Weed Pull June 22nd and 24th

Hey everyone,

I pulled up a bird vetch plant in flower (attached) along our road last week, so it is definitely time to get out there and begin our weed pull! The white sweetclover (2nd picture) is growing, but thankfully has not started to flower.

June 20-26 is Invasive Weeds Awareness Week in Fairbanks, so I think it would be fun to time our pull with that event. My idea is to meet up on Tuesday and Thursday evening to pull from 6 to 8pm. We can see how far we get in those days, and plan for additional pulling the next week.

So, lets meet at Bathing Beauty at 6pm on the 22nd. I will pass out bags, help with plant ID, and then we can set off in teams to different segments of the road. Please bring gloves and comfortable shoes, and long pants are probably a good idea. Feel free to call me with questions 460-7927. Does anyone want to provide snacks?

On another note, below is a response from Bill Gryder about personal use of herbicides in the ROW. So, the idea of each person controlling weeds in the ROW along their property would not be permissible if herbicides are to be used. Actually, this looks like even our weed pull is not permissible because we are entering borough ROW to do work...

Darcy,

As we discussed on the phone on Friday, the Borough cannot allow the use of herbicides in public road rights of way that are in road service areas. We don’t know what herbicide would be used, if it is approved by DEC and EPA, who would apply it and if they meet certification requirements. The public is not allowed to come onto Borough land or right of way and do work. We do have a permitting process for construction in rights of way (utilities and driveways) but herbicide use is not construction. The Borough does not have any process to oversee this activity.

The answer to your question of who owns the road in a road service area is not simple and depends on the nature of the public right of way for the road. The ownership of the underlying land can range from the public, as for a public road right of way dedicated through a subdivision plat, to private ownership of the land, as in the case of a public access easement crossing privately owned land. Ownership would need to be researched for each parcel to determine the nature of the right of way. Publicly dedicated right of way is held by the borough in trust for the public. The actual constructed roads in road service areas are maintained by the Borough for the use of the public.

Bill Gryder, P.E.Chief Civil Engineer

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Darcy Etcheverry wrote:

Well everyone, the weeds have started growing and I am looking forward to our community pull event. Does anyone have a preference between weekends or weekdays? I know weekends are usually really busy in the summer, but weekdays may exclude the working population on the farm road. We could also plan for several weekday evenings. Let me know what works best for you, and I will plan accordingly. I am hoping for a date in late June or early July for our first effort.

Thanks,
Darcy


On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Darcy Etcheverry wrote:

I will organize the weed control pulls on Eielson Farm Rd, as a community member and hater of invasive plants. Though, in my personal and professional opinion, pulling will not be an effective method compared to spraying. If you have any ideas, please feel free to contact me at 460-7927. Also, I will be pursuing a change in borough regulation to allow road service areas to use funds for invasive plant control.

Thanks,
Darcy Etcheverry



On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Karl Monetti wrote:

This may not make me very popular, but that is not my mission in life anyway. It seems to me the people most at risk from any infestation of a noxious weed would be those who farm. Chris is not a farmer, nor am I. I do have an interest in eradicating noxious weeds when and where possible. Here we have an early infestation that could possibly impact local crop production. It is still in a stage where you can count individual plants. If anyone should be taking the lead on this it should be a farmer, and every one of the farmers along this road had better be out there next to me when the clean-up begins if they want to keep any credibility in my little world.
I have no patience for those who want someone else to do everything for them. Where is the farmer who will step up to the plate? I promise to help him/her in any way I can.
Karl



On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Stu Davies wrote:

Neighbors -

The response from rural services will limit our discussion of weed control using RSA funds at the winter meeting. This would appear to be a community project unrelated to road maintenance. I hope someone will step up to organize this effort.

Stu Davies

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Weed Control - 23 Mile Slough
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:59:19 -0900
From: bgryder@co.fairbanks.ak.us
To: farmerstudavies@hotmail.com
CC: arobio@alaska.net; aworhatch@co.fairbanks.ak.us; khawman@co.fairbanks.ak.us; SCJohnson@co.fairbanks.ak.us; jdolan@co.fairbanks.ak.us



Stu,



I verified with our legal department that the borough’s road maintenance and construction powers in the service area do not include control of noxious and invasive weeds. The service area cannot spend funds on herbicide spraying for weed control.



Bill Gryder, P.E.



From: Stu Davies [mailto:farmerstudavies@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 11:01 AM
To: Rural Services; Bill Gryder; April Barnes; Ed Arobio
Subject: Weed Control



Good Morning -

This is a general question for rural services staff. The 23 Mile RSA is located in a farming community. As such, we have a question regarding the spraying of noxious and invasive weeds occuring alongside our roadways. I reviewed the specifications for road maintenance and can find no reference to this type of work. Is the purchase of weed killer and spraying a legitimate use of our tax dollars? Has this been done before in other RSA's? If someone could research this and get back to me in a timely fashion, I would be grateful. If you can refer me to other resouces that would be helpful also.

I am mainly interested in the legal use of our funds for this type of maintenance.

Thanks

Stu Davies
Chair, 23 Mile RSA

Road update

23 Mile Slough RSA Users:

The Borough recently informed us via snail-mail that weight restrictions are no longer in effect. Feel free to haul your gravel, equipment, and septic waste at your convenience.

Our contractor will begin road work in the near future and is expected to make repairs to the road (EFR) at 2.5 to 3.0 mile. The plan is to complete this work with last year's budget money and needs to be completed prior to June 30.

Other planned work this year beginning with next year's budget cycle after July 1 is EFR rap repair at 4.7 mile to 5.2 mile.

We have been informed by both the contractor and acting rural services manager, Ann Worlatch, that rerapping EFR at 7.2 mile to 7.9 mile is not recommended and will result in the same surface we have now. They suggest grading, adding top cover (d-1) and letting it sit for a year until further engineering can be done. Both indicated that we have a sub base issue there that may require more than just a surface fix. Ms. Worlatch said that she would put this in writing to the RSA when we met with her on 05/18/2010. If this is acceptable to those folks living in this area, I think we should try to do this this year to close the longitudinal cracks and to prevent further sloughing of the road shoulders. I would like to coordinate this work with one of the rap repairs when the contractor has his equipment on the road.

Other planned work includes pothole filling and brush clearing. I would like to coordinate the mowing so that we can kill as many weeds as possible before they go to seed. That is very iffy since many plants will be flowering in the next few weeks prior to July 1.

Your thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

Stu Davies, Ed Arobio, Irene Coben

5-11-10 Traffic counter

Hello neighbors,

Irene called the borough this morning and found out that the traffic counter you have probably noticed at Cow Pie Lane was put in place by rural services to count numbers of cars using the road and the speed traveled. These numbers will be used to justify future requests for upgrades to our road.

They said they will remove the counter on Friday.

Stu

5-5-10 Clean up day

Irene Coben has volunteered to coordinate cleanup for our community. Please help her in this effort to clean along our roads. She has yellow bags at her home which may be picked up, filled and left alongside our road or taken to the highway to be picked up by volunteers. Bags will continue to be picked up through the month of May.

The yellow bags are not to be taken to transfer sites.

Irene lives at 2 mile, at the paper boxes. The yellow bags will be on a bench by her front door. Please pick up bags between the hours of 10-6. If you have questions you can contact Irene at 488-1464.

Thank you Irene for volunteering,

Stu