**The Road to Successful Weed Management**

**A BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**May 21, 1998**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast. It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, \"The Road to
Successful Weed Management,\" Course 9000‑04, An Interactive Training
Course For BLM Managers and Their Partners in Weed Management. And Now
the Host of Your Program, Kniffy Hamilton.

Hamilton: Good Morning, and Welcome to Today\'s Show. We Really
Appreciate You Taking Time from Your Busy Schedules to Be with Us Today.
Our Experienced Panel Has Designed this Program to Be as Informative and
Interesting as Possible and We Sure Hope You Enjoy It. Today We Hope to
Add to Our Understanding of the Impacts of Invasive Plants on Our
Natural Environment and Also Look at Some of the Potential Solutions.
During this Broadcast, We Will Hear Strategies That Will Support Our
Management of a Long‑term Weed Program Which Will Maintain a Healthy,
Sustainable Environment. Management Support for Long‑term Weed Program
Includes the Following: Making Sound Land Use Decisions. Budgeting
Wisely and Responsibly, Increasing Your Cooperative Efforts, Staffing
Appropriately and Providing Training to Support Weed Management Efforts
and Also Integrating Weed Management into Other Programs for Which You
Are Responsible. So Let\'s Start the Day by Looking at Environmental
Impacts Caused by Invasive Plants. We Will Focus on Problems Associated
with Invasive Weeds, Just How Widespread the Problem Is and How These
Weeds Impact Our Ability to Manage for Healthy Ecosystems, Which Is Our
Goal. Next We Will Look at the Elements of the Successful Integrated
Weed Management Program and Also Why Having a Long‑term Iwm Program Is
Essential. Finally, in the Section, We Will Look at Strategies Which
Help Bring to Life the Essential Elements of Integrated Weed Management
and We\'re Going to Look at Program Integration, Work Force, Budgeting
and Partnerships. We\'re Really Pleased this Morning to Have Join Us Aum
the Viewers from BLM, Their Weed Management Partners and All the Many
Other Viewers from Organizations and Agencies. We\'re Really Glad to
Have You Participating with Us. We Also Look Forward to Hearing From
You, All of You, the Managers and the Partners, Who Daily Confront the
Challenges of Managing for Long‑term Health of The Land. Since We Would
like You to Be Involved as Much as Possible Throughout the Course, You
Will Be Able to Communicate with Us Via Satellite During Two Call‑in
Segments and You Can Fax Us at Any Time Using the Numbers Provided by
Your On‑site Coordinator. For Your Convenience, the Fax Form Can Be
Found on Page 7 of Your Course and Reference Guide, Or Your Site
Coordinator Also Has Those. But Please Be Sure to Mark Those Faxes with
a Dark Marker So We Can Read Them. All Viewers Should Have a Copy Of the
Course and Reference Guide Whether It\'s One of the Several Copies That
Were Sent Out on the Electronic Version Available from the NTC Web Site.
By the Way, the NTC Web Site Address Is www.ntc.blm.gov. The Guide Is
for You, and It\'s a Resource for You Both During Training to Reinforce
Key Points And Then Also after Training as You Build Your Successful
Weed Management Program. Just like to Hit a Couple of Housekeeping Items
Before We Start in on the Content. At the Close of the Broadcast We
Would like to You Send in the Roster. It\'s Important for Us to Know How
Many People Participated Today. We Use These Rosters to Acknowledge You
Taking Your Time To Join Us and Also Document Your Participation in the
Course. Then Also Please Take Time to Complete the Course Evaluation
Found on Page 8 in Your Course Guide. Your Comments Are Very, Very
Important to Us and Are a Vital Part of Designing Any Future Broadcasts
We May Have. So Now, for the Heart of the Program, Joining Us Today Is a
Panel of Presenters Who Bring a Wealth of Experience and Knowledge to
the Topic and We\'ll We\'re Happy to Have Everybody Here. First We Have
Dr. Jeff Lovich And Jeff Is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.s.
Geological Survey at the University of California in Riverside. So
Thanks a Lot for Ining Us Today.

Lovich: Thank You, Kniffy. It\'s a Pleasure to Be Here and Participate
in this Very Important Discussion. Training Land Managers to Recognize
the Threats That Invasive Species Pose to Natural Ecosystems Is the
First Step We Must Take in Protecting Our Natural Biodiversity.

Hamilton: Thanks. Next We Have Bob Bolton, and Bob Is a BLM District
Weed Coordinator in Lakeview, Oregon, And as Well He Is Also the
Oregon/washington State Weed Coordinator. Bob Serves as Vice Chair of
the Western Weed Coordinating Committee. Welcome, Bob.

Bolton: Thanks, Kniffy. Looking Forward to the Program Today. I Realize
Many of Our Managers And the Partners Viewing this Are Very Busy and I
Appreciate Their Time They\'re Taking to Watch this. I Would Hope That
We Could Share Some Ideas That They Could Connect with and Take Home and
Use to Help with Weed Management.

Hamilton: Right. That\'s What It\'s All about. Also Joining Us Today Is
Pat Fosse, and Pat Comes to Us from The Fillmore Field Office in Utah.
She Is the Assistant Area Manager There. She\'s Also the President‑elect
Of the Utah Weed Control Association. Good Morning, Pat.

Fosse: Good Morning. Thanks, Kniffy. I Have Had the Challenging and
Rewarding Experience of Serving As Team Leader over the Squarrose
Knapweed Demonstration Area and I Am Glad to Have the Opportunity to
Share That with You Today.

Hamilton: Thanks. Finally Joining Us Is Ed Singleton. Ed Is District
Manager for BLM In the Vale, Oregon Office, and He Is Also the Chairman
of the Oregon/washington Noxious Weed Team. Welcome.

Singleton: Thank You, Kniffy. Given the Health Problems I Had Last Fall,
It\'s Good to Be Anywhere, but Especially this Morning Here to Talk
about One Of My Passions and That\'s Weed Management.

Hamilton: Great. Glad to Have You Here. To Learn More about Any of the
Presenters You See Here Today, Our Profiles Are on Page 4 of Your Course
Guide. I Can Personally Attest to the Director\'s Strong Interest and
Commitment to Weed Management. In Fact, it Was His Idea to Organize a
Weed Symposium That We Had Last April and He Was Very Interested in
Having Us Take Some Real on the Ground Steps and I Know He Wants These
Steps to Be Taken as Well as All Of Us on the Panel. So We Appreciate
the Time He Is Going to Take Today to Share Some Thoughts with Us, and
We Have a Prerecorded Segment for This. So Let\'s Go to His Comments
Now.

Dir. Shea: Good Morning, and Welcome to the National Training Center
Course, the Road to Successful Weed Management. Thank You for Taking the
Time Out of Your Busy Schedule to Learn More about this Very Important
Management Topic. I Also Would like to Welcome All Of Our Weed
Management Partners Who Are Joining Us in the BLM Offices Across the
West. Those Partnerships Are Critical. We Cannot Meet Our Weed
Management Goals Without Your Help and Commitment. Now, Why All of this
Recent Interest in Weed Management? As I Meet with Congressional
Delegations Across the West, I Find We Have Common Ground in The Weed
Management Issue. Nobody Likes Weeds. It\'s Something That We Can Work
Together on State and County and Federal Government Levels with
Everyone. We All Agree the Weed Problem Has to Be Dealt with. I Wish All
of Our Issues Had Such Potential for Agreement and Cooperation. Make My
Job a Lot Easier. But More Importantly, Weeds Are Spreading at an
Unprecedented Rate Across this Country. It\'s Not Just a Western
Issue\... But It\'s Most Serious in the West Where We Have Managed Vast
Acreages of Undeveloped Lands. If We Do Not Take this Issue Seriously
Now, We Will Lose These Acreages of the American Heritage That Our Great
Grandparents Saw When They Settled the West. We Will Leave to Our
Children And Our Children\'s Children a Landscape with Only a Few Highly
Aggressive, Exotic Plants That Will Not Support the Great Opportunities
That We Envision The Public Lands to Contain. Some of You Might Be
Thinking Right Now \"Weeds Weren\'t a Problem in My Resource Area or
District, They\'re Just a Few of Them Here. That\'s a Problem in Another
Part Of the State.\" I Have a More Pressing Issue at Hand\... Let Me
Implore to You Take this Issue Seriously Now. Even Though They Might Not
Be a Huge Problem in Your Area, after All, at this Point in Time We
Believe That 90% of Our Lands Are Not Infested with Weeds. Keeping Lands
from Becoming Infested with Weeds Is a High Management Priority, it Is
One Of My Top Priorities and Also a Priority for the President, the
Vice‑president and the Secretary. We Will Be Hearing More on this Topic
from Them in the Weeks and Months to Come. Last Month the BLM along with
The Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy and Society Of Weed
Science Sponsored a Symposium Held in Denver Called \"Science in Wild
Land Weed Management.\" Scientists, Land Managers, Weed Control Officers
and Many Others Met to Discuss Some of Our Most Pressing Needs in Terms
of Scientific Research and on the Ground Management. I Am Committed to
Following up On this Symposium. So We Can Accomplish with Our Partners
Those Action Items That Were Identified as Most Pressing From the
Symposium. Notes from the Symposium Are Listed on Our Web Page and as We
Follow Up, We Will Continue to Keep You Posted Through the Internet. We
Will Be Having a Broadcast ‑‑ Or a Meeting in Six Months Where We Will
Review the Success We\'ve Had as a Result of the Denver Meeting. As You
Listen to this Broadcast, I Encourage You to Be Thinking About How to Be
More Creative And Innovative. For Example, Look Outside Our Regular
Circles of Colleagues And Organizations. Just as Weeds Cross
Administrative Boundaries, So Must We. Pursue Cooperative Agreements
With Other Agencies to Share Scarce Skills, Equipment and Technologies.
Fully Utilize Science and Involve the Scientific Community. By That I
Mean, Search out and Use Scientific Information about Weed Prevention
and Control, and Particularly Restoration. Enlist the Services of Weed
Scientists Who Can Offer Advice In Weedment and Assistance in Setting up
Replicated Studies So We Can Learn from Our Weed Projects. Be Good
Neighbors. Listen and Learn Today with Our Partners on Ways That We Can
Protect Public Lands and Manage For Land Health and Productivity And
Long‑term Multiple Use. We Have a Great Example Where Different
Organizations Have Thought Outside Their Normal Jurisdictional Lines and
Came One Great Innovative Solutions. I Think the Weeds in Using Your
Innovations Are Great Examples. So I Hope That You\'ll Have a Great
Conference, Learn from the People That Are There with Us Today, Make
Sure Your Partners Feel Welcomed and Together I Think We Can Find
Solutions to This Difficult Problem. Have a Good Conference.

Hamilton: the Director\'s Comments Are Really Very Pertinent and All the
Kinds of Things That We Would Hope He Would Say. So Thanks So Much for
Taking the Time to Do That for Us, Director. Let\'s Get Started on Our
Journey To Successful Weed Management. Jeff Is Going to Take Us on a
Tour of the Impacts Associated With Invasive Weeds and Give Us Some Idea
of How Widespread the Problem Is. Would You Do That for Us, Jeff?

