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Commission approves Steptoe Butte easement for DNR and delegates Saint Edward lease amendment to director

Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission · April 16, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Commission authorized staff to grant a perpetual road easement to DNR for Palouse Prairie conservation (with a small annual road‑use fee) and delegated authority to the director to approve a lease amendment allowing the Saint Edward lodge to option an extension up to 80 years to enable potential Nordic spa financing.

At its April 16 meeting in Spokane, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission approved two separate real estate actions: a perpetual road easement across Steptoe Butte State Park to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and a delegated authorization that allows the director to sign a third amendment giving The Lodge at Saint Edward Park LLC an option to extend its lease to 80 years.

Steptoe Butte easement (approved)

Michelle Burke, a real estate specialist, asked the commission to authorize the director to enter into a perpetual road easement that DNR requires to meet Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) grant conditions for its adjacent Palouse Prairie acquisition and conservation. Burke said the requested easement would be about 3.85 miles and that DNRprojected roughly 125 visits a year to the parcel, a very small share of the parkroad use (staff averaged about 51,228 public visits per year across 2022–2024). To proportionally…

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