On Tuesday, the Washington State Board of Natural Resources authorized the  transfer of of just over 122 acres of forestland to King County to include in its Patterson Creek Park Natural Area. The State Board sold the land to the County for $3.025 million according to a press release.

The acreage is located between Sammamish and Issaquah, is nearly surrounded by residential development. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will use the sale’s proceeds to purchase forestland better suited for producing revenue for the Common School Trust.

At its regular monthly public meeting on April 7,  the Board of Natural Resources also authorized the DNR to purchase 1,720 acres of forestland north of the Quinault Indian Reservation on the western Olympic Peninsula. The $5.2 million purchase from The Nature Conservancy will be funded by the proceeds from previous sales and state-funded conservation transfers of under-productive trust lands.

The new purchase will become part of the Olympic State Experimental Forest, which DNR manages under its Habitat Conservation Plan for timber revenue to trust land beneficiaries, including the Common School Trust. About $4 million of the site’s purchase price is represented by its standing timber, the majority of which will be ready for harvest in ten to twenty years.

DNR manages more than 5.6 million acres of state-owned forest, range, commercial, agricultural, conservation, and aquatic lands. More than half of these lands are held in trust and produce income to support public schools, county services, universities, prisons, and other state institutions. The Board of Natural Resources adopts broad-based policies and approves major commodity sales and all land transactions for state lands.