Lovich: in 1958 a Now Famous Ecologist Stated We Are Living In a Period
of the Earth\'s History When the Mingling of Thousands of Kinds of
Organisms From Different Parts of the World Is Setting up Terrific
Dislocations in Nature. 40 Years after His Ominous Observation, We Are
Begin to Go Give Invasive Plant Species the Recognition They Truly
Deserve. The Problems They Create Are Every Bit as Insidious and
Far‑reaching as the More Familiar Problems of Global Climate Change,
Massive Deforestation and Uncontrolled Human Population Growth. The
Spread of These Invasive Exotic Plant Species Has Been Described as an
Explosion in Slow Motion or a Biological Wildfire. In this Segment of
the Training Module, We Will Look at the Spread of Invasive Plant
Species And Also Examine Some of the Impacts They Pose to Native
Ecosystems That They Infest. But, First, What Is an Invasive Exotic Pest
Plant Species? Although No One Definition Will Satisfy Everyone, Most
People Will Agree These Are Plants That Are Usually Brought into an Area
By Humans, Either Intentionally Or Accidently, and These Plants
Generally Spread Very Rapidly From the Point of Introduction. They\'re
Unwanted. And They\'re Often Referred to as Weeds or Noxious Plants.
Familiar Examples of Weeds Include Many That You May Have In Your
Resource Area or District. The Problem Is Spread from Coast To Coast,
Melalueca, Infesting The Everglades in Florida, Kudzu Infesting Areas of
the Southeastern United States, Yellow Starthistle, a Familiar Problem
Plant in the Western U.s. And Various Other Species. You Will Have an
Opportunity to Look at an Expanded List Late or In Your Reference Guide
and Check Those That Are in Your Area. The United States Is by No Means
Immune to the Problems That Invasive Species Cause with Fully 1400
Species Well Established and Considered as Pests. The Rate of
Infestation Varies From Region to Region but No Region Is Immune to this
Problem. Northern States Typically Have Lower Numbers of Invasive
Species than More States in Southern Claim Others but Everybody Has to
Share in the Problem of Weeds. An Estimated 100 Million Acres Of Land Is
Infested by Exotic Plants in the United States, and They\'re Estimated
to Spread at 8 To 20% per Year. That Means an Area Approximately The
Size of Delaware, 3 Million Acres, Are Lost to Invasive Species Every
Year. At an Estimated Annual Rate Inform Crease of 14%, Public Natural
Areas Are Being Invaded At a Rate of 4,600 Acres per Day. That\'s a
Doubling Time of Only Five Years. On BLM Lands Alone, Perhaps 5% Or 8.5
Million Acres Have Significant Weed Problems. Let\'s Take a Look at Some
of the Invaders and the Problems That They Pose to Natural Resource And
Land Managers. Hoary Cress Was Introduced to The United States from
Europe in The Late 19th Century. It Was First Noted Around Sea Ports on
the East and West Coast Indicating it Probably Arrived In the Ballast of
Ships but That Didn\'t Stop It. From There it Spread Quickly Across the
Country, Occupying Much of the Northern Half of the United States. As
this Photo Shows Taken near Keating, Oregon, the Plant Has The
Impressive, or Might Say Depressive, Ability to Form Large Mono Cultures
in Areas Formerly Occupied by Native Species. Yellow Star Thistle
Another Invader Familiar to Many Land Managers in the Western United
States this. Plant Was Introduced from the Mediterranean Area and Asia
and It Spreads Exclusively by Seed Which Has the Ability to Remain
Dormant in the Soil for as Long As 10 Years. Ingestion of Yellow
Starthistle Causes Chewing Disease and Death In Horses N Some Canyons in
Idaho, It\'s Estimated to Spread At 60% a Year. Since 1978, Yellow Star
Thinks Null Northern California Has Expanded from One Million Acres To
More than 10 Million Acres Today. It Continues to Spread and Is
Expanding Rapidly in Eastern Oregon and in Western Idaho. This
Photograph of a Range Plot In Idaho Shows Virtually No Sign Of Yellow
Starthistle. Note the Toe of the Slope in the Distance this. Photograph
Was Taken in 1983. This Is the Same Range Plot in 1993. Again, Note the
Toe of the Slope For Reference, and You Can See Complete Domination of
the Area By Yellow Star Thinks Null a Very Short Period of Time. How
Does this Plant Spread? It Has Excellent Dispersal Capabilities, Typical
of Many Species We Deal with. The Sharp Seed Heads Get Stuck In Tires,
Infer, in Clothing and They\'re Spread for Miles and Miles from the Area
of Infestation. In Idaho, Rush Skeletonweed Spread from Only 40 Acres in
1964 to Occupy Well over 4 Million Acres Today. The Plant Occupies
Millions of Acres in California and the Pacific Northwest and Is
Definitely Expanded from its Original Native Habitat in Europe.
Dalmatian Toadflax Is Native to The Mediterranean Region as Well But
It\'s Well Established and Certainly Well‑known Tomb in the
Intermountain West. It\'s an Attractive Plant and It\'s Probably an
Escaped Ornamental but It\'s Beauty Belies in the Vasive Nature. As You
Can See, it Can Form Form Large Monocultures Formerly Occupied by Native
Plants. It Spreads by Seeds and Roots And in this Map, You Can See an
Infestation That Shows 2.4 Acres In 1984 and Then less than 10 Years
Later It\'s Expanded by Over 400 Times to Occupy 983 Acres. This Is
Characteristic of Many Of the Invasive Species We Deal With. There Is
Another One Familiar to A Lot of Western Land Managers And Leafy Spurge.
This Plant Was Introduced to the U.s. in the Late 19th Century. It
Produced a Milky Sap and this Sap Is Harmful to Humans and Most
Livestock. In Fact the Sap Can Produce Blisters and Skin Irritation Ins
Humans, Cattle and Horses and Fit Gets in the Eyes it Can Cause
Permanent Blindness. The Sap Is So Dangerous, Special Protective Gear
must Be Worn When Dealing with Infestations Of this Plant. As this Photo
Taken in Grant County, Oregon Shows, this Species Also Has the Ability
to Form Very Large Monocultures. Over 600,000 Acres of this Plant Are
Firmly Established in Montana. Over One Million Acres Are Established in
North Dakota. The Economic Losses Caused by This Plant Are Exemplified
by The Case of a Ranch That Sold at Auction for 15% of Appraised Value
Because the Land Was So Infested with Leafy Spurge That Nobody Wanted to
Bite. Perennial Pepperweed Was Introduced into the United States in the
Early 19th Century, and it Arrived as a Contaminant in the Seeds of
Sugar Beets in Yolo County California. Now It\'s Rapidly Spreading,
Widely Distributed in Western North America, Particularly in Riparian
Photographs, as Shown In this Photograph. It\'s an Aggressive Colonizer
That Displaces Native Riparian And Wealth Meadow Species. Now We Come to
Think Point Number One in Your Reference Guide. If You\'ll Turn to Page
12, Take A Look at the List of Invasive Exotic Pest Plants There. Some
of Them Are Familiar to You. Some of Them You May Have Just Been
Introduced To. But I Bet That Most Everybody in The Audience Has a Large
Portion Of These Plants in Their Particular Area That They Have To
Manage. Check the Ones That Are Familiar To You and Learn More about
Them. One of the Most Troublesome of The Invasive Exotic Pest Plants
Species Not on Your List Is Salt Cedar, or Tamarisk. This Is a Large
Genus of Plants, 57 Species, Several of Them Introduced into the United
States in the 1800 as an Ornamental and Also for Erosion Control. It\'s
a Relatively Attractive Species, but Unfortunately, like Many Aggressive
Invaders, it Now Occupies Millions of Acres of Public Land. In Fact, an
Estimated 1.5 Million Acres of Sensitive Riparian Habitats in the
Southwestern U.s. Are Now Dominated by this Invasive Species. This
Photograph Shows a Rare Native California Fan Palm Oasis Completely
Encircled by a Screen Of Salt Cedar. Rates of Upstream Invasion in This
Plant Have Been Estimated To Occur at 12 Miles per Year. You Can Imagine
What the Downstream Invasion Rate must Be. Now, Salt Cedar Has Little If
Any Value to Wildlife. If this Weren\'t Enough, it Has a Long List of
Other Negative Traits. The Plant Uses a Fair Amount of Water in
Comparison with the Native Riparian Species That Are A Little More
Conservative in Their Use of Groundwater. In Addition, Dense Groves of
Salt Cedar or Tamarisk Also Increase Soil Salinity Because The Plant Has
Specialized Glands On the Leaf That Release Salt it Doesn\'t Require and
this Renders Soils Unsuitable for Germination By Many Species. If this
Weren\'t Enough, Salt Cedar Likes to Burn, Which Is Another Trait Many
of the Invasive Plants Have That We Have to Deal with. An Increased
Frequency of Fires And Increased Intensity of Fires Bodes Poorly for
Native Riparian Species of Plants That Are Poorly Adapted to These. This
Is a Plant That Has the Ability to Change Landscapes or Alter
Geomorphology. Dense Groves of Salt Cedar Trap Sediments in River
Channels, Completely Altering Channel Morphology and Degrading Wildlife
Habitat Everywhere It\'s Found. Islands Are Stabilized. Sandbars Are
Stabilized. It\'s a Real Problem. Now, Fire ‑‑ Will Burn Salt Cedar but
it Spreads Vigorously. This Is Only Four Months after An Intense Fire.
The Native Plant Species Do Not Have the Ability to Come Back And
Respond to Frequent Fires. There\'s Been Some Recent Concern For the
Fate of Endangered Species like the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher Now
Force to Do Nest in Riparian Habitats That Are Dominated by Salt Cedar.
However, These Concerns must Be Very Carefully Balanced Against The
Needs of Other Sensitive Species That Are Known to Be Negatively
Impacted by Salt Cedar. We\'ve Essentially Lost an Ecosystem in the Case
of Salt Cedar Dominated Habitats and a Lot of Wildlife Species Are
Affected. Now, We\'ve Seen How Quickly Invasive Species of Plants Can
Spread and We Know That Not All That Is Green Is Good. Ecosystem Health
Is Compromised By Weeds at Every Level of Biodiversity That\'s
Recognized By Ecologists. At the Level of an Ecosystem We Have Seen How
Hydrology, Sedimentation Rates and Fire Cycles Can Be Altered
Significantly by the Invasion of These Plants. Communities of Native
Plants and Animals Change Their Composition And Structure in Response to
the Invasion by These Unwelcome Plants. In Addition, Various Species Are
Actually Threatened by Extinction Because of the Presence of These
Invaders and Populations of Those Species Have Documented Cases of
Decreased Recruitment and Increased Mortality Because They Don\'t
Compete Very Well in the Exotics in Most Cases. There Are Significant
Commercial Impacts as Well. Crop Lands, Rangelands, Forest Products, the
Wild Lands That We All Treasure and Protect, Recreation Areas, All of
These Things Are Compromised by Invasive Species, and Yet Many Of Them
Are Very Difficult to Assign a Value To. In Fact, Some Economic Impacts
Are Staggering. Just Look at this. Millions of Dollars Spent Annually
Dealing with Just the Problem of Leafy Spurge in Several States. In
Fact, Some Counties Spend a Very Significant Portion of Their Budget
Dealing with the Problem of Weeds as Well, and These Numbers Will Only
Increase As the Problems of Weeds Continue to Spread and More Species
Become Established. Some Plants, like Leafy Spurge, Hounds Tongue and
Starthistle, Are Poisonous to Livestock at Some or All Parts of Their
Growth Forms and Livestock Carrying Capacity Can Actually Be Reduced 30
to 80% on Lands That Are Infested with These Exotic Plants. So Effective
Rangeland Management Is Actually like Getting Free Forge. It Can Be a
Very Important Tool For Better Managing Our Rangelands. Now, Other
Economic Impacts Are A Lot Harder to Document. This Photograph Shows a
Trail Along the Klamath River in Oregon That Was Abandoned by
Recreationists Due to a Thorny Infestation of Yellow Starthistle.
Anybody That\'s Tried to Wade Through an Infestation of this Long Pants,
or God Forbid Short Pants, Knows this Is a Serious Impediment to
Recreation Opportunities. So We Are Being Affected at All Levels by
These Invasive Species. We Come to Think Point Number 2 Now in Your
Reference Guide, and I Want You to Think about How Noxious Plants or
Weeds Are Infecting the Environment in Your Area or District. Take a
Look at Page 13 at Your Reference Guide and Check the Items That Are
Appropriate for You. Ecosystem Health Is a BLM Management Goal of the
Highest Order. Only by Working Together Can We Stem the Tide of These
Invasive Species. Prevention Is Our Best and Most Cost Effective Tool.
However, Innovative Use of Integrated Weed Management Is The Only Line
of Defense We Have For Dealing with the Invasive Species That Are
Already Here And Well Established. The Health of Our Native Ecosystems
Depends on Our Response and Our Resolve.

