Weed Advisory Meeting

July 11, 2009

Marion County Public Works

Willamette Room

Members Present: Bob Brown, John Savage, Ralph Fisher, Mike Ricks, Dan Goffin, Liz Redon, Nick Castellano

Staff Present:Tanya Beard, Maryjean Rose

Absent: Tom Shamberger, Robert Dyk, Terry Witt, Kurt Spingath

Public Present: None

Meeting called to order: 7: 37

Minutes from March 11, 2008: John motioned to approve minutes, everyone approved.

Information Share by Committee Members:

  • Nick said the legislature is going to fade out field burning. How does that affect farmers and weeds? Is there a connection? Mike said they would use more herbicide. Dan said they had a lot less weeds when they were burning their fields. Dan said people don’t see the chemicals being sprayed, but they see the smoke. Discussion ensued.
  • Dan said he has not seen a cinnabar moth in the area this year. Tanya has seen a lot of them in the Stayton so they are around the area.
  • Legislative Bill 629 did not pass. Tanya said this is bad news for the weed district. There were no bills directed at noxious weeds that went through. There is no funding. However, Oregon Invasive Species Council put out 12additional bills and 11 passed.
  • Deschutes County passed a bill allowing weed pulling to be added to the ODOT Adopt-A-Road program.
  • Tanya is ready to print the reference guide on noxious weeds that she has created. It is 42 pages of full color. She will print 1000 to start at about $1900. She plans to hand it out this season to adjoining counties, partners, staff, and other groups of interest. She noted that this is not something she will be handing out to fairs or other outside groups unless there is a specific need for them to have it.
  • Tanya has not received a large amount of weed complaints this year. Most have been miscellaneous, not tansy oriented, on vacant property which is making easy to deal with. Property owners tend to be banks, which prefer to not look bad in the public eye and take care of the problem promptly.

Workshop:

  • Tanya has received a lot of interest from Oregon Department of Forestry, BLM, etc. Tanya is in the process of getting announcements out. May be different then intended. Dan would like to know if it would be better to have one workshop just for agencies because their focus may be different for them. Mike said OSU Ext. already has their annual meetings for recertification. If focusing on invasive, noxious weeds it would be okay to spot train different groups, but in general they already have training. Discussion ensued.
  • John proposed getting a co-sponsorship to add additional funding.

Purple Star Thistle

  • Wheeler County has now found Purple Star Thistle near John Day. It is as noxious and irritating as Yellow Thistle. Found adjacent to river and the problem is that the seed is light and floats they do not know where it may end up. They have treated 9 acres on Thursday morning. Tanya said that is a lot there.
  • Yellow Star Thistle came from Montana, Idaho, and California. Idaho has a huge population of this weed, as well as California.

Yellow Flag Iris

  • Oregon Department of Ag spent day with Tanya to talk about why we haven’t been able to receive funding and what can we do differently to make it happen. Short answer was nothing and it won’t.
  • Looking at this plant outside Ankeny Wildlife Refuge, state weed board feels like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife needs to take action. Sidney ditch, outside refuge, is irrigation ditch. Went to Stayton to pond where it is spreading to beaver creek and has already populated Aumsville Ponds, they said there was no way to make it match their resource requirements. Aumsville Ponds harbor red-legged frog, Western pond turtle, and Oregon chub pond (at Gehren Island) to protect. They will give help for this park. What resource are you protecting? Is the question ODA needs to have answered succinctly before they will fund a project
  • John wanted to know what they identify as their priority resource that they are trying to protect? Tanya said wildlife habitat & T&E species.
  • Tanya should be able to get funding at Aumsville Ponds due to red-legged frog, turtle, and Oregon Chub.
  • Mike said in Linn County and there is drainage along the county road and yellow flag iris all over.
  • Liz said it can be seen in ditches all over the South Santiam. Liz said the county (Linn) is interested in forming a weed control district.
  • Tanya said there may be other ways to deal with the Yellow Flag Iris. It has been discovered in Mehama area. Tanya wanted to know if it would make sense to protect the resources of the Santiam River. Salmon, water quality, etc should be protected. They agreed. Inventory will be done this year, which will give a population baseline for this year. At least that will prevent it from spreading along this river and into the Willamette River.
  • Tanya spoke with Leslie Grimes. Leslie said she did not feel this is the right time to get intimately involved in any of the stuff that Tanya was mentioning to her. John stated that the reformed watershed councils need to get their priorities in line before they can begin any projects.
  • John said they came up short in organizations. John would like Tanya to come speak at the Alliance Meeting. He would like Tanya to talk about the kinds of cooperative projects that are possible.
  • John said the first thing Pringle Creek and Mill Creek need to do is an assessment.

Beaver Creek & Mill Creek Meeting

  • Dan needs someone (Tanya or Tom) on Wednesday at 7:30pm at Neufeldt’s restaurant in Aumsville for their Beaver Creek meeting. They have some funding they would like to use.
  • Dan would like Tanya at Mill Creek meeting on July 23rd. Dan said they need projects right now so it would be more helpful if Tanya spoke to them sooner than later.

What is the Weed District’s role with regard to other organizations?

  • Watershed Councils rely on our services with some regularity. At some point it needs to go beyond the good neighbor idea.
  • Liz would like to think about how they can pay for Tanya’s time. There is a point where Tanya cannot be all things to all people and she answers to the County Commissioners.
  • Tanya would like to have annual reports to the Commissioner’s. She would like to show our high efficacy to them while working on a shoestring budget. A lot of work has been done, even with a small staff and limited resources.
  • At what point do we start having talks with organizations about the fact that we are willing to train staff and do projects fro them, but we will need fiscal support?
  • John recommends 3 ideas to gain fiscal support:
  • Joint Grant Applications with other organizations
  • Become a line item on the SWCD budget and send some people to work with that board.
  • Fee for Service – I.e. Submit proposal to Dept. of Forestry that is a quasi grant.

Group all partners into one of the three camps to come up with funding plan for the next year in about 3 months. Liz and Tanya agreed that John’s suggestions are a good idea.

  • Tanya cannot do some things without being paid. Tanya would like to provide reports and have a high level of efficacy to commissioners. Tanya said we have gotten a lot of work done despite limited funds and staffing. With other projects, i.e. SWCD or other agencies, at what point do we say we will do this, but we need support from you to do more. At what point do we start having talks with those organizations that we are willing to put in to assist training their staff or doing ground projects, but in order to do that we need funding from them.
  • John would like to see a funding plan. John suggested a wish list of what they would like done and how much money they need to do it. Focus on how you are going to get it done as opposed to how it would be done. Figure out the details later.
  • Dan would like to get general support and some dollars from the Farm Bureau, Beaver Creek, Mill Creek Watershed Council & the Alliance. He says this will put pressure on the County to continue to support this. He suggests that we educate the staff in each town that is on the roads.
  • John wanted to know if a tax district has ever been done on the west side for the Weed District? Tanya said no. Discussion ensued about this possibility.
  • Only so much Tanya can do and how are we going to provide services and give them what we need? Fee for service is big possibility.

What more can you do? Who would you be doing it with?

John wanted to know what happened to SOLV weed thing. Liz thinks they had a director transition and that SOLV is doing a huge assessment of themselves, their direction, their mission, and how they go about doing things in the future. Discussion ensued.

Next Step:

  • Nickis going to research what it takes to create a fee-based district.
  • Tanya will create wish list.

Next Meeting: August 8, 2009

Adjourned: 8:58