next three years, some trust board members withdrew their support. It appeared that the project would gradually level a ridge visible from Highway 20. In support of the trust board, Island County commissioner Dick Caldwell, in whose district the reserve lay, argued in April 1988 that the county-owned land would be better used as a "passive recreation" area with hiking trails among the glacial kettles. Eventually the county canceled the landfill and the road shop. However, it could still apply for a surface mining permit for the gravel. [25]

The appropriate water level for Crockett Lake and kettlehole protection reflect the sort of natural resource issues that have typically concerned the NPS and the trust board. Inherent in such debates has been the classic challenge to balance protection of natural values while accommodating ever-changing human use and demands on the land. In the reserve, where a living and working community resides, this has been especially important. The challenge has also been apparent in the subject of camping. This has been a small but not insignificant issue.