Hamilton: Thanks, Jeff, for Taking Some of ‑‑ Taking Us on That Great
Tour and Showing Us How Invasive Weeds Are Affecting Our Environment and
Also Our Economics, and Then Just Showing Us How Widespread the Problem
Is. Thanks a Lot. Now We\'ve Seen Some of the Impacts That Weeds Have on
Our Environment and Our Economics, And the Rest of Today\'s Program Is
Going to Deal with Solutions And Strategies to Help Us Achieve a
Successful Weed Management Effort. So Specifically We\'re Going to Look
at the Essential Elements Of a Long‑term Integrated Weed Management
Program and of Course We Have Laws and Regulations That Govern Any
Program We Have, Including Weed Management and Some Strategies to Help
Your Iwm Program Be a Real Success. Now We\'re Coming to the Second Sign
on the Road to Successful Weed Management, and Bob and Pat Are Going to
Steer Us Through The Elements of That Long‑term Iwm Program.

Bolton: Thanks, Kniffy. The Objective of this Unit Is to Be Able to
Incorporate All the Elements of Integrated Weed Management into Your
Field Office Operations. We\'re Going to Use the Definition of
Integrated Weed Management as the Application of The Following Elements:
Prevention and Detection, Education and Awareness, Inventory, Planning,
Integrated Weed Control, Coordination, and Monitoring Evaluation,
Research And Tech Transfer. Aum These Elements Are Needed For an
Effective Program and Many Can Be Accomplished with Our Partners. You
Can Reference the Paw Plan, Partners Against Weeds, Action Plan to Learn
More about the Seven Elements. So Why Do We Want to Use an Iwm Approach?
It\'s an Approach or Process That Has Been Successfully Used in The past
to Achieve Results with Weed Management. The Paw Document Also Describes
Many Strategies and Examples of Several Activities That Are Appropriate
for Each of These Elements and Many of the BLM Field Offices Are Already
Using These. We\'re Now Going to Look at a Specific Area Where Pat
Works, And She Is Going to Describe Some of These Activities for Each of
These Elements. The First Element Is Prevention And Detection. Pat,
Would You Share with Us Some of Your Experiences with This Element?

Fosse: Sure. We All Know That Prevention Is The Most Effective
Economical And Practical Way to Manage Weeds Where They Don\'t Already
Exist. Some of the Reasons for Prevention and Early Detection Have to Do
with the Way Weeds Are Spread. They Are So Effective at Self‑advancement
Because of Excellent Seed Dispersal Mechanisms. Some of the Ways They
Are Spread Are Through Contaminated Seed, Grain, Hay, Straw and Mulch,
Movement of Unclean Equipment Across Uncontaminated Lands, Animal Furs
and Fleece and People\'s Clothing and Camping Gear, Spreading Gravel in
Road Fill from Contaminated Areas, Plant and Seeds Sold Through
Nurseries at Ornamentals and Vehicles That ‑‑ along Our Right‑of‑ways
and Transportation Corridors, as Well as Our Offoff‑road Vehicles.

Bolton: What Are the Major Points to Note about Prevention?

Fosse: I Think It\'s the Old Adage an Ounce of Prevention Is Worth about
a Million Dollars Worth of Cure in this Case, or We Could Invest \$5 Now
or \$5 Million Later.

Bolton: Another Item We Would Like to Mention Is the Fireweed Model and
this Is Also a Great It Will Tool, It\'s in a Brochure ‑‑ or a Video
Format That Describes the Analogy for Prevention and Detection, and Also
Field Offices Can Prepare Weed Prevention Schedules to Help Them with
Prevention And, For Instance, a Mineral Specialist Can Be Assigned the
Task to Inventory Material Sites. Examples Are Listed in the Workbook on
Pages 30 and 31. The Second Element Is Education And Awareness. Pat, Why
Don\'t You Share Some Highlights of What You Have Experienced in this
Element.

Fosse: Weeds Are Traditionally Thought of as a Rural or Agricultural
Problem But I Think They Are Everybody\'s Problem and as Jeff So
Eloquently Pointed Out, the Impacts Affect Everybody. So We Need to Get
of Message Out, and That\'s Probably One of The Most Important Things We
Do In Weed Management, Is Raise the Education and Awareness of People.
We All Need to Know That All of The Programs We Do Affect the Spread of
Weeds. So We All Need to Be Part of the Solution. Some of the Things
That We\'ve Been Working on in Our Area to Raise the Awareness Are
We\'ve Got the Weed Day We Have Done For the past 11 Years and That\'s
Where We Bring out School Kids From Three or Four Different Schools, and
We\'ve Had up to 300 Volunteers and We Have Them Help Us Dig Scotch
Thistle and Then One of the Private Landowners Prepares a Dutch Oven
Lunch, and That Helps These Kids Learn About Weeds and What Their
Impacts Are. We Also Have Developed Some Brochures and They Can Be
Helpful If You Distribute Them At Recreation Areas, in Schools And Other
Places Where You Can Reach the Urban People and the Youth. The Other
Things That We\'ve Done Is We\'ve Prepared Displays, and We\'ve ‑‑ Have
an Annual Tour in Our Demonstration Weed Management Area Where We Take
People out and Show Them the Impacts and Then as We Achieve Progress, We
Take Them Back out And Show Them Some of the Progress We Have Been Able
to Achieve.

Bolton: Pat, You Mentioned This Is Not Just a Rural Problem. What Did
You Mean?

Fosse: Well, I Meant That the Impacts of Weeds Get to the Point Where
They Can Affect Everything We Care About, and It\'s Just like in Fire in
the Wild Land Urban Interface Where There Is Large Populations of People
F They\'re Not Aware of The Problem, There\'s a Lot More Potential for
Them to Spread on It Their Hiking and Camping Gear And Ohvs and
Vehicles. But If We Teach Them and They Are Aware of the Problem, They
Can Also Help Become Part of the Solution.

Bolton: Great. The Third Element in the Integrated Weed Management
Process Is Inventory, And, Pat, Can You Share a Little Bit about What
Inventory Means in the Context of Weeds and How You Have Dealt with It.

Fosse: Yes, the Effects of Noxious Weeds, We Need to Have Good Baseline
Data to Be Able to Analyze Our Resources, Set Priorities and Make Good
Decisions, as Well as Complying With Our Laws and Regulations. We Have
to Know What\'s out There So That We Can Have a Successful Weed
Management Program. Some of the Tools That We\'ve Used in Our Area Is
Gps and Gis. Some Other Areas Also Use Remote Sensing. That Can Be Used
on Certain Weed Species. We\'ve Used a General Weed Inventory Based on
Highly Susceptible At‑risk Areas like Roads, Trails, Waterways, Washes
And That Gives You Enough Time And Dollars to Do the Treatment And
Restoration. This Type of Inventory Is Only Cost Us about 1 to 2 Cents
an Acre for Rangelands, and it Doesn\'t Have to Be Expensive, But We
Really Need to Have That Baseline Data to Make Good Decisions and Gis
Also Allows Us To Share Very Easily this Information with All Our
Partners. Do Any of the Rest of Have You Any Experience with Inventory?

Singleton: Recent Inventory In the Veil Area in Oregon Turned up
Tamarisk in over 200 Miles of Stream Course We Didn\'t Know We Had. So
My Advice Would Be If You Think You Don\'t Have Weed Problems, Then Look
Harder.

Bolton: Thanks, Ed. The Planning Is the Fourth Element of the Integrated
Weed Management Process and There Are Two Very Good Sources That Can
Help You with Planning. One Is the Paw Document Itself, Partner Against
Weeds Action Plan. And the Second One Is the Guidelines for Coordinated
Management of Noxious Weeds in The Greater Yellowstone Area. If You Are
Preparing or Advising Land Use Plans, or Activity Plans Such as
Allotment Management Plans or Recreation Management Plans, It\'s
Important To Include Weed Management as an Integral Part of These Plans.
Pat, Tell Us a Little about Planning in Your Demonstration Weed
Management Area.

Fosse: the Way We Did it There, Bob, We Involved All the Partners Right
from the Beginning. They Have to Help Set Priorities And We Have to Come
to Consensus On the Goals. It Needs to Be Their Plan So That They Have
Buy in into it And So That They\'re Willing to Do What it Takes to Make
it Work. We Have to Prioritize Because in Many Areas You Have Really
Large Infestations and Become Overwhelmed or Discouraged. So You Really
Need to Prioritize What Areas You Are Going to Work On and How You\'re
Going to Do That. We Wrote Long and Short‑term Goals So We Could Know
What We Wanted to Do in the Long Term And What to Started On. Once We
Had this Plan in Draft, We Sent it out and Solicited Input from Various
Different People, from Environmentalists To Ranchers to Congressional
People, and When We Got That Input, We Put it in the Plan and Then
Started to Implement the Plan.

Bolton: Great. The Fifth Element in the Integrated Weed Management
Process Is Integrated Weed Control Methods, and Integrated Weed Control
Is Based on the Fact That Combined Strategies Are More Effective than a
Single Strategy. Pat, Tell Us about Some of the Strategies You Have Used
in Your Project Area.

Fosse: There\'s Five General Categories in Integrated Weed Control
Methods. There\'s Physical, Biological, Cultural, Chemical and
Restoration. And They\'re Mentioned in Your Workbook as Well. In Our
Area, We\'ve Used Cultural. In Places We Find Opportunities, We Can
Change the Timing of Livestock Grazing to Benefit Desired Vegetation and
Help Take The Competitive Edge off the Noxious Weeds That We\'re Working
O Physical, We Have Used Volunteers to Help Dig up Scotch Thinks Null
Certain Areas. With Biological, We Have Seven Different Agents Working
in the Demonstration Weed Management Area. Two of These, the Seed Head
Flies, Are Dispersed Throughout The Entire Infestation Now. Herbicides,
We\'ve Prioritized The Areas That We\'re Going to Use Herbicides in and
We Did This Based on the Areas That Were More Susceptible to Contribute
to the Spread of the Weeds, and Then Also the Outside Perimeter of the
Infestation. For Restoration and Rehabilitation, We\'ve Used this In
Areas That Are Large Areas That Are Disturbed by ‑‑ Mostly By Fire, but
Also Other Disturbances as Well. We\'ve Used the Rangeland Drills And
Chaining to Get Some Desirable Vegetation into Areas Before Noxious
Weeds Can Get in There. So I Would Encourage All of You To Carefully
Consider a Combination of These Tools in Your Planning and E.a. Process
But Just Because You Can\'t Start Them All or Don\'t Have the Science in
Place or the Money to Start Them All, Start with Some Of Them, and Then
as Can You Get Budget or the Science to Start The Rest, Then Go Ahead
and Start the Rest as You Can.

