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LOTT
Alliance Conservation Easement:
14.92 Acres along Kaiser Road in the Green Cove
Creek Basin.
Conserved in 2007.
This
unique wetland system with Green Cove Creek running
through it is owned by the Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, and Thurston County Wastewater Alliance
(LOTT). Capitol Land Trust holds a conservation easement
on the parcel.
Located
just outside of Olympia’s Urban Growth Boundary, on
Kaiser Road, the property is adjacent to the Kaiser
(Green Cove Wetlands) Preserve sharing a
North/South boundary. Several things make this property
special and worthy of conservation.
The property consists of three main types of
vegetation: lowland grasses and shrubs in the eastern
edge, largely undisturbed wetlands in the center of the
property, and upland forests on the western edge.
The wetlands were formed by depressions and
beaver activity.
Red
alder and western red-cedar dominate the forest
wetlands, with an understory of salmonberry and
groundcovers including skunk cabbage and lady fern.
Douglas
spirea and willows dominate the shrub-scrub wetlands.
Other dominant wetland plant species on the property
include field horsetail, creeping buttercup, and slough
sedge.
Green
Cove Creek is a perennial stream with anadromous and
resident fish species present.
Anadromous fish found in Green Cove Creek include
Chinook, chum, and Coho salmon, steelhead, and sea-run
cutthroat trout. The federal government has recently
listed all of these fish species as threatened.
The
bald eagle which is federally listed as threatened
regularly visits the property. The Great Blue Heron
which the State of
Washington
lists as a state monitor species also regularly visits
the property. The
property is also inhabited by other birds such as, the
osprey, western grebe, American bittern, and northern
harrier.
This
property was under immediate threat of development. The
conservation easement prevents any future development.
LOTT operates a wastewater pump station just
outside of the property, which it intends to replace
with an upgraded wastewater pump station.
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