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LETTERS: City needs leadership on invasive weeds

Letters from Jeff Shecter and C.R. Cacchioni…
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The city and the community need to crack down on invasive weeds such as tansy, say two letter writers. Photo: Wikipedia

Nelson city council recently entertained what seems like an annual presentation from the Central Kootenay Invasive Species group. I am not sure why. Perhaps it was protocol and courtesy. Yet, if one looks at many of the alleyways and city-managed streets, it looks like a free-for-all for many of the provincially-listed noxious weeds.

I assume these weeds must have a communication system to signal many other invasive weeds that it is easy living in the City of Nelson. Obviously the city has no strategy for even mitigating their spread, let alone removing them. This task is made even more difficult with the ever-expanding orchard of invasive weeds at the airport and dog walk.

Apparently, with the city’s blessing, no mowing of the as-far-as-the-eye-can-see tansy infestation is to be done, as the geese do not like to land in the tangled mass of tansy. So we now have a massive ignition point for tansy to proliferate.

This is shameful, especially for a council who robotically raise their hand at the mere mention of climate change, yet have no plan or inkling to do anything with this environmental issue that stares us in the face every day. Leadership on this issue has been absent for way too long.

Jeff Shecter

Nelson

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Manage the intruder

Tansy is the yellow seeded tall, invasive noxious weed that has been steadily invading the Kootenays over the last couple years. The speed of its spread has greatly increased this last summer.

We really need community action to help slow it’s spread and it’s negative affect on wildlife and our community. Not only is it unsightly and pungent but it is inedible: even goats get sick if they eat this plant.

Each plant can produce 25,000 seeds a year and the seeds can remain viable in the soil for 25 years.

Please check the BC invasive species website for more information: https://bcinvasives.ca/documents/Common_Tansy_TIPS_Final_08_06_2014.pdf

Please, if you have it in your yard, at the entrance to your driveway, or on the path where you walk your dog, bring a reused plastic bag, cut off and bag all the seeds and pull the weed out by its roots.

Call your MLA and request provincial action on the intruder.

As a community, through action, we can make a huge difference here — a visible difference for a better West Kootenay.

C.R. Cacchioni

Passmore