Bolton: Thanks, Pat. To Give Our Viewers a Heads‑up Notice, in about
Three to Five Minutes, There Is Going to Be a Phone‑in or Call‑in and
Fax Period. So Be Thinking about Questions You May Have on Anything
We\'ve Discussed up to this Point. The Sixth Element Is Coordination.
Here We\'re Going to Talk about Why to Coordinate and Who to Coordinate
With, and Pat\'s Going To Talk Later about How to Form A Partnership.
Since Weeds Know No Boundaries, It\'s Imperative We Continue to Expand
Cooperation with All of Our Federal, State and County Governments,
Organizations and Landowners in the Fight Against Weeds. Establishing
Weed Management Areas Offers a Great Opportunity For Coordination to
Achieve Our Collective Goals. Developing Management Agreements To Share
Training Courses, Financial Resources Has Proven To Be Quite Effective
and Efficient. We Have Found That Working Together on Weeds Is Largely a
White Hat Issue, and Can Develop Into a Win Win Situation. In Building
Relationships with Organizations on this Issue, it Can Help with Other
Issues We Normally Find Ourselves in Opposition On. Pat, You Had an
Example of a Partnership That Helped Build a Relationship.

Fosse: Yeah, the Partnership That I\'m Involved In, We\'ve Really Built
a Lot of Trust and Earned Credibility with Each Other. So When We Deal
with the Counties on Other Issues That Are More Sensitive or
Controversial, like Wilderness Study Areas or Roads This, Relationship
Really Is Helpful In Getting Through These Sensitive Issues and Being
Able To Have Open Discussion on These Issues.

Bolton: Ok.

Fosse: Our Ultimate Goal in Weed Management Is to Have a Coordinated
Effort over Every Acre of Land in the West.

Bolton: the Seventh and Last Element of the Integrated Weed Management
Process Is the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research And Tech Transfer. Pal,
Tell Us about Your Experiences in this Element.

Fosse: Well, Mike Dombeck Had A Quote. He Was Our past Acting Director.
He Said, \"We must Be Fanatics About Measuring Progress,\" and I Agree
with Us, Because How Do We Know If We Are Being Effective Or How Do We
Know If We\'re Meeting Our Beives If We Don\'t Monitor. Monitoring
Doesn\'t Have to Be Rocket Science. It Can Be Simple. It Can Just Be
Putting out Preand Post Monitoring Photos, But We Really Need to Do and
it It Doesn\'t Have to Take a Lot of Time. I like to Think of Three
Criteria When I Think about Setting up Monitoring Plots, and They\'re,
One, it Can\'t Take a Lot of Time Because We Know We\'re All Pressed for
Time and Have a Hundred Priorities We\'re Working O the Second One, it
Has To Answer Our Questions in a Statistical Reliable Way. And the Third
One, We Have to Get Operationally Useful Information from the Monitoring
That We\'re Doing. If it Meets These Three Criteria, Then We Need to Be
Going out and Doing It. I Think We Should Seek Advice From Our Experts
Within Our Agencies and Other Agencies as Well as Universities on What
Methodologies We Could Use to Answer Our Questions. Then We Know We\'re
Getting the Best Science.

Bolton: And, Jeff, You Had Something You Wanted to Offer on Research.

Lovich: That\'s Right, Bob. I\'d like to Underscore a Point That Pat
Made and That Is We Need to Use Existing Knowledge We Have Right Now
That\'s Been Generated from Lots of Research To Combat Weeds Now to the
Best Of Our Ability, But, at the Same Time, It\'s Critical That We
Maintain a Strong Commitment to New Research So We Can Develop
Innovative Tools to Deal with Future Infestations.

Bolton: an Example Every Tech Transfer Would Be the Ability to Use Gis
Mapping for Inventory. Snow Summary of this Unit, a Successful
Integrated Weed Management Program Needs to Include a Long‑term
Commitment To the Seven Elements. Again, These Are Prevention and
Detection, Education and Awareness, Inventory, Planning, The Integrated
Weed Control, Coordination, and the Monitoring/evaluation/research And
Tech Transfer. In Developing Strategies, to Implement These Elements, We
Have Found Successful Weed Management Programs Need to Emphasize
Cooperative Efforts Among All Land Owners and Managers, Development of
Weed Management Areas and Subsequent Management Plans, Be Allowed to Use
All the Tools and Materials Necessary to Get the Job Done Right, and it
must Be Long Term. Kniffy?

Hamilton: I Think You Have Both Given Us a Really Clear Picture of What
the Seven Steps Under Integrated Weed Management. You Also Have Given Us
Really Good Examples, Live Ones on the Ground, about How to Go about
Doing this. I Hope That Will Be Beneficial To Everyone in the Audience.
As Bob Mentioned, We Were Going To Have Our First Question and Answer
Session, and So We Would Like to Do That at this Point If We Have Any
Faxes or Any Calls. Here They Come. Thanks. Any of You Feel Free to
Raise Your Hand and Answer Any of Questions We Have Here. The First One
Is, and this Is From Jeff in Oregon, I Believe, How Important Is the Use
of Herbicides as One of the Integrated Weed Control Methods? Anybody
Want to Tackle That One?

Lovich: Well, Jeff, I Think That\'s a Really Good Question And I Think
That You Wouldn\'t Really Have Good Integrated Weed Management Unless
You Considered All the Tools and the Use of Herbicides Is Just One of
the Tools We Have Available to Us. There Have Been Very Important
Advances in Herbicide Technology In Recent Years That Take a Lot Of the
Dangers out of Their Application in Wild Land Areas, But It\'s Very
Critical to Do Site Evaluation and Determine What the Best Method Is for
You. If it Works and You Don\'t Have Degradation of Resources, Then It
Should Be Used.

Hamilton: Here\'s Another Good Question: Who Should Take the Lead in a
Cooperative Weed Management Area Program?

Fosse: I Think I Can Answer That. I Don\'t Think it Really Matters Who
Takes the Lead in a Cooperative Effort. I Think it Can Be Someone from
The Private Sector. It Can Be a County Person, State, Federal. It
Doesn\'t Really Matter, as Long as the Person That Takes The Lead Is
Committed and Is Credible, I Think You Can Be Successful.

Hamilton: I Think That\'s Really a Good Point. Thanks a Lot for All the
Questions That We Got at this Point. But We\'re Going to Start Moving On
down the Road to the Rest of Today\'s Show. So, of Course, We Always
Have to Look at Existing Laws, Regulations and Policies as Another
Reason for Having a Long‑term Weed Management Program. So That Brings Us
to Our Third Sign along the Road, Which Is Laws, Regulations and
Policies. Big Surprise, Huh? Because Mark Stiles Couldn\'t Be With Us
Today, We Are Going to Go to a Prerecorded Segment and Mark Is the
District Manager in The Montrose District in Colorado.

Stiles: Thanks. I Appreciate this Opportunity to Travel along the Road
to Successful Weed Management and Especially the Chance to Point Out
this Unit on Laws and Regulations Is Represented by The Road Sign Open
Range. Now for the Content. Relevant Laws, Regs and Other Requirements
Come from the Number of Different Sources, Including State, County and
Federal Laws, Court Decisions, Environmental Impact Statements And, of
Course, the Manuals and Handbooks. Looking into These with More Detail,
Let\'s Talk about the Role of State and County Laws. Keep in Mind That
Almost Everyone Has Them, and They May Vary from One County to the Next.
But the Real Value in Them Is That They Are What Creates a Noxious Weed
List. It\'s These Lists That We Land Managers must Comply with. It Gives
Us Our \"Hit List.\" Legislation Varies Greatly from State to State. As
an Example, Here\'s the Result Of the Nebraska Weed Law. Their Noxious
Weed List, Which Lists Five Species. In Another State, Such as Colorado,
69 Species Are on the List, Ranging from Well‑known Ornamentals to Weeds
We Are Finding More and More on Public Lands. Only One County Has
Tamarisk on The List. In Wyoming 24 May Soon Become 25 If They Add Tam
Wrist Took Their List N Oregon, 93 Species. And in New Mexico There Is
Know State Weed Law or List Though Some Counties May Have Their List. So
Your Office Weed Coordinator ‑‑ See Your State Coordinator If You Don\'t
Know the Weeds on Your List. Take the Time to Become Familiar With
Requirements. Another Thing They Can Help Do Is Ensure a Coordinated
Approach To Weed Management by All Parties, Feds, Counties and Private
Landowners. This Cooperation Is a Critical Component of Effective Weed
Management. Next, Working from a National Level, There Are a Few Federal
Requirements That Come from a Few Sources, a Couple of Which Should Be
Familiar to You. The Sources of Federal Regulations Are the Federal
Noxious Weed Act, the Carlson‑foley Act, Flpma, Public Rangeland
Improvement Act and The Wyden Amendment. With the Exception of the Wyden
Amendment Each Is Listed in the Appendix One of the Partners Against
Weeds Plan. If You Have Misplaced the Paw Plan, They Are Also in the
Workbook for this Broadcast. So What\'s So Important about These
Statutes? Well, the Federal Noxious Weed Act of 1974, Section 15, Was
Amended in 1990, and it Specifically Directed Federal Agencies to Take
Four Actions. All Federal Agencies Shall: Designate an Office or Person
Adequately Trained to Develop And Coordinate an Undesirable Plants
Program. We\'ve Done this with the Creation of Kniffy Hamilton\'s
Position as National Weed Team Lead. In Turn Each Field Office Should
Designate a Weed Coordinator or Contact. Secondly, Establish and
Adequately Fund an Undesirable Plant Program. This Is What We Are Trying
to Help You Do with this Broadcast. Heads up for the Presentation by
Kniffy and Ed Singleton. They Are Going to Explain Why Our Weed
Management Funding Is Looking Up. And, Third, Complete and Implement
Cooperative Agreements With State Agencies. Most Cooperation Occurs at
the County Level. Many States Already Have Mous, Which Sure Make
Subsequent Cooperation Easier. Finally, All Agencies Shall Establish
Integrated Weed Management Programs to Control Or Contain Undesirable
Plants. You\'re Getting the Hints on How To Today. Not Bad, Huh? Well,
There Is One Account Act You Might Not Be Familiar with. It\'s the
Carlson‑foley Act and There Are Two Main Points in It. First, the Act
Directs Federal Agencies to Cooperate with Counties. Secondly, it Allows
Agencies to Reimburse Counties for Weed Work. Listen Later for Examples
of This in Action. The next Two Requirements Come From Statutes We All
Know and Work with Often, Flpma and Pria. One Requirement of Flpma That
You Might Not Think of in Terms Of Managing Weeds Is Section 302‑b Which
Directs Us to Take Any Action Necessary to Prevent Unnecessary or Undue
Degradation Of Public Lands. Consistent with Preliminary Nah Is Pria.
Also Found in Appendix 1 of the Paw Plan, Which Reads, BLM Will Manage,
Maintain and Improve the Condition of the Public Rangelands So That They
Become As Productive as Feasible. Lastly, There Is the Recent Wyden
Amendment Allows Us to Spend Federal Dollars on Nonfederal Land to
Protect Federal Resources. That\'s it for Federal and State Laws
Regulars. A Short but Valuable List. Helps Maintain That Sense of Open
Range. One Other Point on Regs, the Program for Weeds Is Covered
Nationally by the 1991 Eis for Vegetation Treatment and Supplemental to
That the Northwest Area Noxious Weed Eis. These Present the
Environmental Analysis and Mitigation for Use Of Herbicides Though the
Use Varies from State to State. So to Summarize, Know Your State And
County Laws. Become Familiar with Your Applicable Noxious Weed List.
Budget for a Weed Program. Cooperate with State Agencies. Practice
Integrated Weed Management. And Make Use of Our Two National Eiss. Thank
You and I Hope to Meet All Of You on the Road to Successful Weed
Management. And Now Back to the Rest of the Program.

