Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Environmental Concerns Caused Residents To Appeal Site Of School

Kara Briggs Staff writer

Paul Wicklund’s grandfather used to grow wheat on the rolling hills of his Peone Prairie acreage.

But Wicklund can’t anymore. It’s because of environmental changes caused by new housing developments on the prairie, he said.

Wicklund said water runoff - from more than a hundred new houses - is turning his century-old farm into swamp.

And, he said, those environmental changes will only become more dramatic if the Mead School District is allowed to build a high school a half-mile away on Mount Spokane Park Drive.

That’s why Wicklund has joined longtime Peone Prairie farmer Dennis Morrissey and several other families in appealing the district’s site selection.

Under the name of Concerned Citizens for the Preservation of Peone Prairie, they will take the school district to Spokane County Superior Court next Thursday at 9 a.m. before Judge Tari Eitzen.

It is a loosely knit group of Peone Prairie residents, farmers and environmentalists who admire the prairie. Dennis Morrissey, the only person named on the appeal, said there are 50 members. Attorney Brian Regan said there are 20.

Many of the members want to remain anonymous and chose Morrissey and Regan as their spokesmen. Some even work for the school district, but oppose the site, which for two years has worn a sign reading, “Future Site of the New Mead High School.”

They believe district leaders didn’t respond to their concerns about the site. They list loss of farmland, loss of open space and lack of urban services as reasons for opposing the site. They fear that they will be zapped with massive taxes for road improvements to make Mount Spokane Park Drive safe for school-related traffic.

Morrissey and Wicklund say they’ve been talking about their concerns since the site was announced in 1992. And by taking the district to court they feel the Superior Court judge, at least, will have to consider their pleas.

“I’ll be considered public enemy No. 1,” Wicklund said.

Wicklund said no one in his family has ever even voted against a school bond before. He, his parents and his grandparents graduated from Mead. But this time he believes the stakes are too high not to fight the school district.

Wicklund lives in the house his great-grandparents built. His sister, Debbie Wicklund, plans to build her own house. Paul Wicklund works as a construction contractor and tries to farm as much of his land as possible.

By Wicklund’s estimates, the water table beneath his land has risen in recent years by 5 feet. He has planted stakes in a hillside measuring how far the water has risen each year.

New springs have popped out of ground that Wicklund’s family said has been dry since the 1880s. And old springs that used to leave permanent puddles on the ground have overflowed into fast-moving creeks.

Walking his property in early January, Wicklund was surprised to find that a new stream had eroded a hillside, leaving a 30-foot cliff. A half-dozen still-green pine trees lay in the ravine, apparently flung down by the slide.

Wicklund believes that a new high school with 1,700 students, a massive sprinkler system and septic tank drainage will result in even more water damage on his property.

School district officials say the water will not significantly affect the surrounding land.

Stan Miller of the Spokane County aquifer protection program said Wicklund could be right that housing developments have increased ground water surfacing on his property.

But from a scientific perspective, Miller said, there isn’t enough data about ground water flow under Peone Prairie to know where the additional water is coming from or where it is going.