Where We Work
The Partners Program located at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge focuses on wetland and upland restoration within the Channeled Scablands Focus Area and Greater Spokane River Watershed, as outlined in the Partners for Fish & Wildlife Strategic Plan. This focus area covers over 3.3 million acres of unique habitat within Spokane, Lincoln, Adams and Whitman counties and is characterized by the shallow soils, abundant wetlands, and unique plant assemblages of Eastern Washington.
The Channeled Scablands Focus Area includes two large-scale geologic features created by glacial floods in the Pleistocene: The Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington and the Spokane River basin. Much of the Spokane River basin is covered by deep gravel deposits laid down over successive flood events roughly 10,000 years ago. The Channeled Scablands to the west of the Spokane River basin were also created by these cataclysmic flood events. In this area, the flood waters deeply eroded the Columbia River Basalt Group plateau, leaving giant gravel bars, alluvial aprons, and ephemeral lake deposits across the landscape. Within this area, the wetland basin densities rival those of the upper Midwest’s . This landscape has been identified as a high priority for recovery and habitat restoration of waterfowl, migratory songbirds, and Spalding’s catchfly populations. The focus area covers nearly 3 million acres within Pend Oreille, Stevens, Lincoln, Spokane, Adams, Whitman, and Franklin counties and is made up of approximately 80% privately owned property. Land ownership is a mixture of private land, the reservations and trust lands of the Colville; Kalispel; Coeur d’ Alene; and Spokane tribes, the Inland Northwest National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Bureau of Land Management, State and county owned conservation properties, and private, non-profit conservation lands. Outside of the Spokane metropolitan area, communities in this region are mostly small and rural with strong agricultural ties.
The focus area includes more than 22,000 wetland basins covering nearly 76,000 acres; over 80% of these wetland basins are in private ownership. Agriculture and grazing activity in the late 1800’s resulted in major wetland drainage efforts throughout the Channeled Scablands. Few wetlands outside of state or federal ownership have been restored to increase water storage capacity and habitat availability to levels approximating the landscape prior to the ditching efforts.