Hamilton: Thanks, Mark, for That Great and Unique Presentation. Looks
like You Were Having a Good Time out There on That Road To Successful
Weed Management. During the First Half of Our Presentation Today We Have
Looked at the Environmental Impacts That Were Created by Invasive
Plants. We Have Also Looked at the Seven Elements of the Successful Weed
Management Effort. Finally this Morning We Looked At the Impact of Laws,
Regulations and Policies on Weed Management. We\'re Going to Take a
Short Break of about 10 Minutes at This Time, and Then When We Return
We\'re Going to Spend the Second Half of Our Time this Morning Looking
at Some Strategies Which Can Help Smooth This Road Toward Successful
Weed Management. These Strategies Are Going to Include Program
Integration, Work Force, Budgeting and Partnerships. So If You Have Any
Questions That Are Unanswered at this Point, Please Send Us a Fax During
the Break and We\'ll Respond to Those During the Second Half of the
Program, and We\'ll See You in about 10 Minutes.

Hamilton: Welcome Back to the Road to Successful Weed Management. I Just
Want to Mention a Couple Things. We Got a Couple Faxes During the Break,
and ‑‑ from New Mexico And I Think this Is Really Great Because We
Needed to Be Updated In Our Material and Two Folks Wrote in and Said
That New Mexico Has a Weed Law, and this Weed Law Was Signed by Governor
Johnson in 1998. So We Do Want to Recognize this Positive Action to Weed
Control In New Mexico. Thanks for Updating Us and We\'ll Keep That along
with Us. Before We Pick Things Up, I\'d Like to Mention Some Upcoming
Telecasts Here on the BLM Satellite Network. On May 29th BLM Director
Pat Shea Is Going to Host a Second Telecast in the Public Lands Public
Trust Series. This Is a Roundtable Discussion And It\'s Going to Focus
on the Relationship Between the Executive and the Legislative Branches
of Government as it Relates to Federal Resource Management. The
Director\'s Guests Are Going To Be Senator Dale Bum Maniers From
Arkansas and Senator Robert Bennett from Utah. Natural Resource
Management in The 21st Century Will Be the Focus of the Discussion
During The Third Telecast in That Series and That\'s Going to Be on June
18th. This Telecast Is Going to Feature Director Shea, Secretary Of the
Interior Bruce Babbitt And the Director of the U.s. Fish and Wildlife
Service Jamie Clark. So Be Sure to Mark Those Days For Your Calendars. I
Know He Will Appreciate You Watching. During the Remainder of Our
Program, We Are Going to Look at Some Strategies Which Can Help Smooth
the Road to Successful Weed Management. These Strategies, as We
Mentioned Before, Are Going to Be Integration of Programs, Lookinging at
Our Work Force, Looking at Our Budget and Then Some Partnerships. So to
Start off the Second Half Of Our Program, Ed and Pat Are Going to Take
Us along the Road As We Share Witness Our Peers, As We Work to Integrate
and Coordinate Our Weed Management Efforts in Our Daily Commute.

Fosse: Thanks. Our Objective in this Unit Is to Identify Ways That Weed
Management Will Be Integrated Into the Other Programs in Your Office to
Meet Your Iwm Objectives for Preventing, Containing and Controlling the
Spread of Weeds to Maintain and Restore Healthy Plant Communities. Ed,
Can You Tell Us How Standards and Guides Will Promote Program
Integration in The Prevention and Spread of Weeds?

Singleton: Well, Pat, Standards and Guides for Rangeland Health Are
Being Implemented Across the West and It\'s Interintent to Recognize a
Need to Monitor and Adapt Management Strategies to Minimize the Spread
of Weeds. I Think That\'s the Important Factor in the Standards and
Guys.

Fosse: I Understand You Have An Excellent Weed Prevention Strategy
Implemented Within Your Force Account and Fire Crews in The Veil
District. Could You Please Tell the Audience about That?

Singleton: We Have Been Washing Equipment for Several Years, Our Heavy
Equipment, the Force Account Uses, We Started Two Years Ago Washing on
Site Before We Move from Site to Site To Minimize the Spread of Weeds.
Last Year We Started Washing Fire Equipment That Had Gone off Road to
Also Minimize the Spread Of Weeds and We Feel this Is a Very Successful
Strategy.

Fosse: the Paw Plan Is a Great Reference for Showing Examples How the
Weed Program Can Be Spa Grated into Our Other Programs. Ed Has Prepared
a Presentation That Will Illustrate Some of These Examples.

Singleton: Refer to Page 29 And 30 in the Course and Reference Guide for
Weed Prevention Activities, and Also Pages 31‑35 in the Course and
Reference Guide That Talks about Best Management Practices. We Need to
Incorporate Weed Prevention into Road Layout, Design and Alternative
Evaluation on Any of Our Roads Projects. Just to Show You What the
Potential Is for Vehicles to Transmit Weeds, this Picture Was Taken in
the Veil Equipment Yard. Mud That Had Fallen off of Vehicles a Few Weeks
after Spring Warmup Was Starting to Sprout Noxious Weeds. We Need to
Remove Seed Sources That Could Be Picked up by Vehicles and Transported
to Areas Otherwise Weed‑free. We Need to Minimize Surface Disturbance
Around Roads and Reestablish and Maintain Vegetation to Discourage the
Establishment of Weeds. And Discourage Public Travel Into Areas Infested
by Weeds. This Strategy in Utah Has Been Very Effective in the Spotted
Knapweed Area. As Jeff Previously Mentioned, Some of the Species Are
Very Aggressive and Seeds Can Be Transported for Many Miles by Vehicles
and Other Agents. Another Practice That Comes Under Best Management
Practices Is Establishing Hay ‑‑ We Had‑free Hay Areas. Many of These
Exist in Counties In Oregon, Idaho and Utah. All Hay That Moves in and
out of The Counties Have to Be Certified Weed Free, and this Just
Another Area That Cuts down On the Opportunities to Move Weed Seed from
One Location to Another. In Our Special Recreation Use Permits, We Need
to Put in Stipulations That Require the Use of Weed‑free Feed. Also,
Possibly Quarantining Animals for a Period of Time to Allow Their
Systems to Wash out Any Weed Seeds They May Have in Gested. Certainly
Maybe Combing Manes And Tails. Is Checking Packs. Also on the Recreation
Program, The Increased Use of Our Rivers By Boaters, Both Private
Parties And Some of Our Special Recreation Use Permitted Activities,
Certainly Has a Great Potential to Spread Weeds When People Get in and
out of The Boats to Hike and Put Those Seeds Back on the Watercourses.
Simply Hiking Through Some of These Areas as Has Been Previously
Presented Can Spread Weeds. All of Our Nepa Processes, Particularly
Those for Prescribed Fire, Need to Address The Potential of Spreading
Weeds. Many of These Invasive Species Are Released by Fire and Can Cause
Some Serious Problems. Here\'s Rush Skeletonweed in a Timber Stand That
Was Burned and Caused a Tremendous Flush and Release this. Species Is
Very Hard to Control And It\'s Very Possible this Site Maybe Should Not
Have Been Burned If the Folks Had Known This Skeletonweed Was on Site
And Threatening. An Area We Haven\'t Given a Lot Of Emphasis on in the
past but One We Certainly Need to Pay Attention to Is Our Gravel and
Mineral Materials Program. We Sell and Distributed Free Use Materials
out of These Pits and They Need to Be Inspected on a Regular Basis to
Make Sure Infestations Such as this Yellow Starthistle Hasn\'t Taken
Place. Any of Our Special Permits We Process Such as Right‑of‑ways Need
to Have Stipulations for Minimizing Surface‑disturbing Activities and
Also Positive Stipulations for Controlling Any Weeds That May Be
Introduced to The Site, as Well as Effective Monitoring Through an
Adequate Term in the Future to Determine Whether or Not Any Weeds Have
Moved onto the Site. Lastly, We Need to Take a Look At Our Fire Program
and Emergency Activities on Where We Locate Facilities. Often Sometimes
We\'re Locating Large Fire Camps or Spike Camps, Heliports, and We Need
to Make Sure the Areas We\'re Selecting For These Sites Don\'t Have the
Potential to Spread Weeds.

Fosse: Thanks for Those Examples on How We Can Use Program Integration
in Weed Management. Do You Have You in Other Things Can You Suggest to
Help Field Offices Integrate this into Other Programs.

Singleton: I Think the Single Greatest Thing You Could Do to Help
Yourself Is to Hire or Designate a Full‑time Weeds Coordinator. We Did
So in Oregon Two Years Ago. Jerry Erstrom Became Our Coordinator and I
Can Say Today Jerry Has Nearly Tripled His Salary in Leveraged
Partnership Dollars. So It\'s a Very Profitable and Aggressive Program.
Take a Look at Prevention Schedules Once Again on Pages 29 And 30 as ‑‑
of the Reference Guide and You\'ll See There\'s a Real Importance Placed
in Integrating Weeds Management Into Existing Activity Plans. You Need
to Consider Weeds in All New Plans and Certainly Through New Project
Efforts. One Area That We\'ve Paid Particular Attention to in Oregon
Through the Northeast Oregon Assembled Land Exchange Where We\'re
Proposing to Acquire 75,000 Acres of Private Land in Exchange for like
Amount of Public Lands, Is to Take a Good Look at Screening Those Lands
to Make Sure We Don\'t Have Noxious Weed Problems We Will Have to Deal
with in the Future. Just Another Screen That Is Important to Prevent the
Unknowing Spread of Weeds Across The Landscape. Some of These Areas We
May Just Have ‑‑ We May Have to Say No And They May Have to Be
Eliminated. We Need to Ensure All of Our Staff, Not Just Our Resource
Specialists, but Our Surveyors, Fire Folks, Equipment Operators Are All
Trained in Integrated Weeds Management. We\'ve Asked Several of Our
Field Managers to Share Their Thoughts On Ways We Might Be Able to
Accomplish Program Integration And What I Would like to Do Is Introduce
Those Managers and Let Them Speak on Integration, Please.

