The spirit of a place is unique (Norberg-Schulz 1980). Place is not just location; it is the total sum of objects in the landscape combined into a unique whole. Every place has certain characteristics that enforce the spirit of place, for instance, a strong definition of place, or indicators of great age (trees or rocks), or where the essence of larger landscapes is distilled. A sense of wildness and water also contribute greatly to the spirit of place. The identity of place often leads to human identity, thus people call themselves Pullmanites or Moscowans or Appaloosa. The spirit of Paradise Creek has changed greatly in the past 200 years, but it can still be identified with elements of water and wildness. The creek is a more intimate place, less dramatic than Steptoe butte or Palouse falls. The spirit of the place is the best guide to design.
All the elements of design can be combined in an image. Boulding (1956) notes that the image as a cognitive construct of the world has several aspects: spatial, temporal, personal, relational, value, and affectional (emotional) for each individual. Cognition is an active relationship that is creatively shaped by the participants. Some of the images we impose on nature result from idealized notions of pastoralism or of technological futures. Thus, landscapes abound in nostalgic or consumptive trends.
Centuries of land uses have broken the landscape into patches of natural areas and technological artifacts. Sometimes the patches overlap, as in the case of Paradise creek, which is a natural stream corridor with unique vegetation and boundaries, and the linear landscape of a human transportation route with a road and railway track. The corridor has the function of connecting two cities. It is also an aesthetic change from the humanized and architectural environments of the cities themselves. The tendency has been to think of the corridor as an expanding transportation unit.
The landscape provides its own metaphor for design. The landscape is a unique individual, a community, a dynamic system of interacting patterns--the human pattern is a part of it now and should be preserved as part of the whole pattern, but not necessarily as the only pattern or a completely dominant one. The community must be restored to health. This means balancing human needs with bird or fish, animal or plant, needs in a sustainable pattern.
Wetlands north of the highway are Palustrine emergent, characterized by grasses, cattails, rushes, and sedges, either saturated or seasonally flooded. Originally part of the historic floodplain, these wetlands have been isolated to some extent by highway and driveway construction. Wetlands on the south side have been altered by grazing and agriculture. Riverine wetlands are found along both sides of the creek.
The Wanapum Basalt (named after a Palouse village) and Grande Ronde Basalt aquifers serve the Palouse river basin. The Wanapum lies on top of the Grande Ronde; the two are considered to act as one large aquifer (PCEI, 1994). The boundaries of the recharge area for the aquifers have not been definitively determined.
Soil The depth of the loess varies from almost zero in Pullman to about 77 meters (255 feet) on the outskirts of Moscow. The loess was shaped, most probably by wind and snowmelt, into asymmetrical hills enlongated from west to east. The northeast sides are steeper (8-12%) than the southwest (7%).
The soils on the Middle Reach of Paradise Creek are the Palouse-Athena association, adjacent to the creek, and the Palouse-Thatuna association in the uplands (USDA, SCS, and WSUARC, 1975). Both have high erosion potential (Figure One). The most common soil in the Palouse-Athena is Caldwell silt loam. The Caldwell series, a nearly level, poorly drained soil formed in alluvium from loess and volcanic ash, occurs along the creek and in the flood plain.
In general, the soils surrounding the creek and in the uplands are moderately permeable, with a fairly high available water capacity. Roots of the plants can go 1.5 meters (60 inches) or more deep. Erosion is a natural process that contributes to the creek, but erosion has been accelerated by tillage erosion from upland farming and by construction on upland sites.
Hydrology Water in Paradise Creek watershed first falls as precipitation. A percentage of the precipitation runs into soil storage, is intercepted by plants, or runs to overland flow directly into streamflow. The rest infiltrates the soil to groundwater storages and eventually deep aquifers or flows through the soil to the creek. A portion of the creek flow is interflow possibly from groundwater storage to the creek or even from base flow from the aquifer. The creek flows into the South Fork of the Palouse River, which empties into the Snake, the Columbia, and the Pacific Ocean (Figure Three, Hydrology).
Wetlands beside the creek are associated with the water level in Paradise creek, but also receive runoff from agricultural fields and highway (see Photograph One). On the north side, the wetlands are influenced by overland flow and the seasonal rise in the water table.
The natural meander pattern of Paradise creek is the result of numerous factors: geological conditions, slope of the streambed, amount of sediment, erodibility of bed and banks of the stream. According to Leopold and Wolman (1960), it is unusual for any reach of a stream to be straight for more than a distance of 10 channel widths. In the past hundred years, however, the creek has been straightened to fit property lines and roads or for flood control..
The low flow below the sewage treatment plant is 3.1 cubic feet per second( cfs) (Smoot and Ralston). During low flow, over 90 percent of the flow comes from the sewage treatment plant. The creek flow begins to rise in December and crests in March--after snow melt in March the flow goes above 40 cfs--declining rapidly in April through June; the flow is roughly correlated with high and low precipitation.
The Paradise Creek corridor controls water, mineral, and nutrient runoff, which reduces flooding, siltation, and soil fertility loss. The flood plain can hold water at various depths, depending on the severity of a flood. Floods occur , during winter or spring, in 20-50 year intervals (Bartuska et al. 1974). A key characteristic of the corridor is connectivity. The corridor hinges two sides of upland, with sharp microclimate and soil gradients and with a unique bottom habitat.
The sun drives water and wind. As atmospheric water precipitates, it dissolves nitrogen. It also picks up carbon dioxide from the air and topsoil; the formation of carbonic acid makes the water acidic and capable of dissolving more elements and minerals, such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, and trace elements, which are all necessary for plant growth.
Physical-chemical Environment. Rainfall in the Middle Reach is about 560 mm (22 inches) per year. The input to the stream from precipitation is estimated at 4325 cubic meters. Most of the input, however, is from runoff from the basins; this figure is estimated at 3.45 million cubic meters. The annual streamflow is about 4.4 million cubic meters. The difference is accounted for by outflow from the sewage treatment plant. Evaporation from the creek is relatively low; the greatest evaporation occurs at the lowest flow. Deep seepage into the aquifer from the creek is unknown.
Rabe et al. (1994) measured conductivity, pH, ammonia, phosphates, and alkalinity. The water in the Middle Reach has low dissolved oxygen concentrations, most likely from ammonia and nitrite, which combine easily with oxygen. Doke and Hashmi report that sample stations show substantial contamination of the water quality by phosphorus, bacteria, suspended solids, and ammonia. Because of high concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria, wading and swimming are not recommended. Toxics from paints, paint thinners, cleansers, degreasers, medicines, cosmetics, and dyes enter the creek from homes, businesses, and parking lot runoffs. Point pollution is from the sewage treatment plant and toxic sites; nonpoint pollution is from agricultural fields, livestock (high nitrate concentrations), highway runoff (gas, oils, heavy metals), construction sites, and septic systems.
