H2ONCoast

This week, I am presenting at the High Desert Green Industry Conference and at Sunriver Resort on invasives. At these events I’m focusing on how green industry professionals (landscapers, designers, installation contractors, maintenance contractors) can integrate an understanding of invasive species into their work.

The green industry is often in an awkward position with regards to invasive species. They are often tagged with the primary responsibility for new invasive introductions. At the same time, it is the gardening public who create demand for new and exciting introductions or for bringing invasives into new environments though their activities in and outside of the garden. Often, once a horticultural plant is deemed invasive, the industry feels itself under siege as regulators demand the industry give up a plant. Additionally, interest groups and the general pubic may then demand that the industry toe the line, and convert to new non-invasive stock such as natives–even where natives may not be entirely appropriate (such as in highly urbanized settings).  All of this leaves an industry that should be a part of the solution  feeling divorced from the efforts to “do the right thing” with regards to invaders.

But there are some easy solutions.  My take-home messages for green industry professionals includes some simple–but not mutually exclusive–actions:

• Know the invasive species in your area & teach the public and your peers about them
• Research new stock before you order it
• Grow, sell or design for native & non-invasive plants wherever possible
• Help the public with information on treatment
• Get involved in landscape management ordinances where appropriate
• Get involved in weed management boards
• Help support local weed identification and education efforts
• Help support research focused on invasive plant ecology, control and alternatives
• Watch for hitchhikers in nursery stock
• Use weed-free soil and mulch
• Watch introductions for aggressive behavior
• Discourage use of commercial wildflower or other mixes.
• Check clothes, vehicles, equipment, & pets when working in infested areas.

Here are some of the resources I presented to the participants in these events:

Hdgi Invasive Spp 2 8 10
View more presentations from Robert Emanuel.
• University of Massachusetts Extension Factsheet on Invasive Plants and Green Industry: www.umassgreeninfo.org/fact_sheets/plant_culture/invasive_green_industry.pdf
• Invasive Species: Some Facts for the Gardener: (Emanuel, Jones and McMahan, 2009)

Below are other resources that I compiled for professionals and gardeners alike:

• Pacific Northwest Weed Management Handbook: weeds.ippc.orst.edu/pnw/weeds
• Oregon Invasive Species Hotline: oregoninvasiveshotline.org
• Oregon Invasive Species Council: www.oregon.gov/OISC/
• National Invasive Species Clearinghouse: www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov
• USDA PLANTS Database: plants.usda.gov/index.html
• Washington State Noxious Weed Board: www.nwcb.wa.gov/index.htm
• Idaho Weed Awareness: idahoweedawareness.net/index.html
• California Invasive Plant Council: www.cal-ipc.org
• British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Weed Management: www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/weeds.htm
• Nevada Noxious Weed List: agri.nv.gov/nwac/PLANT_NoxWeedList.htm
• Be Plantwise: www.beplantwise.org/

Lastly but not least, are some published guides to Pacific Northwest and regional invaders as well as their more environmentally friendly alternatives:

• GardenSmart Oregon
• California Don’t Plant a Pest Series
• Garden Wise Western Washington Guide
• Garden Wise Eastern Washington Guide

Popularity: 11% [?]

Range of change in precipitation in 8 regions. Graphic from PNAS, Solomon et al. 2009.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) researchers have just published results that make the bold assertion that current carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will “lock us in” for 1000 years of consequences. The full press release is below.

More locally, note the severity of precipitation changes predicted for the Southwest U.S. and as the graphic above shows–some change in precipitation for the Pacific Northwest too.

A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back.

The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. Continue Reading »

Popularity: 43% [?]

Slightline Institute–a Seattle-based environmental organization with an investigative bent is doing some nifty blogging lately on stormwater. They’ve put out a whole series of good posts on Low Impact Development, non-point source pollution, rain gardens, and ecoroofs. I’m pretty impressed and will be prodding them to let Oregon Sea Grant and our Stormwater Solutions partnership send some items their way.

In the meantime, check ‘em out at   http://bit.ly/aF5RM3

Popularity: 77% [?]

Gardens can be both good and bad for watershed health. Photo: R. Emanuel.

Gardeners can have a huge impact on local watershed health. As hundreds, thousands and eventually millions of them influence the land use, inputs, water use and runoff patterns from their home landscapes, they shape the water quality of a watershed. Even little actions add up in a watershed.

Below are some resources I’ve drawn together for OSU Master Gardener trainings I’m delivering around the state this winter and spring. Hopefully others will find them useful too.