Hello, I\'m Mike Mottice. I Am an Area Manager for the BLM In Glenwood
Springs, Colorado, And I Have Been Asked to Speak For a Moment about BLM
Colorado\'s Noxious Weed‑free Hay Program N 1996, BLM and Colorado
Implemented New Regulations That Require All Our Visitors to Public
Lands to Use Certified Weed‑free Hay or Straw or to Purchase Processed
Grain or Pellets. Those Regulations Primarily Affect Recollect
Reationist Using Packs, Outfitters. The Program Was Developed in
Partnership with the Forest Service with the State of Colorado
Department of Agriculture. The State of Colorado Administers the
Certification Program. The Standards Are Regional in Nature and
Consistent Throughout A Five‑state Region. Here in Glenwood Springs, We
Have Implemented the Program in Several Ways. First, We\'ve Tried to
Increase Public Awareness of the Issue Through the Use of Public
Information, Including Brochures Available at Our Reception Desk And
Signs like this One Here. Secondly, We\'ve Developed Some New
Stipulations That We Attach To Our Permits, Especially Our Special
Recreation Permits and Our Use Authorizations, like Rights‑of‑ways and
Applications For Permits to Drill, Such as in Oil and Gas Development.
Third and Finally, We Have Tried To Increase the Emphasis We Place on
Visitor and Hunter Patrols to Try to Reach as Many Visitors as We Can to
Inform Them of the Weed Free Hay Requirements. In Closing I Think the
Single Most Important Aspect of the Weed Program for Me Is it
Demonstrates We All Have Some Responsibilities to Address the Weed
Program, Not Just the Agency, Not Just the Land Owner, Not Just the
Rancher, but All Visitors to Public Lands. The Program Also Acknowledges
The Roam That the Casual Visitors Have in Influencing the Scope and
Complexity of the Weed Problem. Ultimately Our Success in Weed
Management Will Depend to a Very Large Extend on Our Ability to Increase
Public Awareness. The Weed‑free Hay Program Is a Great Step in That
Direction.

Maintaining and Improving Health of the Land Is Really at The Core of
BLM\'s Mission. Fighting Noxious Weeds Is a Problem That We All Take
Very Seriously and Is a High Priority For All of Us Who Are Attempt to
Go Improve the Condition of the Lands That We Manage. This Document,
Partners Against Weeds, Outlines Goals and Strategies for an Effective
Integrated Weed Management Program. Without Management\'s Commitment To
the Objectives and Goals in This Document, We\'re Going to Continue to
See BLM Lands Taken Over by Weeds at the Rate of Over 2300 Acres per
Day. We in Oregon and Washington Take The Weed Problem Very Seriously.
We Have Identified Some Processes Through Our Annual Work Plan That Are
Consistent With the Strategies That Are Outlined in this Document. We
Have Asked Every District in Oregon and Washington to Identify up to
50,000 Dollars of Additional Monies to Direct into The Weed Management
Program. Those Monies Will Be Directed Towards the Prevention, the
Identification and the Control Of Noxious Weeds on Public Lands. We\'ve
Also Identified a Very Critical Area That We Need to Improve On, and
That Is Identification of Partnerships. We Believe That Partnerships Are
A Big Part of the Solution to The Noxious Weed Problem. We Need to Be
Working with Our Neighbors, Be They Private Landowners, Counties,
Tribes, States and Other Federal Entities. Some Good Examples of
Partnerships That Are Ongoing in Oregon Right Now Are the Warner Basin
Weed Management Area Outside of Lakeview, Oregon, and The Bridge Creek
John Day Demonstration Weed Management Area Outside of Prineville,
Oregon. They Are Very Good Examples of BLM\'s Commitment to Bring a
Variety of Partners to the to The Table to Get to Solutions For the
Noxious Weeds Problem. We Believe That Our Managers Can\'t Ignore or
Forget the Magnitude of the Noxious Weed Problem. We Need to Identify
People and Additional Resources and Dollars To Focus on the Noxious Weed
Problem. We Need to Be Committed to Achieving the Goals That Are
Identified in this Plan. There\'s a Lot of Them. It\'s Going to Take a
Lot of Energy and Attention. But They Are Very Measurable Goals We All
Should Be Held Accountable for.

I\'m John Melhoff, Area Manager of the White River Resource Area in
Colorado. We Have Been Successful Because We Have Diversified Our
Efforts In Weed Management. Weed Management Today Requires a Multitude
of Activity in Prevention, Control, Restoration And, Most Importantly,
Awareness And Education. Clearly, Weeds Affect More People and
Organizations than Just Us in the BLM. Because of That Simple Fact,
We\'ve Reached out to Bring Together That Affected Group. We Call this
Effort the Rio Blanco Weed Part Parship. It Is Comprised of Federal,
State County Agencies Numerous Energy Companies and 40 to 50 Ranchers.
We Began this Partnership Just Last Spring, and it Has Successfully
Brought Manpower, Money and Equipment from All of These Sources into a
Large Cooperative Effort. This Partnership Is Not Directed By the BLM.
It\'s Managed by a Steering Committee Who Set the Priorities And Direct
the Activity. Have You Ever Heard of Sheep Grazing on Perennial
Pepperweed? Many Folks, Including Me, Had Not. By the Hard Work of Some
and Blind Faith of Others We Have 2,000 Sheep Doing Just That. We\'ll
Let You Know What Kind of Success We Have. We\'re Involved in a
Biorelease Of Leafy Spurge Attacking Bucks In a Nine‑mile Gap Area Where
Spurge Has Infested as Many as 5,000 Acres. We Will Also Keep You Posted
on That Effort. We Are Doing Many Things in an Effort to Educate Folks.
We Provide a Clearing House for The County Wide Mapping and Inventory
Effort. We Have Teams Mapping with Gps Units and We Have Capture That
Data in the Gis Database. Members of the Partnership Can Be Seen Posting
Information in Our Conference Room Map Area. We Conduct Field Trips and
Training Sessions. We Have Hosted and Sponsored Events for Women in
Agriculture, A Group Comprised of 50 Local Ranching Women. We Are
Involved with the High School, Voag and 4‑h Programs. We Have Instructed
More than 100 Grade School Kids on Weed Identification. We Are Teaching
Oil Field Workers to Identify and Treat Weeds. We Have Effected this ‑‑
Erected This Weed Sign at the Entrance To Our Office. Get Informed,
Become Involved. We Have Been Including Rangeland Standards into Our
Nepa Documents. It Will Be a Tool to Evaluate Weed Management in Every
on the Ground Action We Take N this Office it Is Not Only Your Typical
Nrs or Range Con out Doing this Kind of Work. It\'s Not Uncommon to See
a Pet Or an Administrative Person on One of Our Spray Trucks. Remember,
Diversify Your Efforts, Do as Many Things as Possible and Reasonable and
Find What Works for You.

Singleton: Hopefully by Now You Will Eelize the Road to a Successful
Program Integration In Weeds Is Everyone\'s Responsibility. Now Back to
You, Kniffy.

Hamilton: Thanks, Ed. I Really Want to Thank Mike and Elaine and John
for Sharing with Us Some of the Great Ideas They\'ve Had and What
They\'re Doing Actually in the Field Offices and in Their States. I
Think That Helps Us a Lot. I Also like to Thank the Two of You for
Giving Us Some Really Good Ideas about Preventing the Spread of Weeds
and All Other Ideas You Gave Us. Next We Would like to Start on Down the
Road and Look at the Opportunities to Develop the Work Force That\'s
Needed for Successful Weed Management, and So I\'m Wondering If Bob and
Ed, Would You Outline Some Strategies That All of Us Might Apply in Our
Own Offices to Develop this Work Force Capability?

Singleton: Sure, Kniffy. In this Unit We Are Going to Identify Ways Can
You Use to Develop Weed Management Capabilities Within Your Field
Offices to Meet Objectives for Preventing, Containing and Controlling
the Spread of Weeds And to Maintain and Restore Healthy Plant
Communities. We Hope to Address Some of the Following Needs in Work
Force. How You in Crease Weed Management Capability. , Weed Duties to
Consider, and How to Share Opportunities for Training and Development.
Hopefully by Now You Can See That Developing the Integrated Weeds
Management Capability Is a Very Important Task. I Am Sure Some of You
Are Wondering How Do You Do That, How Do You Get the Qualified Staff on
the Ground to Accomplish this Job? What it Boils down to Is There Needs
to Be a Commitment to the Program. You May Have To, as Managers, Set
Aside Some of the Priorities You Are Currently Doing and Redirect Some
of Your Staff to Accomplish this Very Important Priority Work on Your
Units. In Some Cases, the Shifts Are Going to Have to Be Pretty
Significant in Order to Make This Successful.

Bolton: We Want to Share Some Specific Thoughts on How to Increase the
Weed Management Capability in Your Area. First Is with Volunteers. As
Pat Talked Earlier, for Instance, with the Weed Demonstration Management
Area, The Use of Volunteers Is Very, Very Important. Another Item Is
with Hiring Seasonals to Assist Staff. And It\'s Important They
Understand Their Role and What The Project Is All about. Another One Is
to Hire Weed Specialists, Weed Scientists or Integrated Pest Management
Specialists. Seek Qualified Specialists like Do You for Other
Professions Such as Archaeology, Biology, So Forth. Oregon Was Able to
Fund Two Full‑time Weed Specialists. Or You May Look at the Possible Of
a Zone Position or Shared Position with the Forest Service Or Another
Government Agency. When You Select the Person, Be Sure They\'re
Interested in the Subject. They Can Be Again from Any Background, from
Hydrology to Botanists and So Forth. Another Way Is to Develop Existing
Staff. For Instance, as Other Specialists Are out in the Field Doing
Their Regular Job, They Can Have a Shovel in the Back of A Pickup, or a
Backpack Sprayer If Certified and They Can Treat A Site. At a Minimum We
Encourage You to Educate All of Your Staff on Noxious Weed I.d. and Know
Their Impacts. For Example, a Minerals Specialist May See Noxious Weeds
In a Material Site and Understand That They Need to See Action on
Delivering That Material to Another Place ‑‑ Cease Action on Delivering
That Material to Another Place until Some Kind of Cleanup Operation Is
Done.

Singleton: Bob Melhoff Had an Excellent Suggestion. Our Petroleum
Engineering Technicians Spend a Lot of Time In the Field and Have Gone
Them Look for Weeds Seems like a Real Positive Step.

Bolton: Developing Partnerships Is Another Way to Develop the Work Force
Capacity If You Can\'t Hire Positions. For Example, in the State of
Oregon this Last Year, BLM Was Able to Assist with Funding to Where the
State Department of Agriculture Hired Two Full Time Pest Management
Specialists. They Have Been Able to Assist on BLM Lands. Ed, You Had
Examples You Wanted To Share.

Singleton: I Think the Work That Jerry in the Veil District Has Done
with Baker County in Sharing Positions and Dollars Is A Real Important
Effort. I Know in Some Other States, Eddie Williams in the Las Cruces
District in New Mexico Is Working Very Closely with Otero County to Get
Them Dollars and Allow Them to Affect the Control On Public Lands. So
It\'s a Real Effective Method.

