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

[Nils Peterson]

I started a map at Wayfaring that you can edit to expand the places where
Mark's ideas are happening or could happen.

http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/show/14873

I have started a MoscowWiki page on this as well. Presently it has Mark's
text, and a link to the map. This needs re-work



On 4/26/06 10:07 AM, "Mark Solomon" <msolomon at moscow.com> wrote:

> 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.
>