The Naselle Youth Camp is scheduled to close.

Although it’s nearly invisible to the average person living on the peninsula, Naselle Youth Camp has been an important part of Pacific County’s economy and social fabric for five and a half decades. Located off State Route 4 just west of the State Route 401 junction, the camp has played a constructive role in thousands of young lives since 1966.

Over the years, it’s provided steady government jobs to hundreds and hundreds of residents. Naturally, most camp workers settle in the Naselle River Valley and nearby western Wahkiakum County, while others commute from the peninsula or Clatsop County. Active and retired employees, spouses and children are everywhere you turn.

State Sen. Sid Snyder intervened nearly 20 years ago during Gov. Gary Locke’s administration when the agency that oversees the youth camp first floated the idea of closing it. Thanks to Snyder’s powerful influence, bolstered by strong citizen support in the county, that effort was derailed.

Closure has since been raised under both Christine Gregoire and Jay Inslee, with the Juvenile Rehabilitation leaders clearly in favor of eliminating it. Up until this year, Snyder’s successors and their allies succeeded in keeping the camp alive.

As a practical matter, the fact that eliminating the youth camp kept being raised started to make it feel inevitable. The state persuasively argues that juvenile crime has diminished, while at the same time the camp’s concept of getting youthful urban lawbreakers away from bad influences and into an outdoor setting has outlived its usefulness.

Currently serving fewer than three dozen young men with a staff nearly three times that number, the youth camp’s reasons for being have obviously dwindled in recent years. Its viability might have been bolstered by a robust and ongoing appeal through the years. The invisibility — inadvertent or deliberate — resulted in a slow and steady move toward closure long before the final ax fell.

A last-minute intervention by Gov. Inslee to keep it open is highly unlikely. A traumatic closure process is likely, with changes centered in Naselle. The Chinook Observer will be devoting much news coverage to surrounding issues, such as what the youth camp’s loss may mean for the Naselle-Grays River Valley School District and whether converting the facility into an outdoor school is viable.

If well funded and envisioned, it’s conceivable such a school could be a valuable addition to the county. It must not merely be a symbolic bone to throw us for loss of the youth camp’s many family-wage jobs. Time and political action will determine which way it goes. Vocal advocacy and involvement by local people will be required for any hope of success.

Those who dedicated their professional lives at Naselle Youth Camp to helping young people find paths to success deserve our praise and respect. We hope the many youths who unwillingly passed through Pacific County found their way to positive futures — maybe some now willingly visit with their families to enjoy clamming and our countless other natural and cultural assets. In the future, maybe their children or grandchildren will attend a fun and meaningful outdoor school on the former campus.

Despite the years of legislative and agency efforts, there still is a sense of unreality about such a long-standing institution ceasing to exist. The shock of the situation must not get in the way of making certain that the state provides appropriate services to nonviolent youths. Nor must youth camp employees be neglected. They have made their lives in a remote community based on a reasonable assumption their jobs would continue.

Make no mistake: this closure is a big deal, one with consequences that will play out for years.