Environmental and outdoor recreation groups in Kitsap County received over $10 million in grants and sponsor matches from the state Recreation and Conservation Office July 7. The funding will go toward all kinds of outdoor initiatives, from conserving wildlife habitat to maintaining hiking trails to developing land for farming and forestry.

“These grants are critical to keeping Washington a premier destination for outdoor adventure as well as a great place for Washingtonians to live,” said Megan Duffy, director of the RCO. “These grants are key to building great communities … [They] help communities light ball fields, make parks accessible to people with disabilities, connect gaps in trail systems, refurbish pools and resurface pickleball courts.”

In total, the state office awarded about $148 million to organizations in 35 counties. Kitsap saw just under 7% of the total funding granted, behind King County with $13.8 million, or 9.3%, and Spokane County with $13.2 million, or 8.9%.

Here’s what the great outdoors in Kitsap has in store.

Bainbridge Island

Most of the grant funding that landed on the island went toward land conservation, but BI also saw the only recreation project in the county that focused on an indoor space.

The BI Sportsmen’s Club received just over $35,000 to renovate the clubhouse kitchen, which currently contains one electric stove and one non-functioning stove with a leaking propane line from an aborted renovation project a few years back. Improvements to the kitchen will replace cabinetry, appliances, repair the propane lines and cure dry rot in the clubhouse floor.

Local park users will also be coming into some additional green space, thanks to RCO grants: the BI Land Trust was awarded $1.29 million to purchase 34 acres of land off of NE Day Road W to connect the nearby Manzanita Park watershed to the estuary. The additional land will extend BILT’s existing protected areas, the North Fork Manzanita Preserve and the Miller Kirkman Preserve, to touch Puget Sound and the green space of Manzanita Park.

“Emphasis is on protection of streams, wetlands, and a large forest core area to benefit the full suite of island terrestrial and aquatic species and provide public trails through forests. Benefited species include coho, cutthroat, chum, flying squirrels and pileated woodpeckers,” wrote BILT conservation director Gina King.

While the move won’t quite create a contiguous park, it does capture one of five remaining parcels on the island greater than 20 acres in size that BILT has identified as “undeveloped and unprotected,” and thus a high-priority target for conservation.

“Very few large, undeveloped and unprotected parcels remain. It is urgent that these remaining properties are individually evaluated for their value to completing upland wildlife and open space networks on Bainbridge Island,” wrote BILT on their website.

South and Central Kitsap

Nonprofits and government agencies were awarded over $5.7 million for projects in Central Kitsap, largely focused on the region’s forests and particularly on Green Mountain near Bremerton. The areas will see safety improvements, amenities like hiking trails and added conservation protections for wildlife habitat, including the largest chum and coho salmon run on the Kitsap Peninsula.

Five initiatives from three different groups will conserve at least 630 acres of undeveloped land in CK, creating new protections for natural spaces and opening the door to restoration efforts.

On the smaller end of the conservation projects, Kitsap County will add ten acres to Illahee Preserve Heritage Park, a forested open space with hiking trails in Bremerton, to protect the watershed and provide an educational touchpoint within the existing park. The preserve is treasured by many community members like tour guide Brian Bennett, who praised the trail conditions and wayfinding infrastructure.

“I have been walking the Illahee Preserve for the last five years and have walked there in all four seasons,” Bennett wrote online. “This is my go-to place for both my mental and physical health. Thank you to all of the organizations and volunteers who created and care for this resource. How lucky we are to have it in our community.”

The largest conservation-focused projects are in the far-flung corners of the county. The state Department of Natural Resources purchased 270 acres in the Stavis Natural Resources Area and around Big Beef Creek near Seabeck, and the Greater Peninsula Conservancy purchased 350 acres near Bremerton to protect Green Mountain, including Dickerson and Chico Creek, home to coho and chum salmon, as well as steelhead and cutthroat trout.

Both efforts will shield critical habitat from development.

The Stavis Natural Area contains wetlands and mature upland forest — “high-quality and regionally diminishing wildlife habitat, and a crucial part of the larger landscape of forestlands on the western Kitsap Peninsula,” wrote DNR property acquisition specialist Machelle Leal. The property is at risk of development due to urbanization, but it’s key to ecosystem health in the region, Leal explained.