Current is the major controlling and limiting factor in streams, according to Odum. Furthermore, streams offer a more heterotrophic community metabolism than dry uplands, because of the more extensive land-water interchange. Streams depend on the watershed for a large proportion of their energy supply. The producers in a stream, diatoms and algae, are inadequate to support the consumers. Many of the consumers, such as caddis spp. must therefore be detritus feeders to survive.
Paradise Creek has two sub-communities, rapids communities and pool communities. In both of these the type of bottom--sand, pebbles, clay--determines the population and density of the community. Different areas of the creek have different inhabitants. For instance, in a healthy creek, the headwaters are usually a fast-water area holding cold-water species such as trout. The fast-water section of the creek (riffle) is the greatest food-producing area because of the replenishment rate. The Middle Reach of Paradise Creek, with its relatively slow-moving flow and increased pollution, is favored by more tolerant species like suckers.
Bacteria. Bacteria are ubiquitous in the creek, but difficult to study because of their small size. The biomass of bacteria in the creek is probably 1 percent of the total biomass. Many of the bacteria found in the Middle Reach are released by the Moscow Sewage Treatment plant.
Phytoplankton. There are several forms of algae in the creek, mostly diatoms, but also Cladophora spp. Most of the phytoplankton is found in pools. Mycorrhizal fungi is important for revegetation of riparian areas.
Macrophytes. The native vegetation for a riparian zone should be sedges and rushes, including cat-tails, bulrushes, sedges, and rushes. Paradise Creek lies in the fescue-snowberry vegetation zone. Daubenmire notes that on moist nonsaline soils, the climax vegetation is Hawthorn-snowberry habitat type. The hawthorn forms a thorny thicket with an undergrowth of snowberry shrubs. The hawthorn stands also support a rich avifauna, including magpies, long-eared owls, thrushes, and vireos. There is also an aspen phase of the habitat, in which aspens grow through the hawthorn canopy then decline from heart rot; after a period of time the aspens return. In a similar habitat type, cow parsnip grows underneath the hawthorn, primarily in valley floors (called "flats"), bordering intermittent creeks like Paradise Creek, with deep soil and favorable moisture relations. The hawthorn-snowberry habitat then occurs on the upper north-facing slope and a bunchgrass habitat type on the south-facing slope. Daubenmire suggests that aspens, being fairly large trees, would have been used heavily by European settlers. In places quaking aspen would have bordered the creek. Black cottonwoods, and to a lesser extent, willows and alders, would also have been found along the creek (see Photograph Four). The dominant at this time is an invader, reed canary grass (see Photograph Five). The native vegetation, now mostly absent from this range, includes:
Trees: Willow, Ponderosa Pine, Cottonwood, Quaking aspen
Tall shrubs: Willow, Chokecherry, Hawthorn
Medium shrubs: Wood rose, Snowberry, Ninebark
Perennial grasses: Smooth brome, Bluebunch wheatgrass, Idaho fescue, alkali bluegrass, prairie Junegrass
Perennial forbs: Cowparsnip, Cattail, Russian thistle, Curly dock, Arrowleaf balsamroot, Western yarrow, common yarrow, mullein, teasel, old-man's beard, prairie smoke avens, western hawkweed, silky lupine, cinqufoil, Rocky Mountain helianthela, Rocky mountain flag, sticky purple geranium Palouse milk-vetch, yellow paintbrush
Zooplankton and Microinvertibrates. Rotifers and copepods occur with other zooplankton in Paradise Creek. They are not identified. Zooplankton are important for energy transfer and nutrient cycling. They make phosphorus available to primary producers.
Macroinvertibrates. Midges are ecologically important as adults and in their larva stage as bloodworms (Rabe et al.). Chiromid larvae feed on organic substrates, including detrital particles, algae, vascular plants, fungal spores, and other larvae. Aquatic earthworms feed on algae. Dragon flies and damsel flies are predators on chironomids and oligochaetes. Leeches feed on chronomids and other organisms. Many insects are universally present: earthworms, beetles, ants, centipedes, sowbugs, and snails.
Amphibians and Reptiles. Newts prey on mayfly larvae. Frogs and salamanders may breed in the creek. Gopher snakes and garter snakes are in evidence, also, but are not likely important components of the system.
Fish. Most of the fish in Paradise Creek are pollution tolerant fish like suckers, dace, and squawfish. A complete listing for a healthy creek would include: Brook trout--Paradise Creek was considered to be a trout stream at one time (according to Bruce Davis, PCD and Rick Albright, EPA), Freshwater shrimp, Ampipoda, Crayfish, Snails, Gastropoda, Fingernail clams, sticklebacks, speckled dace, Redside Shinner, Northern Squawfish, largescale sucker, Longnose sucker, bridgelip sucker, and common sucker.
Mammals. Some of the mammals are tertiary consumers that feed on fish--muskrats (see Photograph Six) and raccoons. There is evidence of beavers. Bats feed on insects above the creek. Other mammals (Doke and Hashmi, 1994) use the riparian for drinking, cover, or hunting--white-tailed deer, coyotes, chipmunks, shrews, rabbits. Ground squirrels live on the banks. Mice are probably in greatest abundance.
Birds. Hawks and (seasonally) ducks seem to be the most commonly observed birds in the Middle Reach, although starlings center around the sewage treatment plant to the east. The heron is a rare tertiary consumer, feeding on fish. Common birds include: Red-tailed hawk, Ruffled grouse, Screech owl, Great horned owl, Rufus hummingbird, Calliope hummingbird, Common flicker, Lewis' woodpecker, Downy woodpecker Eastern kingbird, Western kingbird, Uncommon birds include: Turkey vulture, Sharpshinned hawk, Coopers hawk, American Kestrel, and Barn, Long-eared, Saw-Whet, and Black-Chinned owls.
Natural carbon budgets feature some inflow and outflow, but balance over the long-term (centuries). Agriculture has the effect of increasing the inflow (fertilizers) and outflow (crops, mulch), disrupting the natural flow and requiring a constant artificial support.
Virtually all of the uplands, over 1215 hectares (3,000 acres), has been put in agricultural production. The basalt outcroppings near the highway have afforded a less expensive area for mining companies to cut and grind the basalt for gravel and road fill. There are currently two companies working the corridor, although several other areas that have been already cut are now acting as storage areas.
