Invasive weed clogs the Laguna de Santa Rosa

[This is a big problem! Anybody got any ideas? - Barry]

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Invasive weed clogs the Laguna de Santa Rosa
By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 6:16 p.m.

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JOHN BURGESS/Press Democrat
Erik Hawk, assistant manager with the Marin/Sonoma Mosquito
and Vector Control District, wades into acres of invasive ludwigia
in search of mosquito larvae in the Laguna de Santa Rosa north
of Occidental Road.

The morning serenity and the egrets and herons lifting off the still water at the approach of the air boat gave Laguna de Santa Rosa a faraway, safari-like feel.

The tranquility, however, masked the failing health of the laguna, a summer waterway and winter catch-basin being choked to death by the return of the virulent weed ludwigia.

Hundreds of acres of the laguna's wetlands are carpeted with the green weed, and shallower channels are either totally blocked or will be within a month, the plants reaching out with finger-like tentacles from bank to bank.

And despite decades of work to bring back the wetlands and more direct efforts to remove the weed, ludwigia has emerged as the most significant threat to the laguna, a 16-mile waterway from the Russian River to Cotati recently designated as a wetlands of international importance by the Ramsar Convention, a group represented by 160 countries, including the U.S.

And there is no plan for permanently dealing with it.

“Nasty stuff,” said Erik Hawk, assistant manager and biologist for the Marin-Sonoma Mosquito and Vector Control District.

Hawk last week worked his way by air boat through the swamp-like setting, periodically stopping in shallow water to wade into the ludwigia looking for mosquito larvae.

But the mosquito habitat it creates is just one of the problems brought by this weed, which started gaining a foothold about 20 years ago.

It also removes oxygen vital to a variety of fish that includes Pacific and river lamprey, prickly sculpin, California roach, minnows, hardhead and hitch and the coho, chinook and steelhead that pass through it on the way to spawning streams.

“I think you could have areas that have some good habitat and other areas that will become really sterile,” said Bill Cox, a retired state Department of Fish and Game biologist, referring to the weed's effect on fish.

Wildlife, such as otters, cannot swim through it and ludwigia clogs flood control channels.

From a purely recreational and aesthetic standpoint, you can't paddle a boat through ludwigia, which will grow three to five feet above the water surface. It also yellows quickly, turns the water a tea brown and gives off a sulphur smell as it decomposes.

The first work to eradicate ludwigia was in 2005, a two-year program that cost $1.7 million to poison it and mechanically harvest it in the wetlands areas and from the channels.

However, it was a short-lived effort, driven by the need to remove mosquito habitat in the face of the West Nile virus threat and to clear flood control channels.

“If you pay $1.7 million, do you expect it to be gone for more than five years? You would hope so,” said David Bannister, executive director of the Laguna Foundation.

Luis Rivera, assistant executive director of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, said the agency is trying to identify the conditions that ludwigia finds favorable and then enact regulations to eliminate the sources.

“The efforts at eradication have been tried, and I will defer to the experts on them, but so far it has not worked,” Rivera said.

The water quality board is part of the task force that is attempting to find a solution. It includes the nonprofit Laguna Foundation, the city of Santa Rosa, the Sonoma County Water Agency, Fish and Game and the mosquito district.

In the 2005 attempt, ludwigia was uprooted and poisoned, and 30,000 cubic yards of the noxious plant was hauled away.

Santa Rosa wants to remove about 40,000 cubic yards of the plant this summer from several miles of channel in the Stony Point Road area. But it has to meet new regional water quality rules requiring Santa Rosa to offset the nutrients from Santa Rosa's winter discharge of treated wastewater into the laguna.

The county Water Agency is planning to deepen some of the laguna's feeder creeks as flood control measures and to plant trees to shade the creeks and cool the water, both of which could slow ludwigia's growth.

“We are looking for sustainable solutions rather than just going after it with a sledgehammer, by addressing the conditions that sustain it,” said Keenan Foster, a Water Agency environmental specialist.

Ludwigia has thrived since it first showed up in the laguna. It's a South American native plant that may have been dumped in from an aquarium or ornamental planting.

It is admittedly only one of the laguna's many problems, which include sediment washed in from the hills, nutrients from runoff of the ranches that border it and the Santa Rosa wastewater treatment plant that discharges into it during the winter.

“There are other things that have impact on the health — 150 years of changes to land use, cutting down the riparian forest that used to exist along the banks of the laguna, clearing the land for agriculture and using the laguna as recipient of human and agriculture waste,” Bannister said.

Ludwigia remains the most immediate threat and a priority, and Bannister is putting his hopes in the task force to combat it.

“Our vision is let's get the smartest people we can all in one room, and let us try to figure out a way to get it done,” Bannister said.

