Camas awarded $2.25M in outdoor recreation grants

The city of Camas is set to receive the lion’s share of a recent batch of outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat grants awarded to Clark County jurisdictions. The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) announced July 18, that it has awarded nearly $190 million in grants to communities statewide “to improve outdoor recreation and conserve important wildlife habitat for Washingtonians and the plants and animals that live here.” The RCO awarded $3,315,000 in grants to Clark County projects, including three Camas-specific grants totalling $2.25 million. “These grants advance our priority to protect Washington’s world-class outdoor recreation offerings enjoyed by locals and travelers from across the globe,” said Gov. Jay Inslee. “I’m proud of these investments. They will go a long way to ensuring Washington’s outdoor areas are healthy, open and usable by everyone.” The Camas grants include: • $1.25 million for completing the “missing link” in the Green Mountain area. According to the state, the city of Camas “will use this grant to buy 55 acres of forest, the missing link needed to create a continuous, protected greenbelt when combined with the Green Mountain area and partner-owned lands to the east and west.” The 55 acres will help the city connect Green Mountain to the Lacamas Lake trail system and, according to the state, “has the potential to connect regionally to Camp Bonneville and to the ‘lake-to-lake’ future trail systems.” The city’s Green Mountain concept plan, which was included with the grant materials sent to the state, also shows a series of trails inside the 55-acre parcel that are connected to a trailhead, parking lot, restrooms and picnic area off Northeast Ingler Road, and that will lead to a lookout point near the top of the mountain; • $500,000 to improve the South Lacamas Creek (Third Avenue) trailhead on the south end of Lacamas Lake Regional Park. “The city of Camas will use this grant … (to) add paved parking, a restroom, pathways accessible to people with disabilities, picnic areas, signs, landscaping and improved stormwater systems,” according to the state’s news release. According to information Camas Parks and Recreation Director Trang Lam submitted to the state, the plan for the Lacamas Creek trailhead includes a new 25-stall parking lot with at least one parking stall that complies with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); a paved ADA-accessible route connecting Northeast Third Avenue to the trailhead amenities; a restroom; picnic facilities; plantings around the perimeter of the trailhead area; and other trailhead improvements. The designs also call for tree preservation in the area as well as the use of “low-maintenance, native, sustainable landscape plantings; sustainable building materials; bioretention swales for stormwater quality and conveyance; and mitigation plantings;” and • $500,000 to revamp Camas’ historic Crown Park. According to the state’s news release, “the city of Camas will use this grant to begin renovating Crown Park, a 7.3-acre park in a residential neighborhood on the northside of downtown Camas. The City will build an interactive water play feature, inclusive play areas, a restroom and pathways and install some furnishings.” The grant award notes that the 89-year-old park, which includes “mature fir trees, a picnic shelter, two play areas, a basketball half-court, two tennis courts, and Scout Hall … is also the community’s gathering space, especially for summer events such as concerts and movies.” In her presentation to the grant committee, Lam noted that the total cost of the first phase of Crown Park improvements will likely cost around $2,725,600 — including $750,000 for an inclusive playground; $750,000 for a water play feature; $450,000 for restrooms; $325,000 for architecture and engineering work; $131,000 for ADA-accessible pathways; $86,600 for site preparation; $65,000 for permits; $63,000 for landscape improvements; $45,000 for utilities; $27,000 for site furnishings; $18,000 for general site structures; and $15,000 for general-security lighting. Lam’s presentation also includes plans for tree preservation, low-maintenance and sustainable plantings and the use of sustainable building materials in the first phase of the Crown Park renovations. The Camas City Council’s March 2022 approval of the city’s 255-page Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Plan and April 2022 approval of the PROS Plan’s long-range, 20-year capital facilities plan which included 12 high-priority parks and recreation projects estimated to cost a total of $14 million — including $2.5 million to help connect the city’s trail corridors, $6.5 million to fully redevelop Crown Park and $700,000 for the trailhead development at the Third Avenue (Lacamas Creek) trailhead — as well as $12 million worth of “less critical” priorities and $104 million worth of non-prioritized projects, was critical to receiving grant funding from the state’s recreation and conservation office. “The projects (on the PROS Plan list) start by having a baseline that it is important to the community. If it’s on the list somewhere, we’ve talked about it as a community and some community members have said it’s important – maybe 20 years from now, maybe 50 years from now,” Lam told the city council in April 2022. “There are grants that are for planning purposes, for getting us ready to be ‘shovel-ready.’” Other RCO grants awarded to Clark County jurisdictions include: • $1 million for the Vancouver Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department to buy 44 acres for a community park in east Vancouver, which is, according to the state’s news release, “the most underserved community in the city.” The 44 acres will include “expansive open fields, a high-quality wooded wetland, meadows, Oregon white oaks, a fish-bearing stream, and abundant wildlife.” The state’s RCO added that the “future development of the land might include wetland- and woodland-themed play structures, sports fields, picnic areas, walking trails, environmental interpretive signs and boardwalks and viewpoints into the wetlands;” and • $65,000 to “make trail repairs; demolish and rebuild a bridge and repair the surface of the Cedar Creek Americans with Disabilities Act Trail in the western Yacolt Burn State Forest, about 20 miles northeast of Vancouver.” The state also awarded several grants that will be shared among multiple counties, including Clark and Skamania counties. Those grants include: • $75,000 for youth crews to maintain 88 miles of urban trails in Chelan, Clark, Ferry, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, King, Kittitas, Okanogan, Pierce, San Juan, Snohomish and Whatcom counties; • $107,480 to support volunteer crews that maintain motorcycle trails in Chelan, Clark, Kittitas, Lewis, Mason, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Pierce, Skagit, Skamania, Stevens, Thurston and Yakima counties; • $121,195 to maintain trails for motorized uses in Chelan, Cowlitz, Douglas, Ferry, Jefferson, King, Kittitas, Lewis, Mason, Okanogan, Skagit, Skamania, Snohomish, Stevens and Yakima counties; • $200,000 to complete heavy maintenance projects on 40 miles of off-road motorcycling trails in Chelan, Grays Harbor, Kittitas, Lewis, Mason, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Pierce, Skagit, Skamania and Stevens counties; • $75,000 to maintain 300 miles of trails for non-motorized uses at recreation sites in Clark, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Lewis, Pierce, San Juan, Skagit, Skamania and Snohomish counties; • $75,000 for maintaining 315 miles of backcountry trails in counties throughout Washington state; • $7,500 to create educational videos that will promote responsible recreation on Mount St. Helens in Cowlitz and Skamania counties; • $75,000 to maintain 152 miles of heavily used backpacking, hiking and equestrian “front-country” trails in Grays Harbor, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Skamania, Snohomish, Spokane, Thurston and Whatcom counties; • $196,508 to provide heavy maintenance on 223 miles of multiuse, two-track trails open to off-highway vehicles on United States Forest Service and Washington Department of Natural Resources’ land in Kittitas, Mason, Pend Oreille, Pierce, Skamania and Yakima counties; and • $1.5 million to buy smaller parcels of “high-priority” land “in or next to state parks” throughout Washington’s counties. For more information about the RCO grants, visit tinyurl.com/y5as8urb.

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