A lush, green tall grass prized for its quick growth in hay fields and ornamental gardens threatens the ecology of some Alaska rivers and holds the potential for economic harm as well, a Kenai Peninsula Borough official warns.
Reed canary grass -- the same chest-high aggressor that has uniformly crowded out hundreds of prairie plant species along Midwestern freeways and marshes -- is increasingly choking Kenai Peninsula streams and wet fields, according to borough land manager Marcus Mueller. The danger is that it could crowd out wetland birds and other animals, including the salmon upon which the region's recreational economy depends.
Mueller wants the state to ban the plant's importation and authorize targeted herbicide applications.
A joint program of the Kenai and Homer soil and water districts this year began a three-year study of invasive species using an $80,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last summer participants found 212 stands of reed canary grass around the Peninsula, and Mueller said he has seen it in more places -- from the coast to the rivers to low-lying mountains.
"It's definitely being established, and those stands that we see are healthy stands," Mueller said. "The outlook at this point is on the grim side."
What scares Mueller is the plant's ability to grow quickly in moist areas -- including in the water -- and with each successive season fold over into a new and thicker mat, blotting out the sun that other plants need. In the process it can clog salmon-rearing areas and destroy habitat for the insects upon which fish and birds feast.
"Under our present economy, we rely heavily on the native systems," Mueller said. "This poses a very tangible threat."
He has written to the state Division of Agriculture asking for a ban on selling or importing the grass, which homesteaders historically planted for hay. He also wants the various state and federal agencies to consider herbicides as a weapon to control its spread -- a sales job that he knows will be difficult.
"Herbicides in Alaska seem to have a certain voodoo attached to them," he said.
That much is clear from the public outcry over proposals to spray the Alaska Railroad's tracks and a corporate logging tract in Southeast Alaska. Plans to use toxins in what is generally regarded as a pristine frontier have drawn heated opposition.
The fact that Mueller is talking about the lifeblood of the Peninsula -- the Kenai River itself -- has salmon fishing guides worried.
"Herbicides have come a long way from where they were 30 years ago, but I'd be real suspect of using any kind of herbicide," said Mike Fenton, president of the Kenai River Professional Guides Association.
Still, he acknowledged the paradox of choosing between a poison and a grass that he has heard may harm salmon production.
"It is a Catch-22," Fenton said. "I don't know how bad the situation is with the grass. I've heard stories of it being around and probably seen it, not exactly knowing what it looks like."
The broad-bladed grass looks right at home in coastal Alaska, creating the sort of wild, emerald fen in which brown bears often are photographed peeking above reedy thickets. And, in fact, many strains of reed canary grass are native throughout the boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
But Mueller said the strains in question were bred to maximize growth and germination, making them especially aggressive. They may have been imported from the Old World before creating problems in the Great Plains.
A University of Minnesota professor who studies the grass said it has proliferated across the continent since the 1950s. Even native strains have become a problem because land use patterns and atmospheric conditions have favored them over other native plants, said Sue Galatowitsch, professor of restoration ecology.
The need to control reed canary grass in Lower 48 wetland restorations increases project costs fourfold, Galatowitsch said. If it's not controlled, studies of Minnesota wildlife have concluded, fewer animals will use the wetlands.
"If you don't control it, you might as well just not bother to get any other species in," she said.
Controlling it means using herbicides, she said. The effective agent is glyphosate, sometimes sold as the weed killer Roundup.
Mueller said that it can be used safely on reed canary grass in Alaska because the plant stays green later in October than do other species. It becomes a conspicuous target for direct poisoning, he said, and there's no need for broader spraying that would affect other species.
To Bob Shavelson of the nonprofit environmental group Cook Inletkeeper, though, spraying Roundup on grass seems a poisonous exercise in futility. If the grass is as widespread as presumed, he said, it will be tough to control chemically.
"Putting toxic chemicals into wetlands and water bodies that support salmon is a failed policy," said Shavelson, the Homer-based group's executive director. He noted that 12 marine invaders have been identified in Kachemak Bay, and they appear to be harbingers of future shifts brought on by global warming.
"If you believe that you can stop Mother Nature with herbicides, then by all means embrace this policy," he said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently is considering its options after finding patches of the grass in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, biological technician Todd Eskelin said. He worries that the grass he sees growing at the river's end on the Kenai Flats will crowd out marshy feeding areas for waterfowl and shorebirds such as sandpipers and yellowlegs.
"As a birdwatcher, I'm always concerned about things that could spread on the flats and change that environment," he said.
Agencies proposing to use herbicides along streams would need to go through the state's permitting process -- the same one that raised public outcry over the railroad and logging applications. State permits are required on state lands and for aerial spraying, or for herbicide uses in or around state waters.Anchorage Daily News
