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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2016
Pond spray: Pond was ‘incredibly beautiful, now it’s just incredibly green’
Spray protocol
Continued from Page 1A
invasive weeds, including the
parrotfeather that was taking
over the pond.
Bloom is upset that she
wasn’t notiied. She thinks the
herbicide may have killed some
trees and weakened other plants
on her lot and nearby city prop-
erty. She is worried about poten-
tial health risks for herself, rent-
ers, and wildlife that visit the
pond. Bloom said she feels “a
crime has been committed,”
but oficials from city of Ilwaco
and Washington Department of
Agriculture say the city didn’t
do anything wrong when it
applied the herbicide.
Bloom’s not satisied. She
is grappling with questions that
come up frequently in a commu-
nity where people love living in
close proximity to nature: When
a natural feature like a pond
stretches across both public and
private property, who gets to
decide how to manage it? And
what, if anything, can residents
do when landowners decide to
make legal, but controversial
decisions about well-loved sce-
nic spots?
These questions have come
up several other times in the
last year, in regards to a beloved
stand of trees in Klipsan that the
landowners harvested, aging
stands of spruce trees on coun-
ty-owned properties, debris in a
Chinook trailer park that blocks
neighbors’ view of Baker Bay
and oyster-growers’ proposal to
spray the Willapa Bay.
Pond memories
In 2005, Bloom and her hus-
band bought the single-wide
manufactured home, along with
a connected lot that houses a
garage. The pond overlaps both
plots.
“It was such a cute little
place,” Bloom recalled in late
August.
Workers, retirees and Coast
Guard families occupy many
of Vandalia’s low-slung, mod-
est homes, which are wedged
between the town’s rural airport
and the Wallacut River.
Despite the small size and
modest construction, Bloom
said the tree-lined pond and
mature alders gave the Scarboro
Lane home a park-like feel and
provided a sense of privacy to
the double-lot.
Not long after moving in,
Bloom noticed that an invasive
weed called parrotfeather was
taking over the pond. Native to
the Amazon River, parrotfeather
most likely started spreading
around the Western U.S. after
it was introduced to ponds and
David Plechl/EO Media Group
Barbara Bloom said she used several hand methods to control weeds for five years in
the pond. She holds two photos from 2009 that show the pond after her weeding and
before her health stopped her from keeping up with the work.
aquariums several decades ago.
Bloom asked the city and
others for advice. They all sug-
gested applying an herbicide,
but Bloom resisted. She took it
upon herself to weed the pond
without the use of what she
calls, “poison.”
Bloom fashioned a series of
rakes and ropes that she attached
to her pickup truck. She waded
into the tangled weeds and
sometimes used a paddleboat to
access hard-to-reach spots. She
regularly scooped out a green
ilm of duckweed with a ine ish
net. The city provided her with a
site near the airport to dump the
piles of parrotfeather she pulled,
but Bloom found that the weed,
once out of the water, quickly
decomposed. Four-foot mounds
of the stuff would reduce to a
black compost within a matter
of months, she said.
“It was a Herculean job,” she
said. “I did it for ive years.”
2009 was the last time she
cleaned it. Pictures from the time
show a clear and mostly weed-
free pond. In one image, Bloom
and her friend goof around in a
small boat as her husband keeps
hold of an attached line, “just
in case.” Within a year of the
photo, Bloom’s husband had
died, and her own health started
to decline.
In 2010, she purchased
a home in Long Beach, and
decided to rent the Scar-
boro Lane home. But without
Bloom’s constant weeding, the
parrotfeather grew and grew.
The pond “was just incred-
ibly beautiful, now it’s just
incredibly green,” Bloom said.
“This is what it does if you don’t
keep up after it.”
Poison in the pond
The city of Ilwaco maintains
a series of ponds and “green-
belts” within the neighborhood,
many of which are often used as
common spaces by neighbors.
The ponds play a function in
water table management within
the low-lying neighborhood.
Most of the pond is on
Bloom’s two lots, but one long
bank, now lined with small
dead trees, falls within the city
greenbelt.
“All the trees are dead sur-
rounding the pond,” Bloom
said. A few are on her property.
“We’ve got proof of overappli-
cation here.”
Bloom, who is a certiied
master gardener, claims, “they
didn’t even kill the weed that
they wanted to.”
Concerned that the herbi-
cide could be sickening the
alders that tower over the house,
Bloom called a forester friend,
who saw, “stress cones” on the
alders.
“When a tree is distressed,
it propagates itself that way,”
Bloom explained.
Bloom said she used to
delight at the dragonlies, frogs,
ducks and occasional blue heron
that would frequent the little
pond. Now when she looks at
the pond, she feels a sense of
dread and disgust.
She has made numerous
calls to the city and other agen-
cies, but none of those calls have
been very fruitful, she said. Most
recently, she submitted a letter
of complaint with the Washing-
ton Department of Ecology.
Dog almost drowns
Unbeknownst to Bloom, her
tenant, who has since moved
out, had asked the city to do
something about the out-of-con-
trol parrotfeather in the pond last
June.
Dave McKee, of the city’s
Public Works Department, vis-
ited the pond and took some pic-
tures. He forwarded the images
to the city and Paciic County
Vegetation Management, the
city’s contractor for all spray
jobs. McKee said they con-
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6 PM
Parrotfeather vs ‘Polaris’
According to Washing-
ton State Department of Ecol-
ogy documents, parrotfeather is
particularly bad in Wahkiakum,
Paciic and Cowlitz counties,
where it accumulates in fresh-
water lakes, ponds, and clogs up
drainage ditches.
