The long-awaited appraisal of the Short’s Family Farm has come in.

The market value of the 253.4 acres of land in Chimacum was appraised at $1.4 million in a document released to the Port of Port Townsend on Wednesday, Jan. 25.

While the final purchase price is subject to negotiation, the port previously estimated it would be in excess of $2 million.

The port first entered into a “Letter of Intent” with Roger and Sandy Short to purchase the property in October which expired Jan. 28, just three days after the appraisal arrived.

Originally, the appraisal was estimated to be $100,000 less due to a miscalculation of square footage in regards to residential improvements, and a correction had to be issued on Jan. 29.

Eron Berg, executive director for the port, noted that the Shorts had seen the appraisal, but negotiations have not yet taken place.

“We haven’t talked to the sellers to see if we’re even in the same room,” Berg said at a port commission meeting the day the appraisal came in.

The farm is one of the largest privately held contiguous pieces of agricultural land and a conservation easement managed by the Jefferson Land Trust signed by the Shorts 2016 prevents the farm from ever being subdivided or converted from agriculture.

Greg Halberg, a Washington state certified general appraiser with Halberg Pacific Appraisal Service, inspected the appraised property Jan. 16.

Halberg conducted an analysis of comparable sales of properties with similar conservation easements on the Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island within a 20-mile radius over the past six years, and his firm previously appraised this property for the purpose of valuing the conservation easement in April 2015.

That previous appraisal valued the property at $1.59 million.

“Based on my site visit … and conversation with Mr. Short, the seasonal flooding has gotten worse over the past several years due to a combination of factors.

“The reasons include continued infestation with invasive canary grass, the difficulty of clearing the drainage chokepoints annually. The long-term effect of the longer flooding season is detrimental to the health of the soil for agricultural purposes,” Halberg wrote in his assessment.

Also included in the assessment is a list of all the soils on the property, three of which are marked “prime farmland” but only “if drained.”

Erik Kingfisher, the Jefferson Land Trust’s stewardship director for the property named at a special meeting held by the port that the Jefferson County Conservation District has received a grant from the state to study the flooding issue in hopes of finding a solution to the problem.

“The port is used to having a lot of water,” Port Commissioner Pam Petranek joked at last Wednesday’s meeting.