There is one highway (SR270) running through the corridor. Two other highways parallel it on the north and south. Because of the heavy passenger car traffic, the Washington State Department of Transportation intends to widen the highway to four lanes beginning in 1995.
There are no formal recreation areas along the creek. By the loop of old highway to the south after Milepost 8.5, people have been shooting cans and signs, however. A number of items, including an old sofa and several metal cans, have been dumped by the old road. People have been bicycling along the highway in the breakdown lanes for decades, although heavy traffic and air-born grit and gravel make the trip less pleasant now.
Corridor vegetation effects the creek in many ways, including shade, litter, and seeds; it also retards the input of particles and substances into the stream. The corridor vegetation has a direct impact on the characteristics of the creek. Trees provide shading, which cools the water temperature (encouraging some fish like trout); trees also deposit litter. When trees fall, the logs form pools and contribute nutrients. Beavers can also contribute to the flux of vegetation by forming dams and shallow ponds, which are periodically washed away. Trees and beavers alter drainage characteristics (by slowing runoff) and increase habitat and species diversity.
Most of the trees and shrubs were removed during road building or to improve farm or grazing potential. When vegetation is removed, more water flows into the creek because of a decrease in transpiration to the atmosphere and because less water is impeded. Nutrients once absorbed by the vegetation pass into the water directly, where they are usually flushed away. The microclimate is also changed. Surface temperature increases, along with wind speed and evaporation rates.
Modern agriculture changes the patterns of vegetation in the uplands to large homogenous geometric parcels. Intensive cultivation and grazing has constricted the stream corridor, increasing nutrient loss, bank erosion, sedimentation, water temperature, and the potential for flooding. It has also increased concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in drainage waters. Agriculture causes species diversity to drop.
Aberle and Ossinger state that the riparian corridor lacks structural and species diversity, probably due to lack of tree and shrub cover and removal of species. Reed canary grass, an invader, is the dominant wetland vegetation at the moment. In their Habitat Assessment of Paradise Creek Rabe et al. state that the creek is a degraded ecosystem that has been simplified by habitat destruction and chemical pollution. The stress and change increased in parallel with the growth of Moscow and Pullman and the increase in agricultural production.
The Palouse Indians fished from the shore of the Palouse river, taking trout, whitefish, squawfish, sturgeons, suckers, chubs, and eels. From platforms and canoes, using dip nets, seines, spears, and hooks, they caught blueback, chinook, and steelhead. Large pits in the river banks were dug as natural refrigerators to preserve the fish.
When not fishing, groups would move to root-digging grounds, where the women would use hardwood sticks to collect over 20 varieties of roots, including biscuitroot, bitterroot and camas. In the early fall, men traveled South to the Blue Mountains to hunt deer, elk, antelope, sheep, goats, bear, and wolves. Women picked berries and dug potato-like camas roots for winter. If the field was good, a woman could gather enough in four days to feed a large family for a year. Large camas were gathered in abundance between Pullman and Moscow.
Wood was rare and used for tools, such as digging sticks and clubs (basalt was probably not useful for making digging, chipping, and cutting tools). Wood was also used for marking graves. Grave sites were sacred places as a measure of respect for the dead. Many facets of the social system centered around reverence for the dead and their burial grounds.
Palouse Indians had very few large settlements. The largest was Palus, at the mouth of the Palouse River--a sacred site where Wishpushya the legendary beaver had been killed by Palouse warriors. Each village might contain from 5 to 15 lodges, a lodge being the household of an extended family, usually three generations. A village rarely exceeded 200 people or 50 lodges. The earliest lodges may have been pit houses, covered by up to 3 feet of earth over grass mats on a frame of wooden poles, with a central opening for smoke. After the Indians acquired horses in the mid 1700s (wild horses from the southwest) and became more mobile, the shape of their buildings changed. During the winter, they lived in A-framed or conical-shaped mat lodges. Mat lodges on wooden-pole frames were easier to dismantle and move, although they were usually just stored in rock piles. In the summer, mat or deer-hide lean-tos were used on hunting trips.
Indian peoples were able to convert animal and vegetable resources into all their needs for food, shelter, and clothing. When other items were available, such as horses and metal knives, they were able to trade, fish, berries, baskets, and roots for them. In the 1700s, probably no more than 40-60,000 Indians lived in the Palouse--probably less than 500 in the Paradise Creek watershed; this number could probably be supported indefinitely by the Net Community Productivity (NCP)--that is, using only that amount of ecosystem productivity that is not used by plants and animals.
Indian peoples were able to use the area without changing its character fundamentally. They were able to adapt to dynamic changes in the environment, including drought and vegetative changes. They were able to work out appropriate solutions in harmony with their environment. Their traditional forms of restraint, such as prescriptions for marriages and births or restrictions on hunts, ensured that tribes would not interfere with local animal and plant populations, much less with ecosystem cycles. Population density was controlled by the traditional approaches to resources. Cooperation and consensus, as opposed to competition and individual exaltation, permitted planning to remain informal. Cultural beliefs made planning for the indefinite future more inclusive--for instance, the belief that life was a continuity in form (from bear to human) as well as in state (from unborn to person to ancestor).
European Invasion. The Lewis and Clark expedition traveled along the Snake in 1804, noting that the bunchgrass prairie supported herds of horses very well and predicting that if it were cultivated it would provide in great abundance. Meeting with Lewis and Clark gave the Palouse a skewed impression of white people. Lewis and Clark seemed generous, giving away articles and trading fairly for goods. Expecting a future of trade and friendship, the Palouse invited Lewis and Clark to return with more goods to trade, including guns, knives, axes, kettles, blankets, and tobacco.
Explorers were followed by trappers. Trappers were followed by people who wanted first to trade and then to run cattle, which thrived on the bunchgrass. The first wave of travelers did not consider the plateau to be prime farming country. The Indians were surprised, not only by the number of whites settling, but by the white concepts of land use and land ownership. Trying to adapt, the Indians had started herding cattle and cultivating gardens, while continuing to fish and gather. About the time of the first homesteaders (after 1860), the Indians also expanded their ranching and farming.
The ranchers and farmers altered the natural habitat of the Palouse and destroyed the economic life of the Palouse Indians. War resulted after gold miners overran the land--disregarding Indian rights--and several were killed. The Palouse were eventually moved into the Nez Perce reservation to the east, completely removed from their traditional lands. Even boundaries of that reservation were adjusted annually to accommodate the migrations of European settlers.
