By DAN RICHMAN

drichman@whidbeynewsgroup.com

Oak Harbor’s Fakkema Farm — 377 acres of rich farmland and thick forest stretching from the city limits west to Swan Lake — is at a crossroads. Its owners, brothers Henry and Richard Fakkema and their wives, are moving down two opposing avenues at once.

The brothers filed for permission to clear-cut and then likely develop 72 of their 150 acres of forest. At the same time, they are seeking to permanently protect from development 300 of their 377 acres.

“The two options are patently incompatible and inconsistent,” said Steve Erickson, of the Whidbey Environmental Action Network.

AT STAKE is “the keystone property to protect on north Whidbey Island,” the Whidbey Camano Land Trust wrote in a detailed document. The land is “extremely important” for protecting both surface and groundwater resources, the land trust said. Medium- to large-scale development there, or clearing the forest, would “severely impact” the farm’s ability to filter and improve surface-water quality as it flows into the adjacent Swan Lake estuary.

The forest is the largest expanse under single, private ownership in the vicinity, and the property as a whole is “one of the island’s largest and most important farmland holdings, a vital wildlife corridor both east to west and north to south,” the land trust wrote.

It is, in short, “a precious gold mine,” said former Island County commissioner Angie Homola during a recent visit to the property.

MOST ONLOOKERS agree that which direction the brothers choose appears to depend, at least partly, on money. Which route offers the greatest return?

Since 2000, much of the farm has been leased to Penn Cove Farms, of Oak Harbor, which uses the fields to grow alfalfa, corn, grasses and triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye) in support of its nearby dairy operations, according to the land trust. Penn Cove Farms has also grown potatoes there.

The Fakkemas raise several dozen beef cows on the land.

Penn Cove Farms didn’t return calls seeking to learn now much it pays under its lease. But either alternative — logging and developing, or selling what’s called a conservation easement — would likely yield far more money.

THE VALUE of logging and development is unknown. The timber harvest would yield 1.8 million board feet, according to the Fakkema’s application for clearing and grading, received by the county on July 31.

Houses could be built one for every five or 10 acres of clearcut, depending on whether the land is zoned rural or rural agricultural, said Bill Poss, the county’s development coordinator for public works.

That means a possibility of up to 14 houses on the 72 acres — unless a so-called planned residential development is allowed. Such a development could be built at twice the density or more.

The Fakkemas have sought no right to develop any property at this point, Poss emphasized.

ON THE other hand, the Fakkemas could get $3.5 million in exchange for granting a conservation easement. They could get even more by clustering as many as 65 new houses on the easternmost land that could be cleared under the easement.

Co-owners Henry (“Hap”) and Richard Fakkema declined to comment for this story, as did Hap’s wife, Karen.

“Our interpretation is that the owners are looking at their options, at what’s in their best financial interests,” said Ryan Elting, the land trust’s conservation director.

“We’re trying to present the best option for them.”

IT DOES seem clear that either the logging permit or the conservation easement can go forward, but not both.

“Our plan is to protect the forest by buying the timber rights as part of the conservation easement,” the land trust said in an Aug. 26 email. Though all the land would remain private under the easement, a public trail is planned from the city’s edge to West Beach Road.

It is also unknown which option will become available first.

Given the county’s policy of a 120-day review period, there might be no action on the permit until Jan. 31, 2016, said Kiersten Sahlberg, planning coordinator for The RJ Group, a Bellingham-based land-use planning group that filed the logging permit on the Fakkemas’ behalf.

The timber-harvest application was “nearly complete” when the land trust approached the Fakkemas about selling it a conservation easement, the land trust said.

A public-comment period closed in late August on the Conversion Option Harvest Plan the Fakkemas are seeking.

ACKNOWLEDGING the receipt of a “very large volume” of public comments, the county yesterday threw up several roadblocks to the Fakkemas’ logging plans. In a three-page letter, county engineer Bill Oakes noted the presence of the pileated woodpecker among the targeted trees.

That species is protected, so the county will need to make a biological site assessment, Oakes said.

Further, he said, the logging application was missing numerous required elements, including how the brothers will deal with reforestation, what their cutting schedule will be and what logging equipment they will need.

The letter also questioned the thoroughness of the Fakkemas’ plans to address stormwater runoff from the logged areas and said they had failed to address the issue of noxious-weed control.

THE LETTER asked that the Fakkemas respond to these points within 45 days — by mid-October.

As for the conservation easement, the land trust is looking for $500,000 from the county’s Conservation Futures Fund this year and the same amount next year, plus $2.5 million from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, the U.S. Navy and other grant sources, the land trust said.

An NRCS application for $800,000 is already pending, and “other matching funds are already secured through a partnership with the Navy,” the land trust said in a document.

Most likely a public meeting on this year’s $500,000 county funding will take place within the last two weeks of September, said Don Mason, a county program coordinator.

IT’S NOT clear that granting the COHP necessarily means the 72 acres of forest will be cut and developed. Some say a COHP inherently means development will follow, others that it only strongly implies future development.

“If not protected, the property will very likely be logged and developed,” the land trust opined.

“I’m sure the Fakkemas are trying to make the right choice,” said Homola, who heads the Swan Lake Watershed Preservation Group.

“I hope we can protect the estuary and protect and livelihood of the Fakkema family and have a win-win for Oak Harbor and Island County.”

Where is Fakkema Farm?

It is a T-shaped area, roughly …

Bounded on the north by Wieldraayer Road, if it were extended westward from Swantown Road.

Bounded on the south by Even Down Way, if it were extended eastward from West Beach Road.

Partly bounded on the west by a line just east of, and paralleling, West Beach Road.

Partly bounded on the east by the north-south portion of Orchard Loop, if it were extended southward.