Underwater lumber could fund Burke

Kayla Webley
2005-01-26
The Daily

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture may become the first museum in the world to be endowed by a sunken forest if Senate Bill 5017 successfully passes through the Washington State Legislature.

If the bill, co-sponsored by UW alumnus Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, is made into law, the Burke will get a new endowment -- funded by the sale of logs from the bottom of Lake Washington -- to support its facility.

The proposed legislation would allow the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to lease aquatic lands for the purpose of logging trees that have grown beneath the surface. Revenue generated from the sale of the logs would go to the Board of Regents, to be used solely for the operation of the Burke.

According to Michal Rechner, an environmental planner with the aquatics resources division of the DNR, logs at the bottom of Lake Washington, known as "sinkers," are between 1,100 and 1,200 years old. The logs are completely preserved due to antioxidant conditions at the bottom of the lake. Once recovered, they can be sold like any other timber product.

Jacobsen said he combined his constituents' concerns over the unused wood resource with his own research into endowments to write the bill.

"If they could figure out some way to log the wood down there it would be very valuable old growth cedar," he said, adding the logs would be the equivalent of timber sold in the 1860s and 1870s. The quality of cedar housed at the bottom of the lake no longer exists, he added.

But logging the bottom of a lake is an expensive process, Rechner noted. Before logs can be sold, there has to be someone to retrieve them.

"Personally, I don't think there will be too many people out there willing to pull logs up from the bottom of Lake Washington," he said.

Jacobsen said he felt confident about the possibility of logging because the DNR caught someone illegally harvesting the same logs in 1971.

"DNR has really done nothing since [1971] to do anything about [the logs]. With all the changes in technology, if someone put their mind to it we would figure out some way to do it," said Jacobsen, who cited a project in the Great Lakes that is successfully logging underwater wood.

Roxana Augusztiny, acting director of the Burke, expressed appreciation on behalf of the museum for Jacobsen and the bill's additional sponsors, Sen. Paull Shin, D-Edmonds, and Sen. Pat Thibaudeau, D-Seattle, who are attempting to provide support for the facility.

"We have an incredible need for funding basic operations, particularly in public outreach," said Augusztiny, adding that some of the Burke's programs have suffered because of the UW's tight budget. "We would really like to build up giving the public access to what is here, which is not well funded at this time."

Jacobsen said he is optimistic about the bill's chances because he chairs the Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation Committee, to which the bill was referred to.

"I support everybody else's bill, so they ought to give me one," he said.