Settlers started farming along the Snake but quickly moved north. The area around Paradise Creek was originally named Hog Heaven, because the pigs fed well on camas bulbs. Later the whole valley was renamed Paradise valley. The bunchgrass hills were at first considered unfarmable. The cattlemen kept to the bottom lands, until people realized that the grasses were a natural and nutritious feed. When farmers discovered the fertility of the hills they moved in and pushed the cattlemen toward the scablands. Agricultural development was the first intensive use of the region. The first large crop was flax; wheat came later. In the last 100 years, dry-land farming has almost completely replaced the original vegetation, although fragments can be found in fence corners, right-of-ways, cemeteries, and inaccessible slopes (mostly facing northeast). As agricultural technology became more advanced and the demand for crops increased, less desirable segments of the prairie have been tilled. Smaller islands of native vegetation, regarded as waste places, were left for livestock grazing, since the native vegetation was palatable and nutritious. However, native vegetation was easily injured by close cropping and unable to compete with introduced exotics on disturbed sites. Even the few remaining natural stands, on the steepest slopes and boundaries, have been influenced by fertilizer and herbicide drift.
The Paradise Creek watershed has become more populated, with thousands of people in urban locations like Pullman and Moscow. Population increase in the area for the past two years has been estimated at 4 percent. This increase surely will outstrip the human infrastructure and put more stress on the creek. Agriculture has produced monumental yields, but only at the cost of tremendous erosion, great subsidies of fertilizers and pesticides, and the farm subsidy program. Watercourses and uplands have been changed, altering the creek and fishing grounds. Changes have been made without regard to the long-term impact on the ecosystem or on its human population.
Economic activities, such as businesses or land use, are determined by zoning and planning. Zoning and planning can encourage more uses.
Regarding the industrial and retail uses permitted, the District does not want those uses that generate large volumes of traffic, so they forbid automobile-oriented uses and institutional uses that generate heavy traffic, such as hospitals and universities.
Current zoning regulations state that the maximum height of structures is to be 35 feet; the roof line of a structure should not extend above the ridge line of hills, to respect the scale and character of the site. Site design is the primary means of meeting aesthetic and environmental goals. Landscaping requirements are for the purpose of screening the view of industrial and commercial areas and for providing buffers to protect sensitive areas, slow erosion, and shield properties.
Several conditions are identified as being incompatible with heavy commercial development: areas with historic or archaeological features eligible for registers; a designated floodway; places where the average slope exceeds 20%; and areas that are environmentally sensitive according to the Washington State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). Despite this incompatibility, mining continues along the highway.
The Commission states that encroachments on the floodplain are "prohibited." However, exceptions are made for recreational facilities and minor projects such as signage and fences. As part of the District Conservation Areas, the corridor is to be designated an environmentally sensitive area; this restricts development and establishes a 200-foot buffer area on the south side of the boundary.
The amendment on heavy commercial land use site criteria states that among factors to be considered are productivity of soils, efficient use of land, conflicts with adjacent uses, and environmental or cultural factors. Furthermore, heavy uses are "encouraged" on sites of marginal value, such as thin soils or in the "vicinity" of floodplains.
Under findings of facts on the Pullman-Moscow corridor, the Planning Commission recognized that most of the corridor is zoned Agricultural; 4 parcels are heavy industry, and 3 are heavy commercial. After agricultural land use come rock quarrying and crushing, asphalt production, agricultural chemical mixing, nursery, appliance sales, and residences.
The Ground Water Management Plan (Pullman-Moscow Water Resources Committee, 1992) records that Pullman and Moscow rely almost entirely on groundwater for their municipal, university, and domestic water supply. Most of the water supply is pumped from wells penetrating the basalt aquifer. There is concern over declining ground water levels in the area. Water levels started declining virtually from first use. Water level decline from pumping has averaged as much as 2 or 3 feet per year. Dryland farming, however, does not require irrigation.
The size of the aquifer is unknown. The groundwater is believed to flow westward towards the Snake river. Flowing artesian wells were reported in the 1890s. A model study in the 1970s (Jones and Ross, 1972) suggested that pumping in the Moscow area was less than the recharge of the area and should be able to meet needs beyond 2000. More recent studies (Lum et al., 1990) predict that ground water levels would "stop declining if ground water pumpage were to stabilize at a constant level." That is, the rate of use is still less than the recharge rate, but would decline as pumping increases.
Watershed (Ecosystem) Goals. The Paradise Creek ecosystem is a dynamic system. It can be considered to have intrinsic goals for its continuation. Survival is one goal; health is another. Recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has enlarged one of its stated goals from protecting human health to protecting ecological health.
The goal, of course, is not an end point that can be reached once, but a continual striving. A definition of health is the condition of being sound in body or well-being. Signs of ecosystem health include the homeorhesis of the system (after Waddington), the stability of the system (that is, its resilience after stress, such as floods), the diversity of its components, the continuous recycling of elements, and flourishing.
The dynamics of the creek is irregular within limits; for instance, quick snow melts may raise the level of water dramatically, but not so much that it scours the banks of vegetation. In one sense the system may be perturbation dependent, as when droughts occur consistently in the summer. In some wetlands, periodic drawdown is a requirement for the successful regeneration of plant dominants. We do not know what the ranges of the parameters of the creek are.
Professional. Professional planners tend to regard the creek as a problem to be solved. Goal number 1 for the Whitman County Comprehensive Plan is to promote economic development in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor Enterprise area with a mix of strategies. Goal 2 is to promote safe traffic conditions. Goal 3 recognizes citizens desire for a bike path and is to encourage construction of a recreational bike path along the highway. Goal 4 is to enhance the scenic and environmental quality of the corridor. Goal 5 is to protect land uses through landscaping and screening and to prohibit further residential development.
The Environmental Quality and Conservation Element of the Comprehensive Plan is an optional element for plans under Washington statutes; it is used as a basis for policies under SEPA. The goals listed in the plan are:
The Pullman-Moscow Corridor Enterprise District was formed to implement the goals of the Comprehensive Plan Amendment. The District recognizes that the primary purpose of the area is as a transportation corridor, and to implement measures to promote safe movement through it. A secondary purpose is to create opportunities for orderly development which will "be of long-term benefit to the community as a whole, while protecting and enhancing the environmental and aesthetic characteristics of the District ..." A third purpose is to allow for recreational opportunities.
The Growth Management Act requires that resource lands be identified and protected. The District intends to follow the Act by protecting existing land use and natural features.
Public Goals. People move to the Palouse because they like it as it is: Not too crowded, not too fast-paced, with opportunities for safe living and outdoor recreation. People are attracted also by running water. That is, according to Kaplan (1983), they find it most desirable to live near running water or to view it. But people also find the condition of Paradise Creek to be displeasing. Algae and weed growths violate Idaho's and Washington's narrative values for water quality and aesthetic values, according to Doke and Hashmi. The very qualities that attracted people to the area are diminished by the overpopulation of and overuse of the area. The public goals for an area are usually unconscious or unspoken.
