This winters mild weather and no snow covering the ground has led to unprecedented lawn damage on campus. This new lawn damage from the university pedestrian population using short cuts across wet lawns with dormant grasses has killed out the grass and its root systems and caused muddy paths to appear. These paths turn into erosion channels that send mud running into our storm water systems when rain events occur. As a State institution of Higher Education and WSU being part of the City of Pullmans Storm Water plan, we are subject to the States laws and regulations governing storm water runoff. This means, we are bound by law to do everything we can to keep erosion from entering “the waters of the State”.
Facilities Services Grounds department has been called upon to help mitigate this erosion by re-sodding and re-seeding these eroding pathways to reestablish the grass again. To give the grass a chance to establish itself and be ready to spring, the Grounds department needs to protect the areas from foot traffic by installing temporary fencing. There are several areas on campus that has this occurring and we will address them as the weather, time and funding allows.
Please bear with us as we attempt to get new grass to grow. We will remove the fencing when the grass is strong enough to withstand the foot traffic again. In the interim, please try to avoid using pathways that are killing out the grass as it does put us all in violation of these new laws and it also adds to the silting in our creeks and rivers.
The good news! Facilities Services has been looking into these areas of high foot traffic that have caused damage to occur and are currently planning new landscape designs and trail repair and improvement solutions.
