Russian River weeds mowed down in a flash

By Kerry Benefield
June 13, 2007
© 2007 Santa Rosa Press Democrat

With a mighty roar, a flail mower flattened a massive patch of bamboolike weed Tuesday near the Russian River, doing in moments a job that has taken weeks for crews working by hand.

For four years, crews of conservationists have been trying to eradicate a fast-growing bamboo-like weed called Arundo donax from the banks of the Russian River.

Until now, they have worked the tight nooks around the river's tributaries, spaces the brush hog wouldn't fit, with high-powered weed-whackers, clippers and herbicides applied with paint brushes.

It was slow and painstaking, according to Kara Heckert, executive director of the Sotoyome Resource Conservation District, a leading player in the eradication program.

With much of the tributary work finished, the effort has shifted to the river itself where the banks are more accessible to mechanical cutters.

On Tuesday, drivers powered the machine over groves of 10-feet high weeds near the Geyserville Bridge, snapping the rigid stalks like twigs.

"I think this is pretty much the answer to the success of this project," Heckert said over the roar of the brush hog.

The weed is non-native and when living on riverbanks, sucks down three to five times the amount of water of a local plant, robbing salmon of habitat, Heckert said.

Native birds and animals have little use for the tall, skinny stalk and during the dry summer months, the weed becomes highly flammable, according to Noelle Johnson, outreach coordinator for Circuit Rider Productions, a Windsor nonprofit agency that is working on the eradication effort.

"It's a huge fire hazard," she said. "There's a lot of dead material in there and it could just go up like a tinderbox."

The automobile-sized brush hog uses metal teeth to break the stiff stalks. The weed must then be chipped to pieces no bigger than two inches long or it could re-root, Heckert said.

In many cleared areas, crews have planted native species like willows, coyote brush and cottonwoods.

Yet for some landowners, even the prospect of ridding their property of the weed didn't make signing on to the eradication program easy.

The idea of inviting a government agency onto their land has some property owners skeptical of the plan.

"A lot of people are paranoid about that," said Rand Dericco, vineyard manager for Syar Family Vineyards where crews were working near his cabernet grapes Tuesday.

Some landowners worry that government officials coming to check out how grant funds are being used might nose around and interfere with other, unrelated business, according to Al Cadd, president of the Russian River Property Owners Association.

"The only concern is that landowners don't want government around," he said. "But I think the contract is pretty explicit in what they can and can't do."

Heckert said any state minders are required to give ample notice before coming on private property and their only duty is to make sure the weed eradication program is working.

Dericco, who said he's worked with the conservation district and Circuit Riders on another piece of Syar property farther up the river, said he's had no problems.

"If we look the other way forever, it's going to take over," Dericco said.

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This article is available on the Santa Rosa Press Democrat website. Photographs courtesy of Circuit Rider Productions.