House slates $1.4 million to root spartina from Willapa Bay
Saturday, June 19, 2004 12:56 AM PDT
By Staff
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E-mail this articleU.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, announced Friday that he and Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., have helped budget $1.4 million to fight an invasive plant that threatens the shellfish industry in Willapa Bay.
The money is included in the Fiscal Year 2005 Interior Appropriations Bill, which still nees U.S. Senate approval and President Bush's signature. The money would fund the third year of a six-year plan to rid the Willapa region of spartina.
The non-native grasses convert mud flats into shallow meadows, carpet shorebird foraging grounds and spoil fish habitat. The plants also encroach on Willapa's oyster-growing grounds, threatening a shellfish industry that pumps more than $20 million each year into a Pacific County economy as fragile as the bay's ecology.
In 1995, the Washington State Legislature declared the spartina infestation an environmental emergency, directed state environmental agencies to assign a high priority to its control. Last year alone, state and federal agencies sprayed about 5,000 acres of spartina-infested tidal flats.
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