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The long term solution to the eradication ofLludwigia in the Laguna is really quite simple and the solution has been well known for a long time. One of the few places in the Laguna that doesn't have a Ludwigia problem is the Sebastopol Pond, the reach of the Laguna behind the baseball fields in Sebastopol. The reason for there is no Ludwigia is that the Laguna is well shaded by riparian trees. Ludwigia doesn't grow well in shade.

What appears to me to be the obvious solution is to reforest the rest of the Laguna. While I appreciate that this is a long term solution, if we had started 20 years ago we would be done. Sprigging willows is not a particularly complicated endeavor, although for those of us that are older after a few hours the process becomes physically challenging.

The question isn't about how, but when.

I spent years with many others dealing with this issue: Here's the deal!
Speech at Sebastopol City Council from April 4^th 2006


My name is Magick and I spent a lot of the last few years working with many wonderful people who love the Laguna. I have learned much and know that my learning will be a lifelong love affair. In my work with Laguna Lovers and the Pepperweed Project I have been proud to say that Sebastopol has stood in the forefront in holding to its policy as a pesticide Free Zone.I want to thank you again for your letter in opposition to the spraying that took place last year. Because you were right, this was not the way to deal with the situation at all.

According to John Short the Chief Engineer of the Sonoma County Waterboard the work near Occidental road was not successful. The spray failed to kill the plants and there was actually a lot of regrowth shortly after the initial spraying. According to Patty Clary of the Californians Against Toxics the scientific community is recognizing that herbicides are not successful in dealing with a dominant species.

Last year we argued that if there was going to be mechanical removal then they should not use herbicides as well.The argument given by the Task Force was that when you chop it up, it fragments into millions of tiny pieces that can sprout and grow new plants so they had to kill it first with herbicides. But since they couldn’t get their spray boats in there they went against their own logical argument and brought in a machine called a Cookie Cutter and went right down the middle of the Laguna and chopped it all into floating fragments.

Glyphosate

There is no measurement of the damage that is being done to all the species that live there but we do know that glyphosate is deadly to fungus which is a natural water cleanser. That it is harmful and sometimes deadly to amphibians and salmonids. It is an endocrine disrupter and has caused miscarriage in Canadian farmers. The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent studies show it is the ovaries that are effected most. Dr Mary Maddox Gonzalez, our county Health officer, states that pesticides are a leading cause in the asthma epidemic and that children are most effected by these chemicals.

Now the Laguna Foundation proposes to use triclopyr. Dr. Marc Lappe, our highly respected local expert that recently passed away, fought to end the use of such toxics. He found that tryclopyr is also harmful to the reproductive system.

It is more persistent than glyphosate and therefore there is concern about it leeching into the groundwater. It is also an odd choice considering it is usually used for grasses and would be deadly to willows and oak seedlings.

Sta-put a drift control agent was also used without the public or the waterboard ever being informed, and yet it is regulated like an herbicide. It is an eye and skin irritant and is combustible. Not only that it s 1% poly vinyl, in other words, what they sprayed out there was plastic.

We have no idea what these chemicals are doing in combination withal the other chemicals, both medical and agricultural, that are not eliminated and therefore dumped into the Laguna from the wastewater plants.

We need to uphold the precautionary principle which states that if we can’t prove its isn’t harmful we shouldn’t use it.

The agreement to keep the turbidity below 20% was also broken and these boats were allowed to churn up the water. We have no way of knowing what it did to all the life in this delicate ecosystem, but it was described as akin to boiling the water.

The large machines that were used to haul out the plants, destroyed the very important riparian zones that are now trying to recover from the devastation.

In other words like the Press Democrat stated this was a war on Ludwigia and like any war zone there was death, injury and devastation.

Yes, the Ludwigia is clogging the Laguna but the question is why and what function is it fulfilling? Nature responds to our actions and if you ask Mike Reynolds who headed up much of the work at the Llano treatment plant for over 20 years, “If the waterboard doesn’t have the courage to impose large fines on the Dairies and other polluters the nutrient load will continue to feed the explosion of this plant.”

Put simply this means that Ludwigia is actually serving its natural function of cleaning the water by drawing up excess nutrients, silt and heavy metals.

In fact if you Google Ludwigia it is quite amazing to find that you see the Laguna Foundation’s report on killing this plant right next to many reports about how Ludwigia is actually planted in structured wetlands to do exactly what it is doing in the Laguna. It is cleaning the water.

If the level of nutrients were brought down the Ludwigia would naturally withdraw to the edges of the waterway.

If we spent all this time and money planting trees and shrubs to restore the riparian zones so they could act as filters and prevent much of the siltation then the Ludwigia would not grow in these shady areas or in water deeper than 3 feet.

But this is common sense and is commonly discounted in the name of science that is funded by big herbicide companies.

Last year The task Force stated that Ludwigia hexapetela is a non-native invasive when in fact according to the Jepsom manual the standard for California plant identification it is listed as native.