The main goal of Whitman County is to preserve agricultural land. What does this mean? Habitat is already confined to leftover lands. Agriculture should not be allowed to destabilize natural systems on which it depends, even for short-term (and short-sighted) economic gain. The preservation of agricultural land depends on long-term economic changes, as well as on conservation measures.
Goal number 1 for the Whitman County Comprehensive Plan is to promote economic development in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor Enterprise area with a mix of strategies. Although they have defined appropriate development, they have not described the limits of development of the area. Goal number 2 is to promote safe traffic conditions, but their assumptions are unconscious. Rather than adding traffic lanes to accommodate single-passenger cars that make up the volume, it would be better to plan for public transportation through buses or light rail. But where is there consideration of: How much traffic? How much movement, how long a benefit, what limits to recreation? The scale of activity? The extension of activity? 5 years? 100 years?
Goal 5 is to protect land uses through landscaping and screening and to prohibit further residential development; more than screening is needed though, although rebuilding the creek landscape could be considered part.
The Growth Management Act requires that resource lands be identified and protected. The District intends to follow the Act by protecting existing land use and natural features. But how can this be done, when the natural features have been severely altered by the current activities, which show every sign of increasing in an unmanaged and unconscious way? Rabe contrasts risk assessment with an alternative assessment. Rather than ask how much toxic material is permissible, we could approve industries that do not introduce toxins or legally penalize those who do. Rather than ask how much we can impact the creek, we could ask about the best ways to protect it. Certainly, the latter assessment is less reactionary and more proactive, less prescriptive and more proscriptive, that is, from "what is not allowed is forbidden" to "what is not forbidden is allowed."
Based on understanding of the ecosystem and human goals, the combined objectives of the this wetland plan are to:
Benefits increase when a stream uses its floodplain, according to Rabe. Local recharge is increased, channel scour is reduced, downstream peak flows are reduced. The recharge is increased because the stream is covering a larger area, which is then further from the channel and draws out the flow.
The design must address the system of which wetland is part; It must define the principal sources of water as well as controls on water flow, and evaluate the vulnerability of flow to alterations from land use. The design must consider the visual quality of the landscape.
There are basic geometric elements of any design, from the 3-dimensional (volume) to 2 (plane), 1 (line), and 0 (point) dimensions. These elements can vary in numerous ways, by number, position, direction, size, shape, interval, texture, color, and temporal. Furthermore, the elements can be organized into groups by nearness, similarity, and difference (diversity), into structures by rhythm, tension, balance, and scale, and finally into a whole with sensory force and a spirit of place (genius loci). All of the elements interact in complex and unpredictable ways. The spirit of the place is the most important principle to be conserved or enhanced.
A complete inventory of elements in the creek starts with the shapes of the features in the area. The large volumes are rounded and natural hills--even the agricultural evidence is almost natural, that is, from the roadside not the air, the fields appear not to be squares, triangles, or circles; a small number of geometric shapes exist in the buildings by the road, but because of their scale are not too intrusive. Although the road itself has been flattened, it is not perfectly straight and does not conflict badly with the curving planes of the hillsides.
The diagonal shape, as opposed to horizontal and vertical, of the Palouse hills is both dynamic and pleasing to human senses (some people have commented on the almost maternal aspect of gently rounded hills). Diagonal shapes give the impression of energy and movement, which is quite true as the hills are still being shaped geologically by erosion and wind. The eyes of travelers are drawn down one slope and up the next, then along the series of slopes. As people respond to one element and then another, the elements are perceived as parts of the whole. The sinuous path of the road through the corridor draws the eye toward the end of the corridor. The curves of the fields react to the shapes of the hills. The skyline is made more interesting by the shape of the hills.
The scale of agriculture and development should be related to the scale of the landscape. As it is, the creek area is diminished even more by the scale of cultivated fields. The buffer zone should be increased up the hill, perhaps to a ratio of 1:3. Of course, seen from the air the ratio would decrease radically, as most of the landscape is farmed. The scale also seems greater on hill tops. Because the highway is in the creek corridor, the scale of the landscape is reduced, and because it is smaller scale finer textures can be discerned and therefore must enter the design. Details are more obvious.
Ecological diversity in the corridor has been reduced by human activities, such as planting or grazing. The overall landscape diversity has not fared as badly, due to the addition of human artifacts, which increase it. An increase in ecological diversity would lead to an increase in diversity of the landscape, however. It would also tend to reduce the scale, but this would not be a problem in the corridor. Adding billboards or business buildings to the corridor would increase the visual diversity to the point of disruption (while further lowering ecological diversity). Diversity could be increased by alternating tree cover of the creek with open habitats; different species would be encouraged to use the creek. Psychologists have recognized the need for diversity for people's quality of life and emotional well-being (Kaplan 1973). The light color of existent buildings contrasts starkly with the landscape; even simply painting them darker colors would let them blend more with the landscape.
This design involves designers and people in reshaping and recreating a self-sustaining community. Individual quests are limited. The relationships to strive for here are community relationships. Furthermore, there are limits for human manipulation of other communities. Total control has limits, also. We should not aim to try to control the Creek and its habitats. We have to trust that natural processes are self-correcting and organizing.
This design is the creation of a clear vision of the creek that is aesthetic, useful, and self-sustaining. Some of the relationships can be captured by maps and drawings, but not the dynamic four-dimensional qualities of the creek itself, which can only be understood by being there for a year or more. Nevertheless, a simulation of the view from an auto or bicycle is more compelling than a recital of the statistics or species lists. Included are a series of landscape treatments showing two phases:
The land use of the watershed would change with each of the two phases (see Table 1). The total acreage in crops would be reduced by the size of the buffer, for instance. The characteristics of the creek as a habitat would also change during the implementation of the phases (see Table 2). For instance, as the creek was encouraged to meander, bank undercuts, favored by fish, would increase; as trees and shrubs were planted, the water temperature would drop.