Bolton: Great. Thanks, Ed. Next We\'re Going to Look at What Weed Duties
Are You Need to Consider. You Can Reference the Weed Specialist and
Coordinator Duties on Page 33 and 34 of the Paw Document. For Example,
One of the Weed Duties for State Office Coordinator Would Be Provide
Assistance and Guidance to District in Preparation of Weed Management
Plans or Prevention Plans. An Example of a District Weed Coordinator
Duty Would Be to Implement Education and Awareness Plans. How to Share
Development and Training Opportunities Is Something We Want to Look at
Now. There\'s Various Opportunities to Highlight Here. I\'m Just Going
to Go Through a Few. One Is to Attend the BLM Integrated Pest Management
and Pesticide Certification Courses. Also the Noxious Weed Short Courses
That Are Available. And If You Want More Information On These Courses I
Just Mentioned, You Can Contact Your State Weed Coordinator or the NTC
Web Site. You Can Also Develop Other Opportunities for Your Weed
Specialists Such as Weed or Ipm Workshops and Symposium and State
Department of Ag Certification Courses. We Also Encourage Participation
In Any of the Following for Further Development: the Western Society of
Weed Science, The Weed Science Society of America, Society for Range
Management, or the Society for Ecological Restoration. Also, State Weed
Management Associations, the Western Weed Coordinating Committee, and
the Exotic Pest Plant Council. You Can Reference Page 60 of Your
Workbook Which Lists These Societies and Contacts. So to Summarize this
Unit, We\'ve Covered the Alternatives to Obtain the Work Force to Do
Integrated Weed Management. We\'ve Explained What the Weed Duties Are
You Should Consider. And We\'ve Shared the Training And Development
Opportunities. On Page 38 of Your Course and Reference Guide You Will
Find The Think Point 3 Question. \"What Have You Done to Develop Weed
Management Capability of Your Work Force?\" Think Points Are Just Quick
Opportunities for You to Consider Some of the Ideas and Information
Presented. As You Listen or ‑‑ or after Today\'s Program Consider Think
Point 3 Question about Your Work Force.

Singleton: Bob, I Think We Have a Phone Call That\'s Come In. It
Concerns How We Deal with Our Work Force.

Hamilton: Yes, You\'re Right. Let\'s Go to John Simons in the Dille an
Resource Area in Montana. Are You on the Line?

Caller: Yes.

Hamilton: Could You Go Ahead With What You Were Going to Talk About?

Caller: We Were Talking about Cooperative Efforts We Have Done Here in
Southwest Montana and We Really Began this Probably in The Late \'80s
When We Began Contracting with the Counties to Do Our Herbicide
Application and We Found this to Be the Most Efficient Use of Funding
Because We Do Have a Scattered Land Pattern and We\'ve Had Several
Managers That Have Been Working On Improved Communications and Working
Relationships with All Neighbors We Have Whether Federal, Private State
or County, and and What this Has Kind of Resulted in Is in June Of \'94
We Developed a Memorandum Of Understanding with the County Commissioners
and the Local Managers of State and Federal Lands and the Local
Conservation District and What this Is ‑‑ Then Developed Is the
Interagency Steering Group. This Group Did Not Want to Just Sit Around
and Talk about Planning. They Were Interested in Getting A Lot of
Projects Done, and the First Project They Selected Was An Integrated
Weed Management Plan. What They Did Is They Assigned a Technical Action
Group, and this Group Developed the Management Plan, and the Group Had
Representatives from the County And the State and the Federal Agencies,
and We Developed this Plan and Then Began Implementing It. We
Incorporated Interagency Training, Cooperative Spray Projects. We Began
Trading Areas for Control So That We Had Greater Efficiency in Our
Operations. That Way We Didn\'t Have Crews From Different Agencies
Passing Each Other on the Same Road. It Really Helped Us a Lot in Being
Able to Trade this Work in And Cross Administrative Boundaries and
Increase Our Efficiencies. We Were Also Able to Standardize Some of the
Methodologies. We Have One That We Have Been Working with Montana State
University in an Inventory. So We Are Able to Trade Our Inventory
Throughout the Entire State, and We\'ve Also Done a Lot With Our
Biological Program, Biological Control Program. So We Are Able to Begin
Developing That on Some of the Weed Species in the Area. These Efforts
Have Done a Huge Amount in Increasing Our Budgets. In the past All Our
Funding Came Out of the Range Improvement Funds. Like this Year We\'ve
Been Able To Increase Our Funding by Eight Times, with None of That
Funding Coming out of Range Improvements. This Enables Us to Hire the
Equivalent of Two Full‑time Spray Crews and We Have Equipped Two Four
Wheelers with Spray Equipment, and It\'s Been Very Effective in Making
Our Program More Efficient. This Cooperative Effort Has Also Enabled Us
to Get More Funding From a Lot of Other Outside Groups. So We Have
Gotten Projects from Like Rocky Mountain Foundation And Things like
this. And Education Has Been One of The ‑‑ Kind of Our Big Pushes, And
We\'ve Developed What We Call A Weed Awareness Week in Beaverhead County
and the Week Winds a Weed Pull Day and That First Year We Had 30 or 40
People Floating the Beaverhead River Pulling Weeds, the Second Year over
130 People, and from The Looks this Year, It\'s Going To Probably Be
Double That. We\'ve Also Indications That ‑‑ From Our Local Weed
Supervisor Jack Eddie, There Has Been a Significant Increase in the
Number of People Calling in and Talking about Weed Questions and Weed
Locations and Things like This. So Our Education Has Been Working Very
Well with this. This Interagency Steering Group Has Been Doing a
Tremendous Amount in Being Able to Gain ‑‑ Increase Our Interest and
Support at the Local, State and National Levels So That We Have A Lot of
People Looking at this. We\'ve Had ‑‑ Well, Yourself Has Been down Here
Pulling Weeds, And We\'ve Had Mike Dombeck down Here When He Was Acting
Director. We\'ve Had a Lot of Folks Pulling Weeds down Here. It\'s Done
a Tremendous Amount in Increasing Our Working Relationships with Both
Beaverhead and Madison County Down Here and Keeping Our Programs Going
on a Real Strong Move Ahead.

Singleton: Thanks, John.

Caller: You Bet.

Hamilton: Great, John. Thanks a Lot for Calling in and Sharing Those
Experiences. I Know I Have Been down on the Beaverhead River Pulling
Weeds, And You Have a Very Effective Program Going with Your Partners
And We Thank You for Sharing That with Us. Well, Thanks to Both of You,
Bob And Ed, for Sharing All That Information with Us about Work Force
Capacity. Beyond How Creative We Are with Building Our Work Force
Capability, There Is the Issue Of Budgeting. Where Does this Money Come
from To Get to Where We Want to Go. During the next Several Minutes, Ed
and I Will Talk about Several Routes to Implement a Long‑term Integrated
Weed Management Program and by Seeking Alternative Funding. Ed?

Singleton: You Are Probably Wondering by Now Where Is the Money Going to
Come from to Implement a Successful Weed Management Program. During this
Segment We Are Going To Talk about Several Different Options, Several
Different Strategies for Increasing Funding Both Internally and
Externally. Kind of Fundamental to this Section Is an Understanding of
‑‑ Having You Understand How Much Weeds Cost. Beyond the Finite Cost of
Personnel and Herbicide, Equipment, Some of the Partnership Costs We
Have, There Is the Real Cost to the Environment, Impacts to T&e Species
Habitat, Impacts to Water, Reductions to Recreation Opportunities and
Many Other Negative Impacts on the Landscape. Therefore, to Be
Successful, You Must Think Long‑term and Be Committed for the Long‑haul.
You must Invest Wisely Now So That Can You Reap the Benefits Of Those
Investments Later. And You must Commit Funds for an Aggressive
Integrated Weeds Management Program Just as You Would for Your Fire
Program That\'s Based on Prevention, Detection and Initial Attack.

Hamilton: What We Would like To Do Now Is to Look at Where We\'ve Been
in the past with Our Funding and Then Where We\'re Going with Our
Funding. As Can You See from the Bar Graph, We Started out in Fy‑94 With
about \$880,000 and We Have Been Increasing That Gradually Up to the
Present Y Firefighter‑98 Funding of about 3.7 Million. In Fy‑99 We Have
a Budget Request in That Will Help with Us about Another 3.3 Million
Dollars and this Money Will Go About a Million and a Half for
Implementing Partners Against Weeds, All the Things We\'re Doing on the
Ground, and about a Little less an Million Dollars For the Integrated ‑‑
the Interior Colombian Basin Ecosystem Management Project. About
\$800,000 for the Clean Water Action Plan. Much Brings Us up to a Total
of A Little over \$7 Million. As You Remember, this Is a Budget Request.
We Don\'t Have That Yet. We Wanted to Look Even Farther Into the Future
and So about Two Years Ago the State Weed Coordinators, We Have a State
Weed Coordinator in Each State, And the National Weed Team, and That\'s
about Eight or Nine of Us From Different Western States And Also from
the Washington Office, We Met in Boise and We Wanted to Look at How Many
of These Goals in the Partners Against Weed Action Plan Were We Actually
Achieving. We Knew We Were Making Great Progress, but We Also Knew There
Were Some Things Impeding Us. So We Wanted to Bring Those to Your
Attention Today about These Four Different Impediments. The First One
Was We Needed More People and Positions Performing Weed Management. As
People Before Have Mentioned, This Doesn\'t Mean Running out And Hire
Agnew Person Necessarily, but this Could Be Filling a Vacant Position
You Have with Somebody That Could Do Weed Management. More Full Time, or
Even with People That Are Already There Making this a Higher Priority.
The Second Impediment We Recognized and Wanted to Bring To Your
Attention Was That Weeds Are Not Just a Grazing Problem. It\'s Always
Been Traditionally Thought it Was Because of Grazing or Range
Management, but That Weeds Are Everyone\'s Problem Because We ‑‑ All the
Problems Impact the Spread of Weeds and All Programs Have Some
Responsibility to Take Care of The Weed Problems Through Their Own
Means. The Third Thing We Thought Was An Impediment Was Money, and as We
Just Mentioned, We\'re Looking At Increasing Budgets, but We Really Need
this Money to Prevent the Spread of Weeds and We Would Use this Through
Education, Awareness, Inventory, Monitoring, Even Research. The Last
Impediment Was Restoration on Priority Sites And We Realize We Need to
Do This Much More with Other Programs. Weeds Is Not the Only Program
That Needs Restoration, but We Had Need to Identify Those Sites That
Need Restoration Because of Weed Problems and Do Something About Them.
Now Let\'s Look at Some Internal Strategies. Of Course, We Have Our Base
Funding and All of the Money Generally Comes from the 1020 or The
Rangeland Management Account, but over the past Several Years, and Three
to Be Exact, We Have Gotten a Million Dollar Increase in the Weed
Program and this Has Actually Come from Congress as a Line Item and How
We Have Dealt with This Is We Have Asked All of the State Weed
Coordinators to Send In All the Projects They Would Have Much They Would
like to Compete for with this Million Dollars. So the National Weed
Team, the People I Mentioned Before, Look At All These Various Projects,
And Based on the Criteria Listed Here, We Send That Money out on The
Ground and We Have Been Really Proud We Can Send That Money to the
Ground. It Hasn\'t Been Taken for Overhead. So You Can See Here We Are
Looking at Pilot Projects. These Are Partnership Projects. Any Inventory
Mapping Going On. Of Course, We Want to Do Our Prevention and Detection
and Initial Attack. We Want to Keep Those Weeds from Spreading. We Also
‑‑ Anything to Do with Education and Awareness. We Need to Make Sure Our
Own Employees and Our Partners and The Public Is Aware of What the
Problem Is. Then We Also Look at Any Kind of Base Funding, You Know,
Have the Programs Themselves Put Money Into this. We Think They Would
Think it Was Worthwhile If They Did That. The Other Opportunity That\'s
Been Mentioned Before, Too, Is Maybe Some of the Other Programs Could
Possibly Help with Funding Some of the Weed Management Activities Such
as Wildlife or Recreation or Wilderness. So Another Internal Strategy, I
Think, Ed, You Had Something About the Oregon Funding Strategy?

