Posted on 10/13/2006 3:14:12 PM PDT by george76
Legislation designed to control and eradicate tamarisk was signed into law by President Bush Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., announced Thursday...
creating funding for a large-scale effort to control tamarisk, also known as salt cedar...
"The tamarisk is causing severe problems throughout Colorado and the West," said Allard. "The President's signing of this legislation marks a major milestone in the ongoing effort by Congress and this administration to provide critical resources for the removal of this destructive and invasive species."
The tamarisk has invaded the margins of streams, lakes and wetlands throughout the Western United States. An individual plant can consume up to 200 gallons of water per day, which has exacerbated drought conditions in the West, and is highly disruptive to native habitats and species.
Tamarisk Coalition Executive Director Tim Carlson voiced his appreciation for Allard’s work on passage of the bill.
"The passage of this legislation is a major step in reversing the devastating impacts that tamarisk causes to the state's river systems. It took the recent drought for us to realize the incredible value of Colorado's water resources and associated wildlife habitat,"
(Excerpt) Read more at chieftain.com ...
Evil plant causes environmental damage...
I should've said, "Evil bush causes environmental damage." ;-P
It is estimated the tamarisk plant and Russian olive trees, both of which are nonnative species, occupy up to 1.6 million acres in the West...
“According to the Tamarisk Coalition, the western U.S. is probably losing anywhere from 2 to 4.5 million acre-feet of water per year,”...
A family of four uses about half an acre foot of water per year.
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/05/03/5_3_3a_tamarisk_bill.html
Why don't you enlighten the unwashed how "easy" this endeavor will be.
The plant genus Tamarix is comprised of about 54 species native to North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Popularly called "tamarisk" or "saltcedar," it usually grows as a woody shrub or small tree in areas where water is at or near the surface.
Starting in the 1850s, several species of tamarisk were imported to the United States as ornamentals and for use in erosion control. Since its introduction, tamarisk has quickly spread into natural wetlands, where it tends to form dense thickets along streams and springs, displacing native trees such as cottonwood, willow and mesquite. Tamarisk has invaded almost all watercourses and other wetland habitats throughout the Southwest, taking over more than one million acres of wetland.
Tamarisk is distinguished by its feathery, needle-like leaves and numerous small, pink flowers at the ends of the branches. Up to 500,000 small, windblown seeds can be produced per plant.
The tamarisk is highly adapted to arid climates. It thrives in very saline and nutrient-poor soil. During the spring it can grow as much as one foot per month. It spreads readily by seed and by root, trunk, and branch sprouts.
Tamarisk can usually out-compete native plants for water. A single, large tamarisk can transpire up to 300 gallons of water per day. In many areas where watercourses are small or intermittent and tamarisk has taken hold, it can severely limit the available water, or even dry up a water source.
Tamarisk can grow in salty soil because it can eliminate excess salt from the tips of its leaves. When the leaves are shed, this salt increases the salinity of the soil, further reducing the ability of native plants to compete. Because of its ability to spread, its hardiness, its high water consumption, and its tendency to increase the salinity of the soil around it, the tamarisk has often completely displaced native plants in wetland areas.
http://www.nps.gov/whsa/tamarisk.htm
From a wildlife point of view, the tamarisk has little value and is usually considered detrimental to native animals.
The leaves, twigs and seeds are extremely low in nutrients, and, as a result, very few insects or wildlife will use them.
In one study along the lower Colorado River, tamarisk stands supported less than 1% of the winter bird life that would be found in a native plant stand.
Because of the tamarisk's ability to eliminate competition and form single-species thickets, wildlife populations have dropped dramatically.
http://www.nps.gov/whsa/tamarisk.htm
Are you saying that because it won't be easy, it negates the validity of the problem? Or because its difficult, that we should avoid doing it, and only do those things that are easy?
No, but lets be realistic, who should pay and when has a government program like this worked?
Oh, I get it. Tamarisk is the liberal of the plant life!
Not to be argumentative, I'm just not up onstuff like this, but when was the last time the government had a program to do something like this? (Not that I really trust ANY government program.)
Secondly, what are the current costs of the loss of water? What would the financial benefits be with the removal of these plants? How much would the eradication of these plants be?
From what I've heard on this subject, the only way to kill these plants, is to cut them down AND kill them with herbescide.
At my old church, we had a yearly work day for the Jr. High and High school kids. A number of times I was involved with cleaning up local nature areas. Once we had to go into a wetlands area and cut out non native trees/shrubs that had overtaken the area, and a person would paint the remainder of the growth with the herbiscide.
What type of impact could happen if local environmental groups would team up with local youth groups to combat this issue?
The eradication plan here in the trans-Pecos is pretty low cost... there is a small beetle that eats the damn thing... and lady-bugs eat the beetles. I don't have the figures in front of me, but saltcedar infested land loses about 50% of its value, more if its grazing land -- a huge loss to our county tax base.
I wonder if the Southwest Region of the US Fish and Wildlife Service is still opposed to this program? They certainly were eight years ago.
Deciduous, pentamerous saltcedar is a small, exotic tree introduced to the Southwest near the turn of the century from southern Eurasia .
Saltcedar, now a dominant riparian shrubby tree in the Colorado River basin below 2,000 m elevation, spread rapidly throughout the system via wind-dispersed seeds ...
http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Biota/tamarisk.htm
The USFS is slowly coming around. Native birds and animals prefer native trees like Cottonwoods and such.
" its voracious appetite for water. In any given year, Tamarix consumes 163 billion gallons of water from the Colorado River Basin, an amount equivalent to the water alloted to the state of Nevada. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarisk
oops.
US Fish and Wildlife Service is slowly coming around...
Beetles released to fight tamarisk
About 60,000 saltcedar leaf beetles will be released in seven states to help control saltcedar, also called tamarisk, which is a noxious weed. In Colorado recently, beetles were released at three sites: Adams, Mesa and Yuma counties.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture Insectary in Palisade is the clearinghouse for the project and is working in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Colorado State University to release the beetles in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Oregon, Kansas and Idaho this year.
"The reason for such intense interest in Colorado is that saltcedar is a major weed problem in much of the state," said Dan Bean, state biocontrol specialist at CDA.
"It competes with native vegetation along streams and rivers, such as cottonwood and willow and it uses large amounts of water, a scarce resource.
It also interferes with recreational use of rivers and is inferior to native vegetation as wildlife habitat."
http://www.hpj.com/archives/2005/aug05/aug15/Beetlesreleasedtofighttamar.cfm?go=yd&0.58693716786
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