Table 1. Land Use Analysis
Land Use Analysis Normal growth Phase I Phase II Gross acreage 6700 acres 6700 6700 Dwelling Density 75 per acre 15 per acre 590 per acre Population 500 100 2000 Developed space 95 acres 75 50 Open space 2441 2406 2371 Land use residential 60 50 35 Business park 0 10 50 Commercial 80 25 20 Recreation 0 20 50 Roads 24 24 24 Conservation 400 1500 2000 Agriculture 3500 2500 2100 Range 100 0 0
Table 2. Physical Habitat of the Creek (after Hunter)
Habitat Attribute Paradise Creek Healthy Control Phase 1 Phase 2 Sinuosity 1.2 2.5 2.5 4 Gradient 0.36 0.6% 0.36 0.36 Pool: riffle ratio 1:10? 1:1 1:2 1:1 Bank height 3.6 ft 2 ft 3.6 ft 3.0 Bank angle 71 degrees 60 degrees 60 60 Bank undecut -4 in 9 inches 6 in 10 in Vegetation overhang 2 in 6 inches 6 in 8 in Water width 4.1 ft 3 ft 4 ft 4.4 ft Water depth 15.9 in 15 in 15.5 in 15.2 in Water temperature 69? 65 degrees 65 64 Bank vegetation stability fair good good exclnt Average pool depth 19 in 3 feet 22 in 34 in Pool forming feature rock woody debris log log Pool rating poor good good exclnt Embeddedness 17 % 25 % 23 26 Substrate composition sediment mix mix mix Boulder 0% 5% 5% 5% Rubble 12% 20% 20% 20% Gravel 19% 40% 34 38 Course sediment 26% 20% 19 20 Fine sediment 23% 10% 13 10 Silt 20% 5% 9 7
In earlier times the creek was occasionally dammed by beavers or fallen trees. These obstacles created scour holes and pools. The increased current removed silt and some rubble, leaving the larger rocks that insects and fish favor. Putting logs in the creek or concrete gabions would have an immediate effect on the creek (concrete would degrade more gracefully than wire gabions).
Falling logs and bank undercuts also created preferred environments for fish. In-stream vegetation providing anchoring places for insect larvae. The vegetation of the creekbed needs to be restored. Creekbed-rooted plants, such as sedges (Carex spp.), would be planted in slow-current areas.
The impact of grazing is considerable in riparian areas. Cattle, and to a lesser extent horses, require water (8-10 gallons as day for cattle). To get water from Paradise Creek the cattle must get down to the creek; this physically changes the shape of the bank and the conditions of the creek, from narrow, clear, cool streams to wide, muddy, warm ones. Anchor vegetation is eaten or dislodged. Cattle contribute to erosion and eutrophication. Cattle and horses should be fenced from approaching the creek.
The Palouse Conservation District has experimented with willow poles in upland areas to stabilize the hillsides above creeks. Vegetation should not have too high water requirements in order to be more self-sustaining and less needful of human labor and inputs. Tree planting and open areas should be related to bays in the hills; a bay would allow a greater amount of light to reach the stream. Tree planting in riparian would be a state and county responsibility; for private land, incentives to plant could be offered.
Aberle and Ossinger recommend several measures to minimize impacts on the wetlands, including biofiltration (swales). Swales are long, level excavations intended to intercept overland flow and store water in underlying soil (look like diversion drains but are not meant to hold water flow). They can be created across slope, in low slope landscapes or on bottom lands. They are also useful to control roof runoff. For the farmland above and outside the buffer, incentives could be offered for conservation practices to reduce erosion and field runoff.
Most of the harmful effects of the road, such as runoff and toxic waste, can be solved by having a wide buffer on both sides. Roads generate many times the sediment discharge as the grassland, disturbed or undisturbed. Roads also have costs associated with killing deer, coyotes, mice, and frogs trying to cross them. The quality of the road would be enhanced by additional plantings and by the edge treatment. The aesthetic impact of the road would also be increased.
The rail line was also designed for efficiency of movement. The line moves over a number of meanders. Its contributions to the creek include oils, wood preservatives, and refuse.
To minimize impacts from highway and railway, swales and channels can be built to direct water, reduce its speed, and increase its absorption into the soil. Rather than expanding the road, as the Department of Transportation intends to do in 1995, the highway could be left in two lanes and eventually traffic could be moved to the Old Pullman Highway or the Airport Road, which parallel it (in Phase 2).
Phase 1 answered the need for safe travel between the cities, while establishing a framework for developing the path, by incorporating the path into existing circulation patterns with the addition of a 10-foot marked bike lane. Sites for potential development as rest areas and conservation areas (with supplemental plantings) were identified. Vegetation was used to screen incompatible uses, such as mining. Phase 2 outlined more options for more extensive development, offering more intensive recreational opportunities and a conservation greenbelt. The same sites take on more complex functions, as a rest stop might become a park with paths and interpretive signs. The path connects a series of parks. The path meanders between road, track, and features in the landscape, acting as a buffer to native plant communities and stream banks.
A recreational path is an important part of the corridor. But recreation should be limited to the path, which should be a third lane next to the highway. Recreation should be restricted to two creekside parks; more would have negative impacts on the creek.
Channel divertors and deflectors (Figure Six) flush the fine sediments from runs and pools. In-stream structures, such as wing deflectors or porcupines, can be used to force the channel into meanders if it has been straightened. Wing deflectors are triangular rock-filled intrusions into the stream from one bank (see Figure 6); the deflection of the current causes bank wear on the bank opposite the deflector (due to current action, the deflector should never be just angled around 0). A porcupine has the same effect, but it is made from stakes in the stream bed that hold brush and branches in place and cause the flow to be directed towards the farther bank (Figure Seven and Figure Eight).
Constrictors increase the current (see Figure Nine). They can be made of logs or concrete (previous criticisms apply to the materials).
Community changes from in-stream alterations include an increase in diversity of species and an increase in total numbers of insects. Numerous log drops, restrictors, and porcupines are planned for the Middle Reach of the creek (see Figure Eleven for a sample around Mile Post 6).
In order to encourage fish, the bank can be extended over the water artificially as an artificial dock that fish can live and hide under (see Figure 10). This is a short-term method to create habitat until planted trees and bank wear can provide the suitable conditions.
Trees and shrubs, based on native plant associations (see Figure Thirteen for a sample), would be planted on the bank to stabilize it and provide shade (cooling the water) and debris (a source of food for creek residents). Maintaining grasses, forbs, and shrubs is also vital. This may limit trees to lighter-foliated kinds, such as willow, birch or aspen; pines should be planted further from the creek. The trees should be planted in an irregular pattern, with different ages and sizes as much as possible. Figures Fourteen and Figure Fifteen show a willow association and an aspen association.
Eventually, all of the reed canary grass will be replaced with native species (see Figure Twelve for native Palouse grasses). This is an expensive and labor-intensive process, which would involve removing the canary grass stem and roots, then planting native seeds or plugs (from some other impacted wetland). On a tract by tract basis, the canary grass will have be replaced by bunchgrasses or sedges. Figures Sixteen and Seventeen show how bunchgrass and a hawthorn-cow parsnip associations would appear.
