Saturday, 01 May 2010 07:00

that our caucus has an opportunity to make a major impact on weed control through the County?  Crystal Yates-White is spearheading an effort to begin a proven program in our valleys.  The link following the article provides the road map to eradication of weeds in our area.  Please click on it to see how we can achieve this.  Crystal will be organizing interested residents to help her in this pursuit.

We all know that noxious weeds do not obey property boundaries.  In order to make significant headway in cleaning up noxious weed infestations, neighbors must control weeds on their own property in concert.  Otherwise, one thistle farm will continue to re-infest all of its surrounding and down-wind neighbors. Thus, it is important to look at infestations from a birds-eye perspective – across property lines and jurisdictions – and find ways to partner as neighbors.

A Cooperative Weed Management Area (CWMA) is a specific geographic area defined by neighbors and stakeholders.  Within this area, partners commit to specific noxious weed management goals and share resources to meet them.  Goals may include such things as eradicating a certain weed, cleaning up a certain property, or developing outreach programs.  One of the biggest benefits of forming such a partnership is MONEY.  Grant-making entities prefer to fund projects that include a variety of partners.  By forming a CWMA, partners have a good chance of securing significant grant funding for their weed management projects.  With this increase in funding – and by working together as a unit to human and financial resources – A CWMA can make significant gains in weed management that might otherwise be unattainable by an individual landowner.

Click here to view the CWMA Cookbook (PDF, 1.7 MB)

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