Now researcher Brenda Grewell of Davis states that they don’t actually know what plant this is.

It would seem that with all that I am telling you now this travesty against our precious water source would have never taken place.
So what is it in our culture that allows for rational cruelty to continue to be the dominant paradigm

We must go deeper to see that the cause of the problem is rooted in the psychology of our culture.

We are still suffering from a dualistic approach to problem solving; put simply it goes like this: identify the enemy, use propaganda to devalue the enemy and make us hate them and now that we are de-sensitized and have lost all compassion they offer the method to search and destroy.

Make us the good guys then nature’s response to our degradation actually becomes the problem and the War is on!

This is the same method used in any war whether it is against humans or the glassy winged sharpshooter or any living thing.
To call a plant invasive, noxious, and an enemy to the natives are loaded words. Invasive is hardly an objective scientific term.

But when we allow science to be separated from the heart we are capable of rationalizing the killing of other species.

To truly understand the problem we need to look at causes not just the symptoms. Otherwise we are just creating an addiction to the herbicides that only put a bandage on a deeply wounded water way.

My life is dedicated to the recognition that all life is sacred and interconnected. The dominant spiritual values in our cultures continue to operate within the good/bad dichotomy.

If we can not recognize that we are part of nature and no plant, no animal is our enemy then we will continue to allow the war against nature to continue unabated.

According to the Gala principle the earth is a conscious living body and to pour poisons, feces, and pharmaceuticals into her water is to show a blatant disregard for life itself. It is no different than pouring poison in the holy water of a priest.

When I watched the video of the Laguna Task force it was so disturbing to hear it suggested that they were considering aerial spraying this year and to not see a single soul in the room object.

Then the suggestion was made that there may be a need to spray earlier and that that could be fatal to some of the salmonid. The response was from the man representing the fisheries. He offered to help find away to get around the Endangered species act by getting a permit that is called a “take” which allows a certain number of salmonid to die.

I watched the entire 2 hours and never heard a single person in this room full of scientists say one word of concern for the death and devastation of their brothers and sisters in the plant and animal world.

I am sure that these people were drawn to this profession because they loved the outdoors and spent hours fascinated by the amazing mysteries of nature. I have faith that their spirits can be reawakened to the love of cooperating in supporting life and to give up the domination and killing that has so defined our culture for thousands of years.

We are at a crucial point in the evolution of our planet. With the rapid devastation of the natural world, global warming and extinction on the rise, we must do everything in our power to reintegrate ourselves into the natural order of existence and let nature lead us and be our teacher once again.

I am asking you to take action by requesting the Task Force do an Environmental Impact Report so we can create together an environmentally superior alternative to this project. Secondly I am asking you to repeat your request of last year to not use pesticides and instead work with nature planting willows, and oaks. that will restore our riparian zones.

We are a Pesticide Free Zone lets continue to lead the way to save our beloved Laguna!

Barry and all, It would be so exciting if the 11,000 people on this list decided to take action on local issues in our community. RIght now the approval of this disastrous plan that was already done once is about to happen again.
They are about to rip up the Laguna so they can say they have removed the nutrient load, so they can continue to dump nutrients in the Laguna, when the law goes into affect for zero tolerance of toxic overload.
If you think that's sounds like 1984 doublespeak it is. Like carbon credits, mitigation and all the rest its just a way to keep on polluting and pretending you are doing the right thing.
I have worked on this issue for years.
For wacco to be a real community its got to get activated, gratitude is great, but action is needed, Here, locally. The Laguna is an impaired waterway, being polluted by our vineyards and dairies. Yours in truth, Magick

Can you provide a little more info (including links) and what you suggest in the way of action?

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Posted in reply to the post by Magick:

Barry and all, It would be so exciting if the 11,000 people on this list decided to take action on local issues in our community. RIght now the approval of this disastrous plan that was already done once is about to happen again.
They are about to rip up the Laguna so they can say they have removed the nutrient load, so they can continue to dump nutrients in the Laguna, when the law goes into affect for zero tolerance of toxic overload.
If you think that's sounds like 1984 doublespeak it is. Like carbon credits, mitigation and all the rest its just a way to keep on polluting and pretending you are doing the right thing.
I have worked on this issue for years.
For wacco to be a real community its got to get activated, gratitude is great, but action is needed, Here, locally. The Laguna is an impaired waterway, being polluted by our vineyards and dairies. Yours in truth, Magick

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Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:

[This is a big problem! Anybody got any ideas? - Barry]

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ok i'll bite, ever heard of nutria? of course to control this giant ludwigia loving water rat we might need to import anacondas. unless we are willing to eat them ourselves, i hear they are really tasty and have very fine pelts.

Since ludwigia doesn't grow where shaded by a canopy of trees, has anyone explored the idea of creating an artificial canopy in key locations until the planted trees are large enough to provide this shade? Just curious.