| Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:40:31 -0800 From: Renee Pasquinelli <rpasquin@mcn.org> To: Vince Taylor <vtaylor@mcn.org> Subject: Re: Action needed now on gorse! Hi Vince, First of all, I am very, very grateful that you are so concerned about the gorse problem and are willing to mobilize the community. We do need that support for the protection of natural areas! But, please understand that we are doing what we can. I am trying to hire more staff and Tina has agreed to take the lead on the gorse problem until we hire additional help. Gorse is certainly a high priority, so is European beachgrass in the Ten Mile Dunes, South Salmon Creek dune stabilization, Austin Creek riparian revegetation, eucalyptus sprouts at Salt Point, pampas grass at Fort Ross, and on and on....the list is endless and there just aren't enough of us to do natural resource management work. Tina does have a meeting scheduled with Helene today to look at the gorse areas on the east side of the highway for possible brush hog work. Tina and Allison will go to the west side of Jughandle on Friday to identify large areas for a brush hog contract. This is the quickest way for us to remove large areas of gorse before they again set seed. Once the area is cut with a brush hog, however, we will need to do followup spraying within the next 6 months to control the sprouts. As you know, hand removal over large areas is simply not effective, and applying black plastic to large areas is simply not feasible. I believe it has now gotten too wet to burn this year. The cut and wipe method of applying herbicide to cut stumps is only feasible where large stems can be cut cleanly, and it is unrealistic to assume that we can use this technique over large areas of smaller, multistemmed gorse. Do you think that the community will support followup spraying of the brush hog areas? We truly want to avoid another situation where we spend a tremendous amount of time and money controlling large gorse, but are unable to effectively treat the resprouts. I'll let you know when Tina is able to get a brush hog....hopefully the weather will cooperate. Best wishes, Renee P.S. Rusty's last name is spelled Areias. |