Funding environment brightens for Palouse conservation group

MOSCOW - Conservation efforts on the Palouse recently received an $11 million boost.

The Palouse River Watershed Implementation Partnership has been awarded a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The grant award matches the amount of contributions pooled together by the group's 16 different partners, said Palouse Conservation District Director Jennifer Boie.

The partnership was formally established last January and involves partners from Washington and Idaho, including eight conservation districts, the University of Idaho, Washington State University and a few state agencies. The group is led by the Palouse Conservation District, which essentially re-established a conservation-planning group developed in the early 2000s.

The five-year grant is part of the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program that was created in the 2014 farm bill and will go toward improving water quality, soil health and fish and wildlife habitat. Boie said a portion of the grant will be distributed to the partnership each year based on an estimated budget of what the group expects to use.

Boie said the partnership intends to use the part of the funding to work with farmers to reduce their soil tillage and implement direct seed planting to reduce erosion. Direct seed involves planting the crop directly into the soil by either drilling a hole or cutting a line with a saw blade, instead of plowing the entire field and overturning dirt.

What direct seed does is keeps the soil in place - reducing erosion - and creates a more efficient watering technique because it is not just washing the dirt away. Boie said direct seed reduces the amount of erosion coming from crop fields by 95 percent.

"That keeps that valuable soil in those fields rather than washing away into local rivers and streams," Boie said.

The partnership also intends to put some of the funding toward planting native grasses, trees and shrubs along rivers and creeks to improve water quality and act as a barrier for chemical runoff from the surrounding environment, Boie said. The additional vegetation would also prevent soil erosion along the banks, cool the water for marine life and create habitat for other native wildlife.

But the conservation effort the partnership is trying to implement requires the cooperation of private landowners, Boie said. The grant will also provide funding for the group to offer as incentive for landowner participation.

Boie said the money will be offered as conservation payments, essentially a rental rate for the conservation land being dedicated to those specific practices. The partnership would also pay for the vegetation and planting.

It is the same for farmers who agree to utilize direct seed, she said. Changing to the direct seed technique requires specific technology and the partnership will be able to help them offset that cost with the conservation payments.

The partnership will also work with interested farmers to gain a conservation certification through a program called Farmed Smart, Boie said. The certification process is through the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association and requires farmers to follow a specific set of conservation guidelines to protect water quality, reduce erosion and encourage soil health.

Boie said the certification is recognized by the Washington Department of Ecology and allows farmers to market their products as being conservation friendly. The certification can be based on a conservation plan, which the partnership can help farmers establish free of charge.

"So it fits in really nicely with the (grant funding)," Boie said.

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Rudd may be contacted at erudd@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-8465. Follow her on Twitter @elizabeth_rudd.