Snake River parks still in limbo; corps works to find operators

The fate of two parks on the Snake River remains in question as federal officials continue to try to find someone to run them.

Both parks are owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Last month, the corps sent out a call for someone to run the parks after their previous operators cancelled leases.

Gina Baltrusch, press agent for the corps’ Walla Walla office, said that call did not net any solid responses.

“We had three people poking at it, but nothing really concrete,” she said.

The firms that have run the parks, Northwest Land Management at Central Ferry and the Port of Columbia County at Lyon’s Ferry in Franklin County told the corps in November they wanted out of their leases.

The sites were developed as recreation areas in the 1970s after the dams were built. Management of the parks was turned over to Washington State Parks Department. Facing a budget shortfall in 2003, state parks decided to give up its leases on the parks. They have been run by the private firms since.

Baltrusch said officials in the corps’ real estate office are now studying the parks to see how best to manage them in the future.

One of the factors they will analyze is how easily the parks were run by private managers. However, that information is limited because the parks were publicly owned for nearly three decades.

“We just don’t have a long history of concessionaire management,” said Baltrusch. “They were abandoned by the state in 2003, and all we have is what’s been done since then.”

The corps has contacted public agencies in the area, but has not found any interest.

Port of Whitman County Commissioner Don Cox in December suggested a three-way partnership among the port, state and corps to operated Central Ferry through a concessionaire as an effort to re-open it.

The port contracts with Dave Peterson to operate Boyer Park upriver from Almota under a lease arrangement with the corps.

Properties manager Debbie Snell said the port told corps officials they had no interest at present in managing Central Ferry.

Boyer is a perennial money loser in the port’s budget.

Tim Myers, director of Whitman County Parks Department, said his department does not have the funding to add another park. Budget constraints in his office have made maintenance of the county’s existing parks tough enough, he said.

Baltrusch said financing is also important at the corps’ level. She noted the Walla Walla district has not received any additional funding to operate the parks after the leases with Northwest Land Management and the Port of Columbia were relinquished.