Washington buys more Steptoe Butte land to preserve it

COLFAX, Wash. (AP) — The largest remaining area of native Palouse prairie in southeastern Washington state will be preserved thanks to a transaction that moved hundreds of acres of Steptoe Butte into public ownership. The Moscow-Pullman Daily News reports Kent Bassett, of Bellevue, Washington, and Ray and Joan Folwell, of Pullman, sold a 437-acre parcel on the flanks of the butte to the Washington Department of Natural Resources. The transaction has been in the works for more than two years and recently closed. The top of the butte is a Washington State park but much of its flanks were in private ownership. The department has previously indicated it will manage the parcel as a natural area preserve, a natural resources conservation area or some combination of both.