Ferry to McNeil Island
Ed. Imagine you received an envelope telling you that you had just won an island? Not just any island .. not just a rock off of some far off frozen shore, but a large island within a short distance to Seattle, Olympia, and Tacoma.
This island could be a wonderful heritage for your children and their children. Or, you could sell it to a developer and pay of your own mortgage. . Now imagine that the island brings costs … taxes and upkeep. But your wife LOVES the island and reminds you that island property this close to a growing population will one day be worth a fortune. And you kids imagine themselves building tree houses, and siting the island’s eagles or watching orca from the shore.
Then you remember … your Uncle Paul and cousin Steve. They made it big when Microsoft blossomed. You are their favorite relative. Oh yeh … there is your wife’s brother Jeff. That online store f his, Amazon Books, made it pretty big too. hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
What to do? What to do? from the Seattle Times.
The Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) took over McNeil Island in 1981, five years after it was closed by the Bureau of Prisons. McNeil Island remains — if only for a few weeks — the only U.S. prison accessible only by boat or air.
The closure will save the state an estimated $8.6 million per year at a time when the DOC is forced to make extensive cuts, department spokesman Chad Lewis said. McNeil Island long has been the state’s most expensive prison, due to its age and reliance on boats for transportation. DOC spends roughly $1,200 more per inmate each year to house inmates at McNeil Island than at other state prisons, Lewis said.
The Recreational Boating Assn of WA (RBAW) and all the yacht clubs of WA, OR and BC should do a Princess Louisa: work with the state and establish a wonderful boating destination for all.
I have a second home on Anderson Island just across the Sound from McNeil Island. McNeil Island used to have a school on it and the kids on Anderson used to row over to McNeil to get to school. Many people on Anderson including me would like to see McNeil be turned into a WA State Park, the Fisheries Dept is already managing a reserve off the N part of the Island. This could be a fantastic parkland for the people of WA State
As boaters we have often anchored off this beautiful island.
I would love to see it become a nature reserve. There are nature preserve islands in the San Juans, but these are small except for Spieden and that is privately owned.
Mc Neil is large enough to be worth restoring to a natural state and close enough to Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia that this could be a unique destination near where people live. Could this be somehow related to the wonderful zoo in Tacoma?
The one thing I do not want is creating another “lets show the tourists how the prisoners lived” like Alcatraz. The only worse fate I can imagine is asking Disney to do its worst.
I wonder if one our bazillionaires might not like to buy the naming rights for a few millions? What about getting Bill Gates to buy Melinda Island?