Siltation frequently occurs downstream from gravel washing, mining, logging, cultivation, and highways. Siltation can be precipitated out of the water by biological buffers. Just having a wide buffer of 70 meters (210 feet) will cut down much of the siltation; 350 meters (1100 feet) should eliminate most of the siltation. The shape of the buffer strip should parallel the landform, spreading upward to include intermittent tributaries. If the width is too great, the sense of enclosure would be lost. Too narrow and the road and farmed upland may seem oppressive. If it is too straight, it will seem too artificial.
Swales can be built on steeper slopes to slow the flow of water and encourage percolation into the ground. On the upland slopes of the buffer--it should extend that far, especially to protect first-order streams that empty into Paradise Creek--willow poles and other native deciduous trees can be planted to halt erosion.
The creek design must also be appropriate. Native species plantings would ensure that exotic animals like hippopotamus would not appear around the corner (although in one sense that would increase the element of surprise). Surprise is unavoidable; it is the unpredictable emergence and novelty that characterizes ecological systems. The Palouse Indians were surprised because they did not have enough information about the Europeans. The degradation of Paradise Creek is a surprise because the system was chaotic and complex and we did not predict the decline, or, worse, did not care about it.
The creek design must also be as self-sustaining as possible. This occurs when natural cycles of native plants and animals are restored. Otherwise, the landscape will be artificial, requiring large amounts of human intervention by labor and money just to keep the landscape intact.
The Paradise Creek ecosystem is part of a larger Palouse Hills region in the Columbia Basin province. The region has been converted from a natural self-sustaining one to one that is artificially maintained by energy subsidies. A large part of the Palouse grasslands should be restored to a self-sustaining reserve (Wittbecker 1986). Riparian areas like Paradise Creek should be restored to self-sustaining systems as much as possible. This goal would not exclude human activities, but would let natural processes operate without destructive interference.
This much human population growth is unreasonable and dangerous. It is a threat to the stability and health of the creek. A booming population means booming requirements for homes, recreation, and transportation. The population must be related somehow to the carrying capacity of the local ecosystems. For example, each person needs 6.3 acres of land, including support and wild areas (after Odum, 1970 and Wittbecker, 1983). Given the fact that the Paradise Creek watershed is only 34 square miles, it can only support a population of 3454 people. In order to support the 40,000 who live here now, it is necessary to use a much larger area, which of course is being done. Adjusting human populations to an area would limit human impact and align it with the natural processes necessary to support it.
The creek used to regulate biochemistry much better, when inputs from agriculture were lighter. The border of the creek had the capacity to buffer many pollutants, including lead, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The amount of lead and hydrogen and acid rain from atmospheric pollution, as well as the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus from runoff, are probably all 500 percent (at a guess) of the premodern watershed runoff. The ability of a green buffer around the creek could absorb many atmospheric and chemical pollutants, but its capacity is not known, and it is a limited capacity at best.
Alterations that change the pattern of the annual water budget--low flow augmentation, flood control--or that change the light or thermal regimes can produce major restructuring of a running water community, such as Paradise Creek (see Table 3). These effects are generally predictable. The rapidity of changes and paucity of studies before the changes means that we may never know how the creek functioned biologically before the years of development.
Narrow channels, especially concrete ones, speed up runoff and outflow, leaving little opportunity for water to percolate into underground storage. Aquifers, water-bearing rock strata, are important for a healthy water regime. Furthermore, as Lyle points out, water in an aquifer is protected from evaporation and contamination. Also, the aquifer is cheaper and self-sustaining.
Table 3. Annual Water Budget
Water Budget Item Normal growth Phase I Phase II
Supply precipitation 4325 m3 5000 m3 5200 m3
runoff 3,450,000 2,200,000 2,000,000
ground water 100,000 1,600,000 2,100,000
reclaimed 900,000 600,000 660,000,000
Demand Ground recharge - - -
creek recharge - - -
vegetation/animals 800 units 10,000 units 49,000 units
evapotranspiration 16,700 13,770 11,600
Industrial 5500 4500 3500
Commercial 400 300 300
Residential 5300 3000 3000
Agricultural 6217 3500 3500
Recreation 200 300 450
Golf course 5283 0 0
Public service 500 500 500
Miscellaneous 200 100 400
Bernier recognizes that mass transit is essential and suggests several rail alternatives, including light rail. Light rail would permit more detail in the foreground, since the travelers would be going slower and most of them would be passengers instead of drivers, which means that their eyes could be drawn to more distant views as well.
Consider a three-stage system. The first anaerobic stage takes place in digester ponds, which produces methane and heavy metal sulfides (which can remove copper, cadmium, zinc, lead, and chromium). The digester can be agitated with excess gas or mechanically. Essentially the sludge becomes methane. At the next facultative stage, taking place in algae ponds, algae blooms on the effluent. Phytoplankton and zooplankton (rotifers and copepods) thrive; zooplankton gather some of the remaining metals such as nickel and iron. The planktons can be harvested for poultry food or field fertilizer. The effluent then travels to the third stage, aerobic ponds. This water could be used for irrigation. Zooplankton can also be fed to fish. Final treatment can be accomplished by a rushbed filtration, recommended by the Max Planck Institute in Switzerland. Rushes, sedges, and floating plants like hyacinths also remove heavy metals, human pathogens (such as the coli group of bacilli), and break up halogenated hydrocarbons from pesticides and herbicides. This whole system transforms sewage into gas, algae, crops, and food for fish and wildlife. The remaining water would be released to Paradise Creek.
A noninterference approach to water management (the essence of a taoist way) is to let water take its own course with plenty of room to spread. Therefore, once the temporary constructs were in place, the path of the creek would be allowed to develop without interference. Since flood control would be accomplished by a healthy watershed, artificial constructs such as dams and concrete channels, which have been recommended in earlier studies, would be unnecessary.
In nature, noninterference means letting be. Noninterference is not indifference, which is diffuse. It is caring. Noninterference will not lead to chaos, poverty, and stagnation. The technocratic vision strives for "life under control," but the earth is self-managing, productive, efficient, and orderly. We need to practice the rule of noninterference so that all beings can enhance themselves. Noninterference can be derived from nonviolence (or taoistic nondoing). This attitude would entail using what is necessary, exploiting some ecosystems, changing a place to fit human aspirations, and killing plants and animals for sustenance. But it would also mean limiting humanity and its technological effects, limiting human use to local impacts, and letting other beings live without interference. It is not necessary to dominate or terraform the creek completely to save it.
