Wednesday, February 8, 2006

Plant aggravates fire dangers in desert

Board of Supervisors wants areawide effort vs. buffelgrass

GARRY DUFFY

Tucson Citizen

A tinderlike invading plant species and the ongoing record drought are boosting the threat of suburban wildfires, so government agencies will work together to eradicate the bothersome weeds.

Pima County officials yesterday approved a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources to control the invasion of non-native plants, particularly African buffelgrass.

The weed could boost the danger level from wildfires near neighborhoods several notches.

The solution: community education and merciless eradication, government officials said.

"With our urban interfaces, we have some extreme situations where buffelgrass fires can burn hotter than brush fires," County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry told the Board of Supervisors yesterday.

The species is rapidly establishing itself along roadsides, in scenic settings and, increasingly, in developed areas where a new kind of hotter and faster-moving wildfire could prove devastating, he said.

"Buffelgrass now exists in dense, burnable stands along every major surface street and every highway in Tucson," Huckelberry said.

The county Natural Resources, Parks, and Recreation department concentrates its heaviest eradication program in the Tucson Mountains area.

The supervisors yesterday agreed to have the county head up a countywide invasive species group to coordinate and prioritize identification, mapping, control and eradication on county land - and on "source lands" where the plants now exist and threaten to spread to adjoining county lands.

The effort will include sharing information among participating agencies and conservation groups, developing public education programs on control and eradication and support to have buffelgrass and other noxious species listed by the Arizona Department of Agriculture as prohibited for growing.

Huckelberry estimated the cost of the program to the county at about $25,000 to $30,000, which would be incorporated into the 2006-07 budget.

Under direction from the supervisors, county staffers will work with their group counterparts to draft a grant application for federal funds to pay for most of the program.

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