State Will Abandon Squaxin Island Park

The state will close a camping and mooring park in South Puget Sound after failing to negotiate a 25-year lease with the Squaxin Island Indian Tribe.

The Squaxin Island State Park is on the southern tip of the tribe's 2,500-acre island between Shelton and Olympia.

The state had been leasing 6.5 acres of tidelands from the tribe to provide public access to the state's upland property.

The 25-year lease expired in 1990 and the state and the tribe have been negotiating since then under one-year interim agreements.

The state paid the tribe a total of $375,000 for the previous 25-year lease on the tidelands and was willing to pay $500,000 over the next 25 years.

The tribe wanted $500,000 over 10 years, said Janet O'Mara, spokeswoman for the State Parks and Recreation Commission.

"It came down to money. We simply couldn't meet the increased payments," O'Mara said.

"The first long-term lease with the state was not fair," said David Lopeman, tribal chairman.

The tribe was disappointed it was not able to reach agreement with the state, said Lopeman, who called the negotiations "frustrating."

The tribe could earn at least $100,000 a year harvesting shellfish from the tidelands, Lopeman said. State and federal rules currently prohibit shellfish harvesting at the park because of pollution from boats moored there.

O'Mara said about 15,000 people use the park annually.

It has 20 primitive campsites, 10 mooring buoys, a 280-foot mooring float and a gravelly beach.