Kammerzell gives update on mitigation project

Tom Kammerzell shared this photo to show how well the airport’s wetland mitigation is working on his property. Water is shown collecting following recent snow melt and rainfall.

Last week, Tom Kammerzell reported that the wetland mitigation related to the Pullman-Moscow Runway Realignment is working as it was designed to.

Kammerzell shared photos with the Gazette of water collecting from recent snow melt and rainfall at the mitigation site.

“During that floodwater, it was dissipating just the way it was designed to do,” said Kammerzell, pointing out that water was creating wetlands.

Though it cannot be said that the water collecting prevented flooding, Kammerzell said it certainly helped the river level.

“It took energy out of the river,” he said.

As part of the Pullman-Moscow Runway Realignment project, the airport was required to complete an off-site wetland/stream mitigation to offset the loss of wetlands to the airport project.

Construction began Aug. 16, 2015, on property owned by Tom and Cheryl Kammerzell along the South Fork of the Palouse River near Risbeck east of Colfax. The Kammerzells garnered $284,000 for the wetland mitigation after J-U-B Engineers in Spokane had looked into a number of sites before settling on the 113.6 acre stretch at the Kammerzell property.

The mitigation construction concluded in December of 2015.

Kammerzell said that since the mitigation, he has been working with the Palouse Conservation District to spruce up land adjacent to the mitigation site.

“We have planted another 10,000 trees and bushes that are outside of but adjacent to the mitigation area,” he said. “Instead of being just a 113-acre mitigation, it's a total of about 200 acres now that will be re-treed and back to natural.”

Kammerzell also made it clear that the areas he is working on now are outside of the mitigation zone. The mitigation required placing a conservation easement, held by Palouse Land Trust, to restrict development on the land.

“It doesn't make any sense to do work on one side and not do the other,” he said.

Kammerzell also recently had the land re-designated as open space. It was previously classified as agricultural land, but with the mitigation and easement, it no longer fit that classification. The re-designation was approved by the Board of County Commissioners in December.

“It just keeps it as it is,” said Kammerzell. “No building, no commerce.”

Right now, Kammerzell said trees planted on the land during the mitigation process probably brought the biggest visual change.

“It's the 19,000 tubes,” he said. “That is the visual, the tree plantings.”

The trees could take up to three or four years to grow to the point where the tubes can come off.

“The tree has to get up and be up there to where the animals won't get it before those come off,” said Kammerzell.

He also noted the full effects of the mitigation, with trees growing and grass and other things, will be weather-dependent on when they can be seen.

“Weather has the greatest impact, and you can't bet on that one,” he said. “It depends on the weather and the survivability of the trees.”

Kammerzell said he recently planted some grass on adjacent land, and he was surprised to see it already germinating because of the recent weather.

Other than the trees, Kammerzell said the biggest difference since the mitigation has been the curiosity surrounding the land.

“It's interest,” he said. “There's been a number of people when they see me they will ask how it's going. It is different, and it's positive.”