State conservation panel tours region

The Washington State Conservation Commission toured Whitman County Tuesday before conducting its regular meeting in Pullman.

The commission meets every other month at locations throughout the state. This was the commission’s first meeting in Whitman County since 2006.

“It’s great to get out and see how the projects our conservation districts help put together actually pay off on real ground,” said Jim Peters, a conservation commissioner from Olympia.

Officials with the Whitman, Palouse, Rock Lake and Pine Creek conservation districts gave their bosses a quick tour of areas where they have spearheaded conservation projects.

One of those areas is the Maple K Farms.

Tom and Cheryl Kammerzell have planted a number of trees and built rows of fencing on pasture ground just outside of Colfax through a cost-share program with the Whitman Conservation District.

Tom Kammerzell, a supervisor for the Whitman district, told the commission the fences allowed him to better control where his cattle graze.

The plants have filtered the runoff into Spring Flat Creek, he said, to the point that the water leaving his property is of higher quality than the water entering the ground.

Following the stop at the Kammerzell place, the commission toured the Palouse Conservation District’s office in the Port of Whitman County’s Innovation Partnership Zone at the Pullman Industrial Park.

The district and the port have collaborated to improve a trail through a wetland area near the building. A solar-powered kiosk informs trail users on native plants and wildlife of the Palouse.

The commission then went to Ray and Joan Folwell’s property on Kitzmiller Road north of Pullman. There, they viewed the native trees, shrubs and grasses the Folwells have planted on 17 acres in cooperation with the Palouse Conservation District.