Editorial 10.5, May 2008, by Deirdre Helfferich Green Invaders from Outer Space! Last summer, walking from my house down to the village, I noticed that the roadside on Lower Stone was beginning to look uncommonly green. The usual plants, roses and highbush cranberries, horsetails and youthful willows, just aren’t that brilliant or tall. It was white sweet clover. And it got thicker and taller as the summer wore on. It was not just a few plants mixed in with the other clovers and dandelions and the plants native to Alaska, it was fast becoming a thick hedge, choking the others out. It had snuck into the peaceable Ester roadside community and then gone on a green blitzkrieg. It had crept up the first steep hill and was rounding the first big bend already. It was the Green Leafy Invader from the Lower 48! My bill-paying job is on campus, in the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, where, among other things, I edit and produce Agroborealis magazine. We’d had an article on invasive weeds in Alaska parks in the summer 2005 issue, and one on mapping using B.O.B., a camera-carrying observation blimp, in the winter 2004 issue. Among the things being observed with this blimp was the spread of invasive plants in the Matanuska-Susitna watersheds—in particular, the spread of white sweet clover, which was clogging riverbanks all over. And here this pernicious, fast-growing and -spreading weed was threatening to overwhelm the berry bushes of Ester! Well, I couldn’t have that. So I started yanking. The stuff is difficult as hell to get out of the ground when the soil is dry, but after a rain, even the big, well-established plants would come right out. I pulled and pulled, and when I got tired, I’d head on to where I was going in the first place. When I came back, I’d pull a few more on the way. But white sweet clover really does grow amazingly fast, and I seemed to be the only one pulling it up. I cleared out a few patches by the end of the summer, but it had gotten to both sides of the road. I really hadn’t tried that hard, but still. It was somewhat ironic to be uprooting these pests when, years ago, I had written a tongue-in-cheek editorial on Saving Our Dandelions after the news about dandelion-digging brigades in Denali National Park. However, dandelions are colonizers who want to settle in disturbed soil; this stuff is a massive marching take-no-prisoners army out to obliterate the natives. There’s an order of magnitude of difference in white sweet clover’s ability to take over versus your average dandelion’s much more friendly approach to moving in as a new neighbor. White sweet clover is ranked at 80 on a scale of 0-100 in invasiveness by the Alaska Weed Ranking Project, putting it in the top six worst greeneries in the state.* Dandelions are down around 58. White sweet clover is out for blood. Or perhaps it’s sap. I started paying closer attention to the roadside plants in Ester, and I spotted that miniature kudzu of the north, bird vetch (ranked 73). This is the species that has wiped out the Alaska cotton that used to grow around the duck pond near the university and can now be seen every year doing its best to overwhelm every living thing, plus a few fences, on campus and by the highway. In the woods I started to notice other plants, like Siberian pea (66), that have gotten away from the various hedges and yards in which their parents were planted. I started to think what it would be like when these new plants shoved aside the cranberries and wild roses and other edible bushes and plants that I grew up with. I began truly to appreciate why it is that white sweet clover and others are termed “noxious” and “invasive.” And so I laid my plans for this summer: I would do battle. First, of course is the alert to the village: this editorial. Next, as soon as those little green monsters stick up their identifiable sprouts, I plan to make a systematic and concerted effort to eliminate them. Look for me by the side of the road, and give me a hand if you have a little time and value our rosehips! For more information, go to Alaska Committee for Noxious and Invasive Plants Management, www.uaf.edu/ces/cnipm/, the Alaska Invasive Species Working Group (www.uaf.edu/ces/aiswg/), or the Alaska Natural Heritage Program’s weed website (http://akweeds.uaa.alaska.edu/). * The worst, with a score of 87, is Giant or Japanese knotweed, a real problem around Anchorage, followed by spotted knapweed (86), purple loosestrife (84), reed canarygrass (83), and ornamental jewelweed (82). GVEA Board Elections The District 2 election is either going to be a close one—or a slam-dunk. It’s hard to tell at this juncture, but your vote is important. Tom DeLong, the incumbent, was rejected by the nominating committee, but got on the ballot through a petition drive. He’s made a name for himself by his support for renewable energy and conservation, term limits for board members, more transparency, and for his lone dissenting vote on the G&T proposal (this proposal was later trounced by the GVEA membership). The Ester Republic endorses DeLong, in part because of his history on the board and in part because he is the only candidate who is offering both short- and long-term solutions to increased costs that encourage conservation and use of renewable energy. He also comes out to hobnob with his constituency from time to time! I urge you to vote, and to vote for Tom DeLong. The deadline for submitting ballots is June 10, 5 pm. | ||
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