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Department of Ecology News Release - Oct. 23, 2003
03-205
SPOKANE - More than 10 acres of degraded wetlands at Loon Lake are again serving their valuable environmental functions, thanks to a Loon Lake-area man and his family.
Ed Haag and his family received the Department of Ecology's (Ecology) Environmental Excellence Award this morning while wetlands experts from Ecology toured his property.
The Haag family purchased 21 acres of land in the "Larsen Meadow" drainage, a seasonal tributary on the west shore of Loon Lake in Stevens County. The majority of the land was drained and farmed years ago and no longer provided quality habitat for fish and wildlife. It was full of non-native weeds and, as a result, Haag's first hay crop and return on investment were very poor.
In 2001, Haag restored a small part of the wetland, about 4.7 acres, using cost-share funding from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, along with personal funds.
"After just one growing season, the wetland was able to store water again and attract wetland plants and animals not seen in decades," said Brian Farmer a shorelands manager in Ecology's eastern region.
For example, phalaropes are seen on the property now for the first time in years. Phalaropes are shorebirds that use a unique breeding strategy, with the male and female actually switching roles, according to Chris Merker, a wetlands biologist for Ecology.
"The phalarope male incubates the eggs and raises the chicks," Merker explained. "They had never been observed here previous to Ed's work."
Haag paid for restoring an additional 4.2 acres of wetlands by using the black organic soils that sat over the impervious, compressed volcanic ash that held the water. Realizing the soil was valuable to the landscape industry, he reasoned he could trade soil for earth work by a landscaping company, thereby accomplishing his goals without the need for a large cash outlay.
"Some of the sod and black soil were replaced over the ash in order to replace the seed source and to create an uneven surface to re-establish plant diversity," Merker said. "A level, intensely-farmed wetland has very low plant diversity."
As a final element, Haag plugged a drainage ditch to retain spring runoff water in shallow, seasonal wetlands. This may generate another 3 to 4 acres of wetlands.
The family's hope is to be able to restore the "meanders" (twists and turns) in the drainage ditch and recreate a stream, Merker said.
"Ed accomplished this in a very innovative way that did not use public or private funding, but a system of barter," Farmer said. "His passion for it was profound to the point of putting his business on hold. His family dedicated many weekends up to their knees in mud planting shrubs and trees."
In the 1600s, more than 220 million acres of wetlands existed in the lower 48 states. Since then, extensive losses have occurred, with many of the original wetlands drained and converted to farmland. Today, less than half of the nation's original wetlands remain.
Activities that destroy or degrade wetlands include agriculture; commercial, industrial and residential development; road construction; forestry; and more.
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Contact: Jani Gilbert, public information manager, 509-329-3495; pager, 509-622-3073
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
