Agency plans to use herbicides to battle noxious plants

Scotchbroom, an invasive species found in Curry County, costs Oregon $47 million annually in lost timber production. Photo by Eric Coombs, Oregon Department of Agriculture

“The proposal is to treat about 90 or so sites of state listed noxious weeds such as gorse and some thistles,” said Clint Emerson, district botanist for the U.S. Forest Service. “It’s not every species. We’re leaving out star thistle and scotch broom. Some weeds, it’s just as easy to kill them by pulling them. Others, if you pull them, it makes them grow faster.”

Emerson has been the Forest Service botanist in the Gold Beach area for 2 1/2 years, but has been a Forest Service botanist for about 12 years.

He said the proposal is to use small scale herbicide on 60 or 70 acres in the Gold Beach and Powers ranger districts in the Invasive Plant Treatment Project.

While the decision to use herbicides has been made, it is still subject to administrative  review or public appeal, which must be filed with the agency by Oct. 17.

Written appeals can be submitted by mail to the Appeal Deciding Officer, 3040 Biddle Road, Medford, OR 97504 or by Fax at 541-618-2400, or by e-mail: appeals-pacific This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Forest Service has been considering the use of the herbicides for 20 years or so, Emerson said.

“It’s a pretty environmentally sensitive issue. Some people are dead set against using herbicide. I’m not really a proponent of it myself, but we’re proposing using herbicides on a conservative scale only on species we can’t remove by pulling.

“When you go to pull them, they break up under the ground and new ones sprout. It kind of like invigorates them,” Emerson said.

“After we treat the noxious weeds, pulling or spraying, we try to re-vegetate the area,” he said. “We collect native grass seeds, alder, conifers, shrubs, all kinds of native species. We’ll re-vegetate those areas, trying to get them back to native vegetation. We don’t pull or spray and walk away from them.”

Emerson said the Forest Service has talked about the need for herbicides for many, many years.

“I just don’t think anyone wanted to put time in to deal with potential lawsuits and environmental groups who disagree with any sort of herbicide use,” he said.

“Without herbicides, we basically won’t be able to get rid of them. We could spend a lot of time swimming upstream,” Emerson said. “If you got a crew of 60 people or so and dig each root up and spend the money, it’s just time and money we don’t have.”

Emerson said those noxious weeds tend to be worse in meadows and along roadsides.

“The Rogue River corridor is really bad. But we’re not proposing to spray herbicides along the river,” he said.

“What we’re looking at is oak flat, clear cuts, places that have been logged over. As trees re-grow and shades start to re-establish, they’re shaded out. Most are shade intolerant,” Emerson said.

The Forest Service has shared its plans with local environmental groups, Emerson said.

“I don’t know if we’ll get appealed or not. I’ve met with the environmental groups, trying to let them know I’m not going to run willy-nilly with herbicide everywhere. They may still appeal. They usually wait until the last day, which will be about Oct. 17,” he said.

“If they appeal, it will go into an appeal period, which lasts about 30 days,” Emerson said. “In the end, we hope to start the process next spring. If they sue us, it will be several years. I don’t think they will.”

He said those noxious weeds that cannot be successfully pulled can become a major problem.

“Japanese knotweed could take over the ecosystem. You may have a favorite swimming hole. Ten years ago it was nice, then it’s taken over by blackberries,” Emerson said.

“There might be a little known or rare plant growing in some area and some kind of thistle or noxious weed takes over its habitat. That plant my be displaced. In our area, the Siskiyou Mountains, there can be major problems for sure,” he said.

The Forest Service has been pulling noxious weeds by hand for about 17 years, he said.

“We’ve made a lot of progress on scotch broom, and gorse. Other things, thistle, we’re 50-50 on that.

“Every year we hire a couple of people and spend a couple of months on pulling weeds. Every site is different. Some you can drive up and be done in an hour, others you can work on for a week. It depends on soil, a lot of variables.”