Prairie restoration continues on Kamiak Butte

Kamiak Butte ranger Todd Heitstuman has already sprinkled the slopes of the butte with the seeds of native prairie grasses this year.

The planting on an old section of trail is one more step toward using the remaining $16,000 of the Prairie Restoration Grant awarded to the county parks department.

Heitstuman learned in early April that the state’s 10-year grant to the parks department had been shortened to a seven-year grant. This bumps up the deadline for using all the funds to this August.

The federal grant is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Prairie Restoration Grant given to the county in 2006 for a lump sum of $25,000. The county is also putting up $6,000 in labor hours, bringing the total restoration funds to $31,250.

The grass planting is part of the grant program Whitman County Parks is pursuing to preserve the native growth on the butte. Part of the preservation program also includes stamping out unwanted trails worn by wayward hikers.

Heitstuman said he is so far unsure of what will happen to the remaining $16,000 funds come August. Instead, he has three different restoration projects in the works that will use the funds: releasing hairy weevils to eat down the pestilent yellow-star thistle on the butte and planting native trees, shrubs and prairie grasses on abandoned sections of the Kamiak trail.

Heitstuman has already seeded the old section of trail with native prairie grasses leftover from the last planting by the last park ranger.

Some of the fragile grass shoots have already started to come up on the old trail bed. The recent planting included grasses like blue wild rye, Idaho fescue, beardless wheatgrass and western yarrow.

Heitstuman will also order native foliage to plant as well. These include ponderosa pines, snow berry shrubs and ninebark shrubs.

Planting the grasses and shrubs on the section of old trail is not just an effort to restore prairie, it will also help keep people off that retired portion of trail.

“People still see the outline of the trail and think, ‘It’s OK to walk through here,’” he said.

The annual release of the hairy weevils on the butte will cost more this year as the price of weevils rose. Heitstuman anticipates spending about $4,000 on them.