Focus on Palouse River: County cattle producers, conservation districts work to meet DOE clean water regulations

The conflicting needs of clean water and cattle access is an ongoing issue in Whitman County and around the state.

Palouse Rock-Lake Conservation District based in St. John and the Palouse Conservation District in Pullman are working with more than a dozen cattle ranchers to get cattle out of surface water, at the behest of the state Department of Ecology office in Spokane.

Water quality standards set by the federal Clean Water Act and implemented by the state DOE specify livestock cannot be in freshwater in Washington.

A strip of young trees grows on the banks of the Palouse River, part of a...