Kim Patten, a research scien-
tist with Washington State Uni-
versity extension, said govern-
ments spend millions of dollars
a year controlling aquatic weeds
in thousands of miles of irriga-
tion canals and ditches in the
Columbia River basin. Some-
times it can be mechanically
controlled, other times spray-
ing the weeds is necessary, he
said. But no matter what you do,
“the weeds alway win, and they
always return.”
Patten said multiple applica-
tions are almost always neces-
sary to contain the weed.
“I’ve seen it thick enough
that you can walk on it,” Patten
said. “And I have walked on it.”
He said the herbicide Polaris,
the one used in the Vandalia
pond, contains an active ingredi-
ent called Imazapyr that is par-
ticularly effective at combating
parrotfeather and other noxious
weeds. It has been one of very
few herbicides that has effec-
tively controlled spartina growth
in the Willapa Bay, he said.
“It’s basically the only rea-
son we have Willapa Bay, is
because of the Imazapyr,” Pat-
ten said.
He said the chemical is quite
safe for both plants and animals.
LISTINGS
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
A
cluded it was invasive and “they
needed to get rid of it.”
The city checked a few
other ponds too, but ultimately
only sprayed the one. McKee
recalled posting notices at the
site days before it was sprayed.
“One of (the ponds) was
just completely taken over with
(weeds). Somebody called
because they almost lost their
dog. The dog jumped in and
almost drowned,” McKee said.
Beller, Ilwaco’s city clerk,
said the tenant had offered
to pull the weeds himself.
Because the city was already
spraying in Black Lake for Elo-
dea, city staff thought it made
sense to spray the little pond in
Vandalia, too.
She said the application
of herbicide to parrotfeather
in the pond would loosen the
roots, so that someone could
pull the weeds by hand later.
Beller wasn’t sure if that ever
happened.
Nevertheless, she said the
city and the contracted her-
bicide applicator did every-
thing right, including, notifying
the public and contacting the
Department of Ecology prior
to spraying. Beller said it was
unlikely the herbicide damaged
any trees.
“It has absolutely zero effect
on whatever she thinks is hap-
pening to the trees right now,”
Beller said.
She said the ponds are within
the city right-of-way and are
there for the purpose of alleviat-
ing the high water table.
According to Beller, prob-
lems can arise when a private
landowner decides to maintain
a city right-of-way without the
cooperation of the city.
“(Bloom) is a private land-
owner that, in her mind, has
taken over ownership of a city
right-of-way, which is illegal
and cannot be done, and should
not be done.” Beller said.
A Washington Department
of Agriculture investigator, Val-
erie Davis, determined that city
staff posted a notiication at the
site, the post ofice and city hall
and mailed notices to neighbors.
But because of the pond’s small
size, a special permit and the
notiication were not required.
“They went above and beyond
what they were required to do,”
Davis said of Ilwaco oficials.
Davis concluded Paciic
County Vegetation Manage-
ment complied with the require-
ments of their aquatic herbicide
application permit. She doubts
the herbicide damaged any foli-
age on land, and pointed out
that prolonged dry weather fol-
lowed by heavy winter rains
might have caused the problems
Bloom observed.
“It doesn’t seem likely that
a1-percent solution would kill
the trees,” Davis said.
Davis said Bloom might
not have received notiication
because she wasn’t living there
at the time.
“You could take a goldish and
put it in pure Imazapyr and it
would be ine,” he said.
Nevertheless,
especially
when combined with a surfac-
tant that helps the herbicide stick
to foliage, it can cause damage
to nontarget plants. He said it
can linger in soil and can read-
ily be taken up by the roots of
plants. Species like alders can be
sensitive, he said.
Whose pond is it?
Bloom said she feels she has
every right to manage the weed
how she sees it, at least in the
part of the pond that overlaps
her two lots. She has sought
advice on managing the weed
and containing the damage
she perceives the spraying has
caused trees around the pond
from several agencies. Recently,
she contacted the Senior Assis-
tance Center and asked to talk to
a lawyer. Her name was placed
on a waiting list, she said.
After learning Ilwaco ofi-
cials consider it a city pond, for
the enjoyment of all residents,
and the ownership of none.
Bloom said, “If that’s a city
pond, then I wonder why I’m
paying taxes on it.”
Bloom is worried potential
renters will have problems with
the pond. She recently spoke
with a woman that wanted to
rent the place, but Bloom wor-
ried the woman’s4-year-old
might wade into the pond and
get tangled in the parrotfeather.
For now, Bloom said she’ll
continue to weed her part of the
pond one way or another, but
she said she needs help to main-
tain the entire pond. She said
other neighbors are unhappy
that they often do more to main-
tain the city right-of-way than
the city itself.
Bloom said if it was just the
city’s property that was affected,
she wouldn’t have had such a
problem with what happened,
“But it’s my property too — and
not a word!”
“A community pond is what
I want,” Bloom said. “Put out a
lawn chair, feed the ducks, enjoy
the wildlife. That’s what I want.”
Now that the pond is green
and overrun with parrotfeather
and duckweed again, Beller said
she may have a city crew pull
the parrotfeather from the pond
by hand. In the future, she prom-
ised to notify Bloom personally
with any plans to weed or treat
the pond.
“I completely understand
where she’s coming from,”
Beller said. “I just don’t know
how else we could have alerted
her and taken care of these
concerns.”
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