“The project area provides biodiversity conservation in the Puget Trough, containing (state Department of Fish and Wildlife) priority habitats that include freshwater wetlands, instream and riparian habitat, estuaries, and marine-estuarine shoreline, along with mature and old-growth forest,” Leal said.

DNR will also treat artificial lowland forests that were damaged by logging practices. Restoration will include some tree thinning, planting of under-represented trees and shrub species, and control of invasive plants.

“These efforts will restore the successional trajectory of these forest communities to allow for more natural development of forest conditions and accelerated development of important habitat features such as large trees, snags, and down wood,” said David Wilderman, project ecologist. “It will also enhance the diversity of these forest communities and improve the quality of habitat for wildlife, including salmon, by controlling invasive species in riparian areas and accelerating long-term recruitment of large woody debris.”

GPC’s Green Mountain project in Bremerton also features mature and diverse forest stands, but its freshwater riparian areas are its most prominent ecological asset. The purchase will protect Dickerson Creek, major tributary of Chico Creek, which has the highest salmon runs in Kitsap County, thanks to decades of restoration efforts along the river and wetland areas.

“Acquisition of these upland areas of the Chico Creek watershed will preserve a crucial link within a contiguous 70,000-acre forest landscape, providing wildlife corridors, important spawning and rearing habitat, as well as public access for connecting and interacting with nature within a rapidly developing region,” said Erik Steffens, GPC conservation director.

That’s not the only upgrade the Green Mountain Area will see. The DNR also received two separate grants totalling $446,000 to fund a recreation warden position and three trail and amenity maintenance employees to keep an eye on conditions at Green Mountain, as well as the Stavis Natural Resources Area, Tahuya and Hood Canal State Forests.

The warden will patrol 200 miles of trails, five campgrounds, seven trailheads and many day-use areas, focusing on off-road vehicle use compliance and “fixing safety concerns for all trail users,” wrote Beth Macinko, project lead, and will educate visitors to the area about rules, regulations and principals of good stewardship, including organizing trail events in the forests.

Off-road vehicle infrastructure will also be the focus of the new trail maintenance team, Macinko added.

Staff will keep over 185 miles of off-road trails, four campgrounds, seven trailheads and several seasonal- and day-use sites in tip-top recreational shape — including cutting overgrown brush, installing grade reversals, repairing bridges, hardening tread and small reroutes, and sign installation. Trailhead and facility maintenance will include cleaning and maintenance of restrooms, campsites, parking areas and signage.

The goal is to provide year-round opportunities for off-road vehicle recreation, especially in winter, when most trails of that kind are closed, explained Macinko.

Countywide projects

Kitsap County will benefit from two organizations’ projects throughout the western part of the state: the Washington Trails Association and the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance.

WTA will perform frontcountry trail maintenance — meaning day-use trails that you can access by driving to and hiking — with the power of over 3,500 volunteers performing over 31,000 hours of maintenance on 127 miles of trails around Puget Sound.

“As Washington’s population has grown, demand for trails has surged, putting immense strain on popular recreation areas. Compounded by limited land agency capacity and a significant maintenance backlog, this makes it harder to manage rising usage and keep trails safe and accessible for all,” wrote Taylor O’Leary, WTA grants manager.

In Kitsap, WTA crews will be working on trails in the Wynn-Jones Preserve, Port Gamble, Newberry Hill Heritage Park, the Hansville Greenway, Guillemot Cove, Banner Forest and Anderson Landing.

EMBA will be doing largely the same thing, but for mountain bikes and other off-road vehicles, including horses. Washingtonians have created more and more demand for outdoor recreation: the organization’s membership has more than quadrupled in size since 2015, putting additional stress on front-country trails, especially in populous areas. EMBA promises to deliver $2.60 of project value for every dollar the RCO grant provides.

Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance courtesy photo A volunteer crew from the EMBA sculpts a dogleg in a downhill bike trail.

DNR courtesy photos A waterfall in the Stavis Natural Resources Area.

The headwaters of the Stavis Natural Resources Area, looking west to Hood Canal.