Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
With a renewed grant and six-fold increase of employees in the last five years, the Palouse Conservation District has grown and looks to sustain its current level.
Based in Pullman, one of four conservation districts in Whitman County, the non-regulatory agencies work with landowners to help comply with Washington State Department of Ecology rules.
Each county in Washington has at least one conservation district, most with one to two. Whitman County, which founded the first conservation district in the state in 1940, has four, because of the varied micro climates and geography of the area.
It is the only county in Washington with four conservation districts.
Aside from the Palouse C.D., Whitman Conservation District in Colfax employs one person; Pine Creek C.D. in Oakesdale has one employee, and Palouse-Rock Lake Conservation District has four in St. John. The Palouse C.D. in Pullman has 18 employees.
Mission
Each district is overseen by a five-member board.
What is the specific mission?
“Each has its own,” said Jodi Prout, education and outreach coordinator for Palouse C.D. “For us, it is to address technical, financial, educational assistance. For landowners to make wise natural resource decisions on their properties.”
The Palouse C.D. is, as are the others, funded nearly 95 percent by grants.
The district covers not the largest area of the four in Whitman County.
Why more employees?
“It really comes down to funding,” said Prout. “The last five-six years, things really took off.”
It had three employees in 2014.
“Jennifer Boie brought in a lot of funding,” said Prout, referring to the conservation district’s director.
Prout joined as a new staff member in 2017, replacing a part-time Americorps worker.
“The deliverables (for my position) were specific to education and outreach,” she said, referring to K-12 programming for students, environmental education field days and producing publications, such as quarterly newsletters.
Grants
In 2014, the federal Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) began, funded by that year’s farm bill passed in Congress.
The Palouse watershed – including Adams, Lincoln, Latah and Whitman counties – subsequently received a grant for $5.5 million to use across its two million acres. The RCPP money came from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
In addition, $7.5 million in “matching” funds came to the Palouse watershed from 17 partners.
These include eight conservation districts in Idaho and Washington, the Idaho Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Washington State Department of Ecology, Washington State Conservation Commission, Palouse Land Trust, WSU, U of I and more.
The $13 million total was distributed across the five-county watershed area to landowners doing compliance work, etc.
“All of that (watershed) drains over Palouse Falls,” said Laura Heinse, conservation partnership manager for Palouse C.D., an employee since 2015, its fourth in Pullman.
Compliance work for a flagged landowner/farmer may include converting to direct seeding, for which the Palouse C.D. pays $28 to $44 per acre. The money can be used to buy a custom-seeder or hire someone to seed — for a practice which reduces erosion, among other pros and cons.
“No-till farming has been shown to be very beneficial to soil loss,” said Michael Largent, county commissioner and landowner. “It helps streams, some of which are salmon habitat, which help orca recovery.”
Heinse indicated that, since 2015, across the five-county watershed, more than 100,000 tons of soil has been “kept out of Palouse Falls and remained on farms.”
The Palouse C.D. rents space in a building from the WSU technology park down the road from the SEL event center, in the Port of Whitman Industrial Park, where their former offices were located.
“In my view, at least, two things make the conservation districts quite valuable,” said Largent. “One, the programs are voluntary. When the conservation district rings your doorbell you’re not worried you’re gonna pay a big fine. Second, the boards (of directors) are made up of all local people.”
Beginning
For the Palouse C.D. – or others – an individual project may start when a landowner receives a letter from the state DOE saying they are not in compliance on something.
They are offered options to rectify it, including referrals to agencies they may want to work with, such as a conservation district.
“We have this great relationship with landowners to help address these problems,” said Prout.
Presentation to commissioners
Whitman County commissioners took in a report Nov. 4 from representatives of the county’s four conservation districts.
The presentation was led by Boie, who introduced Raymond Brown, district manager, Pine Creek Conservation District; James Schierman, district coordinator, Palouse-Rock Lake C.D., and Brian Bell, district manager, Whitman Conservation District.
Bell spoke first, showing slides of a recent project, a sample of 37 fish habitat structures – arranged from logs – placed in Penewawa Creek, centered near an Army Corps parking lot.
He noted more than 1,000 trees and shrubs planted on that project as well to develop shade for the stream, which reduces temperature which affects oxygen content of the water, in turn affecting fish.
The work was finished earlier in November.
Bell talked about run-off of fields in spring, showing a picture from March 20 of this year.
“If we address this, water in fields, we won’t be getting this (run-off). Our current practices, we just sluice the water off. Slow it, spread it, sink it, direct-till, these are all practices that we pay for,” Bell said, referring to the purpose to slow the water down and keep more of it in the fields.
Commissioner Art Swannack spoke.
“You keep saying the same thing over and over, are you trying to ask us to regulate farms?” Swannack said.
“No,” said Bell. “If we manage it in the field, we’ll save the county money from washouts and replacing culverts...”
Boie spoke next.
“Everything we do is voluntary,” she said. “Help keep water there to protect roads from washing away.”
She showed pictures on a pull-down screen from the American southwest in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s – saying that this event is what prompted conservation districts to spring up around the country.
“How can we work with landowners to prevent this loss of the most valuable resource in Whitman County?” she asked.
She gave an update on new board members for the Palouse C.D.
“We are non-regulatory. Can’t say this enough,” Boie said. “We’re helping folks responsibly manage their land.”
In a news announcement, Boie then said the Palouse watershed has received renewal on the $5.5 million NRCS grant, chosen one of 18 out of 90 watersheds nationwide, for another five years.
Continuing
Boie talked further about soil lost in conventional tillage systems, saying that since 2014, RCPP partners have held back enough sediment from entering the Palouse River watershed to fill dumptrucks back-to-back from Olympia to the Space Needle.
Schierman of the Palouse-Rock Lake Conservation district spoke next.
He talked about flooding in Ewan, how the district provided 15 GPS Precision Ag systems and precision spray systems to farmers with mini grants of $4,000 each to minimize soil erosion.
“We did celebrate Orca Recovery Day,” he continued.
The event included Endicott/St. John middle school Life Science students planting 180 trees and shrubs on streambank of Endicott Community Garden, which borders Rebel Flat Creek.
He noted a list of new grants received for his district, one of which is $15,000 from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, to add habitat for elk crossing the Palouse.
The final speaker then talked, Raymond Brown, of the Pine Creek Conservation District. He mentioned a riparian flooding project in Oakesdale.
“Our orca initiative, we’re putting emphasis on direct seeding near streams,” he said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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