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/yamhill/eco-gardening

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/yamhill/pages/streamside-gardening

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/yamhill/pages/gardening_natives.html

WaterWise Gardening Multimedia Presentation: http://bit.ly/8OsSTD

WaterWise ™ Gardening: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/yamhill/waterwisetm-gardening/feed

Surfrider Foundation Ocean Friendly Gardens: http://www.surfrider.org/ofg.asp

Oregon Rain Garden Guide: http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs.html

OSU Watershed Education Team: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/watershed/

Oregon Stormwater Solutions: http://www.oeconline.org/our-work/rivers/stormwater

Protecting Water from Non-point Source Pollution: http://protectingwater.com/

Puget Sound Partnership (non-point source pollution): http://www.psp.wa.gov/

Popularity: 57% [?]

Typical water cycle in the PNW: some old assumptions included.

OSU’s Jeff McDonnell, the current director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds has been up to some great research lately in collaboration with other researchers in watershed hydrology (how water moves through watersheds). The results of one of his projects was recently featured in Science Daily: Water hits and sticks: Findings challenge a century of assumptions about soil hydrology.  Jeff is quoted here discussing how important this finding is for water researchers:

“Water in mountains such as the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington basically exists in two separate worlds,” said Jeff McDonnell, an OSU distinguished professor and holder of the Richardson Chair in Watershed Science in the OSU College of Forestry. “We used to believe that when new precipitation entered the soil, it mixed well with other water and eventually moved to streams. We just found out that isn’t true.”

“This could have enormous implications for our understanding of watershed function,” he said. “It challenges about 100 years of conventional thinking.”

That 100 years of thinking basically says that water moves through the atmosphere, falls as rain or snow, and a significant portion is absorbed by the soil, plants and other organisms before it is divided between ground and surface water or returns to the atmosphere through the process of evapotranspiration.  Jeff’s research points to the fact that some of that water just stays put–and replenishes the plants, not moving deeper into the soil where we assumed it fed streams or groundwater. This means the first rains of the year are less effective in replenishing water that we humans quite often assume is ours to tap.

Yes, this is a small detail but important when you think about how significant the water cycle is for people, fish and streams in the Pacific Northwest!

Popularity: 61% [?]

Tags: Soil water, Watersheds

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new guide on building sunken-bed rain gardens to collect and filter runoff water can help Northwest homeowners learn how to redesign home landscapes to help protect rivers and streams.

Rain gardens can help restore the natural water cycle, according to Rob Emanuel and Derek Godwin of Oregon State University Extension and Oregon Sea Grant Extension.

“As our landscapes became developed, rain falling on hard surfaces was directed to pipes, ditches and storm drains that route to streams or into stormwater sewer systems,” Emanuel said. “The result is too much water arriving in a short amount of time and carrying pollutants.”

Rain gardens work like a native forest, meadow or prairie.

“They capture and redirect stormwater from hard surfaces such as roof tops, driveways, parking lots and streets,” Godwin said. “Rain gardens help keep watersheds healthy by filtering out toxins before they pollute streams and lakes, and they can actually recharge aquifers by encouraging water to soak into the ground.”

The new 44-page illustrated guide, “Oregon Rain Garden Guide: Landscaping for Clean Water and Healthy Streams,” was written by Emanuel, Godwin and Candace Stoughton, who works for the East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District. It can be found online at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs.html or ordered by calling Sea Grant Communications at 541-737-4849. Copies are $4.95 each, plus shipping & handling.

This how-to publication provides information specific to Oregon’s conditions. No stormwater, garden or landscape expertise is necessary to use it. The step-by-step approach teaches how to determine where water flows across a homeowner’s property and the best place to put a rain garden to manage water flow across impervious areas.

The guide points out what local regulations need to be followed and how to determine slope, drainage rates and texture of the soil. Size of the rain garden and volume of water it can hold also are discussed, as are how to excavate, grade and build berms. The guide also recommends native perennials that can withstand both frequent wet and dry cycles.

The guidebook is a joint project of the OSU Extension Service and Oregon Sea Grant, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District, and the Oregon Environmental Council. Partial funding for the guide was provided by a grant from Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Note: Anyone who is local to the N. Coast and would like a courtesy copy can contact me at my office in Tillamook (see the contact page). Depending upon circumstances, I’ll either arrange a delivery or a pick up.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tags: rain garden

If anyone reading this remembers the seminal career book “What Color is Your Parachute”, you aren’t going to find that kind of advice here. But OSU colleague Todd Jarvis has certainly made an entertaining splash in the water-centric blogosphere with his new offering: Rainbow Water Coalition. It’s got lots of nifty information about gray water (that water which is used in the kitchen or bathroom and then reused in your landscape), along with posts on water harvesting, biosolids and a few other topics that he explores with lots of good humor. Check it out: rainbowwatercoalition.blogspot.com. I highly recommend reading his explanation for the different water colors on the left panel of the blog homepage! Congrats on an excellent color-coded contribution, Todd!

