US Fish and Wildlife Says Japanese Knotweed Invading W.Va.'s Streams
The agency says the non-native plant is beginning to make it's way
into the state at an alarming rate.
WBOY-TV
15 August 2011
By Mike Krafcik
CLARKSBURG -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing what it
can to help to reduce the population of Japanese Knotweed plants.
The Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife program says they're
popping up around area streams, and cause negative environmental
affects.
Along the banks of the West Fork River in Clarksburg lies a cluster of
Japanese Knotweed plants.
They're tall, mostly rust-colored, and have a bamboo like-stem with
heart-shaped leaves. Adult plants can grow between 6-8 feet.
The Fish and Wildlife service says the bamboo-like perennial can cause
serious erosion and flooding problems, can alter the soil to prevent
native plant growth and can jeopardize brook trout populations through
reduction of their food sources.
The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources has listed it as an
invasive species.
"It becomes a problem. It allows soils to wash away, those plants don't
hold the riverbank as well," said John Schmidt, state coordinator, U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife.
The service says the West Fork, Tygart, Cheat, Monongahela, Ohio, and
other watersheds are suffering from an over-abundance of the plant.
The plant isn't poisonous to humans but it grows quickly and is now
spreading on some roadsides and farms.
"It actually omits toxic substances from its roots and it precludes
other plants from growing there and it establishes a clone. It just
keeps growing outward," said Schmidt.
The Fish and Wildlife service wants to limit that growth.
Successful efforts were made in the Seneca River watershed to eradicate
it within a year, sooner than anticipated.
"We've been seeing 95-99 percent effectiveness in the first year, so
it's been really effective and it will help to eliminate this plant
over time," said Schmidt.
The service recommends that people cut the plant in June, let it grow
for a few weeks, then apply a herbicide application in late August.
The Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program is looking to provide
technical assistance to anyone looking to remove the Japanese Knotweed.
You can call them at 304-636-6586 extension 16.