[Vision2020] Water: Reclaiming the wet landscape was What's missing

[Nils Peterson]

On 4/26/06 9:17 AM, James Reynolds wrote:

> ...When the Palouse was settled and made into a wheat producing landscape many
> small ponds, wetlands and such were drained off. These drained areas were
> perhaps the recharge engines for our upper aquifer. How about reclaiming some
> (many) of these areas for this? Federal, State, maybe even county technical
> asistence (maybe some monetary) would be available to start such a program and
> I expect our ever-growing urban farmer population on their 40 acre tracts
> would be interested in having a pond etc..

A friend who farms west of Pullman has used money from some federal program
to reclaim the land along his creek, adding a meander and two ponds, and
planting the whole area to a mix of native plants and fruit & nut trees.

Along the Troy Hwy, between Styner and Blaine, on the south side, is a small
rill and marshy area filled with cattails. The south boundary of this area
is the Paraside Path on the old RR embankment. The City mows the grassy
northern edge, but not the boggy part. There are a number of red wing
blackbirds that live there. We see the occasional duck also. Might it be
interesting to impound that water a bit more -- maybe 2 feet deep, and make
a pond? 

I've tried to enlist a UI landscape design class to think about the area
(Travois to Hwy 8; Blaine to Styner) as a linear park. You have just given
me an additional idea for that class project.