Popularity: 57% [?]

Sunset at Hug Point, Oregon. Photo by R. Emanuel, OSU.

The December 2009 (Volume 22, Number 4) issue of Oceanography has just published an excellent primer on ocean acidification. NOAA researchers from the Pacific Northwest are some of the authors.

To quote the authors (Doney et al.) of this introductory piece directly:

“The cumulative human CO2 emissions over the industrial era now amount to close to 560 billion tons. A little less than half of this anthropogenic CO2 remains in the atmosphere—certainly enough to be of grave concern as a greenhouse gas leading to climate change. The remainder is, at present, removed in roughly equal parts into the ocean and by land  vegetation. Revelle and Suess (1957) wrote a prophetic view of our perturbations to the global carbon cycle: Thus human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future—a sentiment that may be especially true for ocean acidification.”

The entire edition covers this topic quite thoroughly: http://tos.org/oceanography/issues/current.html.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Water quality and salmon watchers have been following this research for a while but now it’s hot off the presses.  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northwest Fisheries Science Center scientist David Baldwin just published his findings in the Ecological Society of America’s December issue of Ecological Applications.  The upshot: exposure to low levels of common pesticides used by farmers and city dwellers alike may hinder the growth and survival of wild salmon. Furthermore, toxicity increases when the chemicals are mixed together in the water.

Using existing data and a model for growth and reproduction, Baldwin and his colleagues found that  with only 4 days of exposure to pesticides such as diazinon and malathion can change the freshwater growth and, by extension, the subsequent survival of subyearling fish.

Improving water quality could improve recovery of salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act, the researchers said. What are the keys to success in this case?  Lowering pesticide use by implementing integrated pest management strategies (IPM), minimizing over application, and applying pesticides correctly to minimize drift into local waterways.

Check out these OSU Extension resources for:

• Integrated Pest Management; em 8898.pdf, ec1613-e.pdf, ec1586.pdf
• Correct application of pesticides: ec1497.pdf
• Minimizing pesticide drift: em8964-E, em8966-E
• Pesticides in water: EM 8561-E, EC 1565, EM 8559, EM 8560, EM 8709

Also, check out Jeff Jenkins’ narrated slide presentation on pesticides in water here.

Popularity: 60% [?]

Tags: Pesticides, salmon, toxics, water quality

Sigh… After many months of very subtle peer pressure I have given in and now can be found tentatively twittering and tweeting away. Well, actually, it’s been just one measly tweet but I’ll see if I can muster some more before too long.  So, those of you who follow the microblogging world, look for me at: http://twitter.com/h2onc. We’ll see how useful the microblogosphere is when this particular “macroblog” doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves! This could be a brief, feathered experiment, or it could be the start of a new on-line nest.

One thing I will say, new media is very new turf for those of us devoted to brick and mortar Extension offices, face to face meetings, in-person workshops and printed publications.  It has paid for me to experiment with it.  This blog was the first tentative leap into the New Media unknown. Since then I’ve experimented with social networks and now will try Twitter on for size.  Why is this important? Because Extension–to which I am quite wed–is facing a crisis of identity in the 21st century. Our model was based on roots that go back to the 19th century when agricultural extension agents roamed the back roads of rural America bringing new technology and know-how to a mostly agrarian America. Our offices were well known institutions in small town America. Well, things are very different now–most Americans live in cities (nearly 80% of us) bigger than 100,000.  And since the rise of the Internet, successive generations starting with mine (the Gen X’ers) have embraced the web with gusto. Millennials–those of the generation born after 1980 (and extending until about 2000) are indeed considered the newest and most pervasive “digital natives.”  For them, if it isn’t available on-line, it may not exist!  So if Extension–both Sea and Land Grant-based–institutions want to reach this mass of urban, digitally embedded people, we’d better modernize and fast! And at the same time, we had better learn to keep up because New Media is growing and changing at light speed.

For more on this crisis, check out this very short but engaging slide show put out by my former colleague Mark Crossler on the challenge of getting across the generational divide for Extension programs.  So, yes, I’ve joined the Twittering masses. My hope is that it’s a useful experiment for a good cause!

Popularity: 35% [?]

Tags: digital natives, Extension, New Media, twitter