In recent years state agencies have acquired much property in Pacific County, including this Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife parcel near Willapa Bay.

OLYMPIA — A Washington Farm Bureau lobbyist told lawmakers they should “draw a line” and halt the growth in state-owned lands, though an adviser to Gov. Jay Inslee said public recreation areas should expand as the population grows.

House Bill 1008, introduced by Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, would require state agencies to sell land at least as fast as they buy it.

Recreation groups, such as Trout Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, criticized the legislation during a hearing Feb. 10 in front of the House Capital Budget Committee.

State agencies also lined up against the proposal. Jon Snyder, the governor’s policy adviser on outdoor recreation and economic development, said the state budget office projects Washington will grow by a million people in the next decade. The state probably will need to acquire more property to keep recreation areas from becoming overcrowded, he said.

“So is your opinion, if we grow in population, we have to grow in public lands?” Rep. Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, asked Snyder. Snyder said that was a “natural assumption.”

“If we do grow, the possibility for needing more public lands does increase,” Snyder replied. He said he was also speaking on behalf of the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Parks and Recreation, and the Recreation and Conservation Office.

Between 2010 and 2040, Washington’s population is expected to grow by about 2.25 million, reaching a total population of about 8,970,500 in 2040, according to an estimate published last year by the state Office of Financial Management.

DNR, WDFW and State Parks own 6.4 million acres, or about 14 percent of the state, according to a 2014 state land inventory. The federal government owns 12.7 million acres in Washington, or 28 percent of the state, a figure that has risen only a little since Washington State University did a survey in 1983. Meanwhile, state ownership has increased by about 440,000 acres.

The state Farm Bureau’s director of government relations, Tom Davis, said public ownership has cut into private farmland.

“To provide those outdoor recreational opportunities, it does come at a cost to our rural economies, specifically to areas of the state where agriculture is king,” he said.

“We believe the Legislature and natural resource agencies must determine when enough is enough. When do we have enough land?” Davis said. “I think they’ve purchased enough already.”

WDFW has acquired most of the new state-owned land. WDFW currently owns or manages about one million acres in 33 wildlife areas, along with 700 public water-access sites, the agency said a year ago. Locally in Pacific County, in 2016 it acquired an additional 733 acres near Willapa Bay. As of last February, WDFW owned 8.4 square miles of land in the county. The Washington State Parks Department owns about 7.4 square miles, and the Department of Natural Resources owns 136 square miles of uplands (mostly forest) and 219 square miles of aquatic lands, primarily in Willapa Bay.

WDFW for 2017-19 has proposed buying or securing conservation easements for another 2,468 acres throughout the state. None of its announced 2017 acquisitions is in Pacific County.

WDFW dropped plans to buy 8,102 acres because either the landowner decided not to sell or county officials protested about losing tax revenue.

Davis called Okanogan County in north-central Washington the “poster child” for the dangers of losing private land.

Fifty-eight percent of the county is owned by federal, state and local governments. Davis said increasing public ownership could undermine agriculture. According to the Employment Security Department, agriculture generates more jobs than any other sector, employing 34 percent of the county’s workforce.

“We must be more careful about how the state purchases land in these rural counties,” Davis said.

Chelan Republican Mike Steele, whose district includes part of Okanogan County, said recreation sites draw dollars into the county, too.

“One of the important economic drivers in Okanogan County is also tourism,” he said.