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It
shall be the policy of the Okanogan County Noxious Weed Control Board to promote
the control of noxious weeds, increase public awareness, educate private, state,
county and federal entities. To
develop and encourage cooperative working relationships, and treat everyone fair
and equal. We will have the goal to
promote good working relations for all Okanogan County residents, to keep the
economic value of our land by being good neighbors to each other.
Control
as defined by the Okanogan County Noxious Weed Control
Board is prevention of
seed and/or propaule production within a growing season.
State Law (17.10 RCW) defines
a “noxious weed” as follows: “Noxious
Weed” means any plant which when established is highly destructive,
competitive, or difficult to control by cultural or chemical practices.”
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They
spread very rapidly and often produce huge quantities of seed
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Some
are extremely difficult to control, can spread from small root fragments or
can spread from small pieces of the plant.
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Some
are allopathic and produce toxic chemicals in their roots and leaves that
suppress other kinds of plants until only the noxious species remains.
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Some
are poisonous or threatening to humans and/or livestock.
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Most
noxious weeds are introduced species which are not native to this area.
Because of this, there are very often no natural biological enemies
to keep the species in check.
Plants only become problems
when people, wildlife or other natural disturbance carry them to new
environments where they have no natural enemies to keep their population at low
levels, this creates a natural disturbance and creates sites where certain
plants an easily become dominate.
Weeds in general, and noxious
weeds in particular, can not be controlled until all County landowners
including; land developers, State, Federal and Tribal agencies, join in the
effort by controlling weeds on the properties they own or manage.
County landowners must also
realize that simple removal of noxious weeds is not an adequate weed control
method. Noxious weeds seldom cause
problems until people create ideal conditions for them to spread.
Even by removing noxious weeds we may only create new places for other
weeds if proper re-seeding doesn’t get performed.
Managing land for economic profit and production is no longer enough.
We must satisfy the needs of the land as well as human needs.
So, in addition to removing or
destroying noxious plants, the Board encourages the strong growth of desirable,
or even native plants to fill the spaces weed like plants have grown or may
grow. Some options landowners have:
Re-seeding of desirable species,
Implementation of a planned grazing system
Failure to take these actions leaves the soils exposed to
invasion by noxious
weeds and erosion.
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