04/25/2007: "Grange Wants Action On Noxious Weeds"

The Grange tells County Council that a lack of roadside spraying, and a lack of County commitment, has resulted in the spread of weeds to private land.

The San Juan Island Grange would like the County -and Public Works in particular- “to be serious” about controlling Scot's broom; Tansy Ragwort; Knapweeds; blackberry; and weeds in general, that are growing on the county right-of-way.

Paul Barger took advantage of Tuesday’s 10:00 a.m. Citizen Access time to outline the weed problem as the Grange sees it. Barger told the Council that “San Juan County roadside flora has changed drastically in the past 20-25 years”, and asked the rhetorical question: “Why?”. According to the Grange, the answer is a combination of what Public Works is doing, and not doing.

Barger said that one result of mowing and scouring the sides of the roads has the unintended consequence of spreading “noxious weeds” to lands off of the county right-of-way. Barger believes the start of the problem can be traced back to when the County stopped using herbicides to control the intrusion vegetation into the sides of the county chip-seal roads.

Due to concerns of liability, and in response to complaints and fears that there was simply no way to know all of the areas where wells, gardens and other property owner improvements were located, the County did decide to stop spraying some years ago. And after a few occurrences of spray drift onto private property, Public Works was told to return to mechanical removal of offending vegetation.

While Public Works is primarily concerned about the condition of roads, the Council was told the “Grange membership believes that Public Works needs to be serious about controlling these infestations”, and not just to protect road surface edges, but also because “there is a legal and enforceable obligation to control weeds (RCW 17.1 0, WAC 16.750).” And, they pointed out, “the weed infestations are increasing rapidly from year to year making control issues increasingly costly.”

Barger and the Grange said the problem of weed control is “not a budgetary problem within Public Works, it is an allocation problem.” In other words: money.

In his closing remarks, Barger said that “Grange members have had discussions with San Juan County Noxious Weed Board staff and board members concerning these issues and would like to stress to you the importance this issue has, and the need for Public Works managers to be serious about their portion of the problem”; and he also asked the council to “take this problem seriously and commit the needed finances and staff to give these problems the priorities they need. The problem grows and moves into private lands, and we deplore the change in our flora because of this lack of commitment.”

Barger thanked the Council for their attention, submitted a copy of remarks, and left. It is expected that either County Administrator Pete Rose, and/or Public Works, will respond -at some level- to the Grange’s concerns.