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

[Mark Solomon]

Yet another possibility I've been flogging to the City for years is 
to acquire conservation easements along Paradise Creek from the City 
to the creek's headwaters on Moscow Mountain. the purpose would be to 
re-establish riparian habitat/wetlands to enhance year round flow and 
subsequent lowering of stream temperature. The immediate benefit to 
the City would be lower wastewater treatment cost as the receiving 
water for the discharge, Paradise Creek, would have more assimilative 
capacity. A bonus would be the potential for a green belt path from 
the City to the mountain.

Mark

At 9:43 AM -0700 4/26/06, Nils Peterson wrote:
>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.