One of the most important responsibilities of a business is to maintain the health of the natural communities--because environmental health is the basis for community health, and community health is the basis for economic health and worker health, which determine business health. The quality of life depends on the quality of the environment. If the environment is degraded to raise the quality of life, the effect will be very limited and never be self-sustaining. Fitting economic costs and needs to the limits of ecosystems and monitoring the economic process would reduce wastes and pressures on natural processes. The conscious restoration of degraded systems would contribute to the health of ecosystems. The health of the system would be guaranteed better if businesses were accountable for ecological impacts, avoided interference with natural processes (by not dumping wastes), and integrated their buildings into the sites.
Perhaps health should be related to economic value. How much is the Middle Reach of Paradise Creek worth? It is fairly simple to calculate the loss of potential crop income if a buffer is created. It is more difficult to calculate and contrast the costs of erosion if a buffer is not created. It is almost impossible to attribute a cash value to the enjoyment or displeasure of people traveling through the corridor. A restored Paradise Creek with a wide native buffer would certainly valued more highly by residents. The cost of restoration would be very reasonable considered as part of a 50-year plan, but not many banks or lending agencies have that long a horizon.
Perhaps if the creek was considered part of a total accounting system, 50 years would be the appropriate time frame. Such a system would balance cash income with costs, and consider the energy cost of oil, machinery, and fertilizer, as well as energy produced, crop fuel oils, and food calories. The components of the ecosystem could be considered to be part of an accounting framework, with interconnecting flows and inputs and outputs. The value of each component could be said to be the human cost of replacing that component with human labor and inputs, as sometimes happens when the natural process has been damaged. An ecological accounting would consider soil loss, efficiency of water storage, and pollution, as well as genetic richness, soil life, wildlife richness, employment on farms, food quality, human and environmental health, and quality of life. People have needs, animals and plants have needs, the site does have constraints, and these things can be married into a good pattern. Economic activities should be limited so that they do not destroy the capacity for self-organization of the system. This capacity for self-organization requires a minimum level of complexity and flexibility.
People have settled around the creek. The benefits of settlement are economic, ecological and spiritual. Economic because everyone will have to learn to live in the limits of photosynthesis and watersheds. A sense of place is necessary for information on how to live, get food, and stay dry. People cultivating a sense of place are people in place. Their work can be appropriate; appropriate growing, logging, mining, or building. The ecological benefits of rootedness are that people will take care of a place if they realize they are going to be there for hundreds of years. Having a place means that an inhabitant has stock in it and participates in its unfolding, through planting and caring. People in place acquire a sense of community, nonhuman and human; shared set of values and concerns; health and spiritual benefit.
Nature is not dead or even mortally wounded (yet). Natural laws and processes are mostly independent of human will. We cannot control earthquakes or floods. Disturbance is part of any natural system, even catastrophic disturbances, but human interference is constant and large-scale. Human effects, such as planting, fertilization, harvest, changes in hydrologic and other regimes, population shifts, and fragmentation sometimes set the system up for other disturbances. Our effects must be limited because of the functional limits of nature (as a result of its historical, evolutionary development).
There is no guarantee that nature can provide humans with everything they want. Recognizing the lack of guarantee simply recognizes that nature is wild and we must come to terms with nonhuman beings and processes. We must pay attention to the processes that make up the habitat, for example, the role of herbivores on trimming vegetation (and diversifying it by predation). The design of the wetland and its management must ensure that the processes operate to maintain a dynamic state. Furthermore, the context must be conserved. Some species, like muskrat, require one habitat for shelter and another for forage. Paradise Creek, which links two developed areas though a relatively natural area, is the context in question. It is almost entirely embedded in artifact landscapes shaped by human activities. The sprawl and spread and conversion of lands can have unfavorable consequences to the creek. The history of the system is to be considered, also, with its range of change, episodic change, and long-term processes. This will make the limits of the system explicit.
In the creek, it is important to respect limits and to maintain the integrity of ecological processes that generate the Paradise Creek habitat. To this end, we should establish a position as Keeper of the Creek, perhaps as an elected office. The Keeper would take a personal interest in all the activities that involve the creek. The Keeper would represent the interests of the creek in political, business, and public meetings. The Keeper would be responsible for public education to setting up land trusts--the function of a Land Trust is to identify and protect lands that have biological or cultural significance; it could work through acquisition, conservation easements, cooperative agreements, and education. The Keeper would give educational presentations on the value of the creek and ecosystem protection. Economic and political means would provide incentives to preserve land from development, preserve diversity of habitats, and reintroduce native species. Personal commitment is the most effective means of protection.
The creek cannot be protected over the long term unless we stop growing and slow down our industrial output. We cannot accept damage to the creek as part of the price for our comfort and overproduction of food. The Palouse can afford to change to a soft energy path by gradually weaning itself off oil and water power to solar energy. The waste that ends up in the creek and by the roads would be better incorporated in a complete cycle of production and use and reuse.
The creek is part of our common heritage and common environment, from the beavers and coyotes to the waves of invading humans, recently the Palouse and Nez Perce and most recently invading and dominating Europeans. Until we have a vision, an image, of what our lives would look like lived frugally and sensibly, we will continue to want cars and trucks that get 10 miles per gallon, we will want more and more televisions and lawnmowers and wider highways and bigger malls.
The goal of this design is not to restore, but to revitalize and reinhabit the watershed. We do not want to live in the dead bones of a mechanistic failure. We want to live in a healthy environment with aesthetic appeal; aesthetic appeal is a requirement for human health. The Paradise Creek watershed has physical, biological, economic, and political characteristics. The design, planning, and management for the creek describes the system in a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, using dynamic concepts such as feedback and stability, recognizing limits to change and sustainability with different levels and scales of structure and function in an anticipatory, flexible planning approach, recognizing human and nonhuman goals, and incorporating personal and institutional interests. This design recommends the creek be designated a conservation area.
The transition to an established conservation area increases the overall benefits to the system and the human part of the system. Although it is still a transportation corridor, it is also a refuge for many species and part of an aesthetic experience for the travelers. We will have rehabilitated part of a degraded habitat as part of a complex living environment that is partly human. This design yields the optimum combination of flow, function, and yield, while conserving important ecological resources, that is, the creek itself and all the beings who use it.
Understanding of the principles of ecology can lead to better management. One critical message of ecology is that if we diminish variety in the natural world, we debase its--and our own--stability and wholeness. The creek ecosystem is simplified and degraded in its current state. Perhaps we do not have sufficient knowledge to manage a complex landscape because it is too complex to understand scientifically. But we can understand the pattern and drive it in a healthy direction. We must do all that we can to restore its richness and the natural processes that created the richness.
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