Kiket Island
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Kiket Island is a small islet in Washington, co-owned by the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.[1] Located less than four miles northwest of the town of LaConner in Skagit County, Washington, Kiket is connected to Fidalgo Island by a tombolo, over which runs an access road. Thus, Kiket Island is not what most people would consider an island.
Hope Island lies to the south of Kiket; Skagit Island only a few hundred feet to the southwest. These islands can be said to divide Skagit Bay from Similk Bay. The shoreline of Kiket Island and vicinity has been called one of the best-studied areas of coastal Washington. Ecological studies were made in the last decades of the twentieth century, when the site was considered for a nuclear power plant.
In 1969, Seattle City Light and Snohomish County PUD considered building a $250 million 1,100 MW nuclear power plant on the island.[2] By 1972, the plan for the nuclear plant was dropped due to environmental concerns.[3] Seattle City Light and Snohomish County PUD later sold the property in 1980.
On June 23, 2010, a joint ownership agreement was signed by the state Parks and Recreation Commission and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Both Kiket and tiny Flagstaff Island (connected to Kiket by another tombolo) are included in the agreement, and are now part of Deception Pass State Park. The partners and the Trust for Public Land gathered grants and donations from a range of sources to purchase the $14 million property from a private owner.[4] Formal public access to and use at the Kukutali Preserve is still to be determined by an as yet uncompleted management plan. In the interim, public access to the island is provided by weekly guided tours conducted by Washington State Parks representatives. People who wish to visit the island should contact staff at Deception Pass State Park to make arrangements for the Saturday day tours.
In January 2011, a man by the name of Michael Oakes was convicted in the slaying of a celebrity dog trainer, who had once used the island for his dog training business. Michael Oakes, in the trial documents, said that he dumped the body into the Swinomish Channel, as he was afraid "police would catch him". The body was never found, and Oakes was sentenced to 320 months in prison.
As part of the acquisition process, wildlife surveys were conducted in the winter of 2008–2009.[5]
References
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- ↑ Wilma, David "Kiket Island" HistoryLink.org (October 24, 2001).
- ↑ Stober, Quentin and Salo, Ernest "Ecological Studies of the proposed Kiket Island Nuclear Power Site" Fisheries Research Institute, College of Fisheries, University of Washington (1973).
- ↑ Deception Pass park to include Kiket Island." Whitney Pipkin, Skagit Valley Herald, June 24, 2010.]
- ↑ "Kiket Island Addition to Deception Pass State Park" (PDF). Washington State Department of Ecology (July 7, 2008).
External links
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