Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service workers Greg Queener, center, and Rebecca Johnson spray individual spartina plants mixed with native grasses near the high tide line in Willapa Bay on Friday. |
Spartina's tide may be ebbing
Saturday, July 2, 2005 11:31 PM PDT
By Marissa Harshman
Printable version
E-mail this articleWILLAPA BAY -- A puff of blue herbicide smothers grass that is nearly two feet tall. To scientists, it brings a sense of hope that they may finally be able to rid Willapa Bay of Spartina, a stubborn invader.
"This actually looks better and better every time I come out here," said Terri Butler, leader of a spartina control project, surveying a meadow of the grass, some of it dead stubble, some of it living and combed by coastal breezes.
About 14,000 acres of the bay's intertidal mudflats are covered by spartina, down from 15,000 acres in 2003, Butler said.
This is the first year there is a chance that state and federal agencies may be able to treat spartina infestations throughout all of Willapa Bay. And for the first time biologists are optimistic they can eradicate the grass from the entire 80,000-acre waterway
Spartina, a native of the east coast, is a non-native grass that for a while threatened to engulf the bay. Uncontrolled, it would have ruined a multimillion dollar oyster industry and feeding grounds for hundreds of thousands of migrating and resident shorebirds.
Wildlife agencies have been struggling with the weed for more than a decade, but a full-on assault on the troublesome plant didn't start in 2002. That's when state, federal and private agencies adopted the Comprehensive Spartina Eradication plan. The six-year project now is in its third year, and officials say improvements are apparent.
"We're seeing first-hand the use of products to combat invasive weeds," said Allan Noe, communications director of CropLife America, a trade association of herbicide makers that donated herbicide to the Willapa Bay project.
Each year the team at Willapa Bay resprays the areas treated the previous year and then expands and sprays new areas. The plan is scheduled to finish in 2008, and Butler said all of the spartina in the bay should be killed by then.
Butler said by the end of the summer she and her team plan to spray herbicides on 11,000 acres of spartina. She said they also plan to treat all plants that have the potential to produce seed by the end of July.
The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Department of Natural Resources are among several agencies that are involved with the workers at Willapa Bay
A combination of two herbicides mixed with a blue dye has proven to be effective in killing spartina, Butler said. The blue dye allows workers to see where they have already sprayed.
The top of the plant must stay dry for six hours to kill the grass. If rain or high tides wash off the chemicals, the grass must be resprayed.
A crew of 32 permanent and temporary workers is spraying herbicide from airboats, amphibious machines and backpacks, Butler said. The amphibious machines measure 24 feet long and 14 feet wide and can travel on land and through water.
By next summer the large meadows of spartina should have been killed, and crews will hunt down surviving patches. This type of seek-and-destroy work, Butler said, requires more workers, which is why she hopes to hire 20 more people next summer.
This winter Butler and her crew will begin rototilling some fields of spartina.
"We began rototilling in 2000," Butler said. "It's slow but very effective. It creates a slurry that smothers the spartina so it can't survive."
The rototilled land is also more inviting to the wildlife that once occupied the mudflats at Willapa Bay, she said.
The plant, originally from the East Coast, was introduced to the area in 1894, Butler said. After a few decades of adjusting to the climate, spartina growth exploded, she said.
"Some people say we should sit back and let mother nature go," president of CropLife America Jay Vroom said. "Spartina shows us that it's our responsibility to help mother nature take back control."
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