Singleton: I Wanted to Further Expand Something That Elaine Zielinski
Mentioned and That Was the Oregon Basin Funding Strategy. We Realized We
Had Is Real Problem with Weeds and Had No Designated Dollars to Deal
with The Problems. What the State Management Team Agreed to Was to
Establish \$50,000 in Base Funds, of Which 30,000 Had to Go on the
Ground For on the Ground Improvement Work, or on the Ground Control And
Improvement Work. Basically in All 10 Districts, That Capability Was
Established At a \$50,000 Level. So We at Least Had That to Start With.
In Addition, We\'ve Capitalized Very Heavily on the Use of 8100 Funds.
That\'s a Totally Appropriate Use Of ‑‑ Weeds ‑‑ of Range Improvement
Dollars. I Can\'t Think of a Higher and Better Use for Those Improvement
Funds than to Deal with Noxious Weeds on the Landscape. In Addition,
We\'ve Taken the Tact in My District That Any High Priority Weed Project
That Is Laid on the Table, the District Management Team Will Figure out
How to Fund, Basically Looking at All the Programs That Are Possibly
Impacted, Including Recreation, Wilderness, Minerals, Realty, All of
Those Types of Programs To See If We Can Go Ahead and Fund Those
Projects and Deal With Those Problems.

Hamilton: You Mentioned, Ed, That You Could Take Money from Some of
These Other Programs Like the Threatened and Endangered or the Wildlife
Y Would You Want to Do That.

Wouldn\'t That Be Miscoding?

Singleton: Well, Kniffy, If It Was in Fact the Case the Noxious Weeds
Were Threatening Rare and Endangered Plants or an Mum Species or Some
Type of Important Recreation Facility, I Think it Would Be a Totally
Appropriate Use of the Funds. Right Now What We Need to Think About Is
Protection of the Resources First and Source of Funding Second.

Hamilton: Well, We\'ve Looked At Some Internal Funding Strategies and So
Now Let\'s Look At Some External Funding Strategies. One of the Best
Methods That We Know of at this Point in Time For External Funding
Sources Is Through the Challenge Cost Share Program, and the National
Fish And Wildlife Foundation Is Our Partner in That, and There Are
Several Different Grant Programs Through That. The One That Is ‑‑
Specifically For Weeds Is the Pulling Together, but There Also Is the
Seeking Common Ground, the Native Plant Conservation, and Bring Back the
Natives. The Other Opportunity for External Funding Sources Is Through
Challenge Cost Share Is Through Other BLM Programs That Have the Same
Cost Share Programs in Cultural, in Recreation and in Wildlife. Ed, I
Think You Have Some Other Examples of Some of the Sources Of External
Funding Would You Like to Talk About, Too.

Singleton: Right, Kniffy. I Think Can You Find on Pages 12 And 13 of the
Paws Communication Plan, and Pages 42 and 43 of the Course and Reference
Guide, Some Ideas of Excellent External Funding Sources. These Include
State Weed Trust Funds, State and Private Grants, In Most Areas of the
West, County Range Improvement Funds. These Are Fees Returned to the
Counties from the Grazing Fees. In Oregon, We Have Been Very Successful
in Working with the Local Advisory Boards in Dedicating These Fees to
Weed Control Projects. Also Cooperative Agreements and Mous and
Partnerships with Other Agencies Is and Entities That Cover Personnel
Costs, Maps, Equipment and Herbicides Themselves. Lastly, I Would like
to Mention Another Avenue That You Have Is Working Through Your Local
Resource Advisory Councils to Build Support for Integrated Weeds
Management and Local Partnership Efforts.

Hamilton: Ed and I Have Covered Many of the Internal and External
Funding Sources for Your Integrated Weed Management Program. But We Have
Some Callers on the Line That Are Willing to Share Their Successes in
Their Programs and So We Would like to Have Them Share Those with Us.
First We\'d like to Go to Mark Stiles, District Manager in Montrose,
Colorado, and He Is Going to Talk about What He Has Done in the Montrose
District as Far as Increasing Funding for His Weed Management Program.
Mark, Are You on the Line?

Caller: Yes, I Am.

Hamilton: Could You Tell Us About Your Program There?

Caller: You Bet. I\'m Not Sure I Have Much New Information, but Maybe I
Can Share Some of Our Experiences That Will Help Pull Together the
Pieces We Have Been Hearing. First off in Montana Rows We Don\'t Have a
Huge Program N Fiscal Year Our District Has a Budget for Weeds for
\$82,000 in Operations and \$50,000 in Labor. We Have 24 Specific
Projects Funded, and Those Include Projects Within Information and
Education, like Weed Identification Booklets, Brochures and All;
Chemical Control Through the Counties, Some Contractors and a Little
Spot Treatment by Our Own Employees, Mechanical Treatment, Primarily
Hand Digging by Volunteers, Some Domestic Livestock Treatments,
Especially With Cheatgrass Control, and Some Inventory as Well. Most of
the Projects Are Only Partially Funded by BLM, Relying Greatly on
Partners. So We Are Really Leveraging Our Monies, Securing Several
Hundred Thousand Dollars Worth of Work. By Comparison in 1996, Our Weed
Budget for the District Was Only A Few Thousand Dollars. We Fund Add
Total of Two Projects and the Extent of Our Effort Was Primarily Have
Gone Employees Attend Various Meetings Around the Area. I Want to Be
Sure to Make the Point It\'s Not Just the Money That Counts. We Have
Increased Our Funding by Changing Our Thinking, and That\'s the Most
Important Thing. First, I Think We Have Simply Made a Commitment
Throughout the District to Get Serious with Weeds, and That Process of
Building That Commitment Was Really Surprisingly Easy. It Came about at
the Same Time We Were Increasing Our Understanding of Land Health and
The Effects of Invasive Plants On Sustain Bill Tea. Our Development of
Standards for Public Land Health Helped Others Understand That Equally
as We Went Through. Secondly, for Us Integrated Weed Management Is as
Much the Integration Across Programs and Partners as it Is the
Integration of Techniques. We Have Strong Involvement by The Range,
Wildlife, Soil, Water And Air, Riparian, Wild Horse, Recreation and
Wilderness Subactivities. Our Pawp Packages Reflect That And the
Biological Resource Advisor Dave Coffman Excels at Preparing Those
Packages and Demonstrating the Integration. We Don\'t Accept Leaving
Weed Management up to Just Our Weed Coordinators. They Have Great Skills
but Would Be Overwhelmed with the Work. We Also Find That Others Can
Bring Some Very Different Skills, Something That You Might Not Think
about in Weed Management, but We Use Grant Writers and Also Volunteer
Management, Especially to Deal With Logistics of Some Volunteer
Programs. And Also Our Other Program Specialists Are Critical Because
They\'re Directly Tie to Do How Land Health and Uses Are Affected by
Weeds. They must Be Involved. And We Rely Greatly on Our Partners and
Let Me Share One Example of One Every Our Partnership Efforts. For the
Last Couple Years We Have Had a Forest Service Employee Working with the
County Weed Coordinator to Lead Local Residents in Digging Weeds along
The San Miguel River. In Turn They Are Given Tickets To Concerts and
Other Events in Nearby Telluride Colorado and The Tickets Are Donated by
Corporate Sponsors and Others. We Provide Minuscule Funding for That
Effort. But We Gain Weed Control and an Awful Lot of Been it in in Terms
Of Environmental Education, Understanding of the Weed Problem and Lots
of Good Will With the Folks out There. So by Integrating Our Weed
Management Efforts Throughout Our Programs and Our Relationships with
Partners We Found it Relatively Easy to Put Together Our Integrated
Budget Requests. In Fact, Often Our Partners Come To Us with Funding
Proposals, And Our Partners, When You Have Great Understanding on Their
Part of Land Health Issues and Willingness to Pitch In, it Makes Us Easy
to Identify the Challenge Cost Share Projects And Volunteer Efforts
Which Gave Us an Edge in Our Pawp Packages. Also Our Budget Package
Focuses On Long‑term Approaches, Not Strictly the Control, Although
That\'s an Important Part. We Have Lots of Education. We Work with
Things like Weed‑free Hay Mentioned Earlier, Which Is as Much a Method
of Prevention of Spread It\'s a Way To Educate the Public to the
Problems of Weeds. And We Are in the Process of Enhancing Our Policies
of Kind Of Do No Further Harm as with Equipment Cleaning and That Sort
Of Thing. I Think We\'ve Laid a Pretty Good Foundation That Will Ensure
That We Continue with Well‑funded Program for Quite a Few Years Out.

Hamilton: Thanks, Mark. I Think That\'s What Ed and I Were Trying to Say
and I Think You Put in That a Great Package For Us. Thanks for Calling
In. Let\'s Go Now to Anne Knox and Anne Knox Is the State Weed
Coordinator for California and Anne Has Been Successful with Her Friends
and Partners about Writing Grants. Anne, Could You Share with Us Some of
Your Experiences with Writing Grants.

Caller: Yes, Good Morning. I Would like to Share the Success That
California Field Offices Have Had with Pursuing Grants for Weed
Management. California Received over \$500,000 in Alternative Funding
For Noxious Weed Projects this Year and That Includes National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation Grants, State Grants and Matching Funds from
Partners. We Found That the Most Important Component, Whether You\'re
Talking about the Actual Noxious Weed Project or Going after Alternative
Funding, Is to in Include as Many Partners in Your Effort That You Can.
Not Only Does That Make Your Project More Appealing, but Many Grants Do
Require Some Sort of a Match, and That Can Be in the Form of Donated
Time or Equipment by Your Partners. And There Are Also Many Grants That
Are Not Available to Federal Agencies. So by Having Those State and
Local Partners That Are Eligible, That Can Be Very Beneficial. The
Success That Our Field Offices in Eagle Lake, Arcata And Barstow Have
Had with Grants Is Directly Related to Their Dedication to Forming and
Maintaining Strong Partnerships. The Other Component That\'s Very
Important to Grant Write Something Planning. Very Often We\'ll Discover
a New Grant or Funding Opportunity That Has a Very Short Turnaround For
Proposals. So in Order to Prepare for That Fact, We\'ve Developed Brief
Write‑ups of All of Our Unfunded Noxious Weed Projects on File And Ready
to Go at a Moment\'s Notice. Of Course, That Means That You Have to Have
Your Partners Also Lined up and Ready to Go, and That\'s Where the
Formation of Weed Management Areas Really Pays off Because You\'re
Already Going to Have Your Partners and Objectives Outlined in Your
Management Area Plan.

Hamilton: Great. I Know You Have Been Really Successful in Doing this.
So I\'m Sure You Would Be Willing To Share Your Information with Anybody
That Would like to Have That.

Caller: Exactly. We Have Been Doing Grant Training for All of Our Field
Offices and We Are Willing to Do That Grant Training for Other States as
Well. So Just Let Me Know.

Hamilton: Great. They Should Take You up on That. Thanks a Lot, Anne,
for Calling. Appreciate It. Bye. Ok. The Third Call in That We Have Is a
Team of People. We Have ‑‑ Let Me Just Work a Couple Things Here and
Then We\'ll Go to Them and We Have Gloria Brown, Who Is a Superintendent
of the Mount St. Helens National Monument, Which Is Managed by the
Forest Service in Washington and Then We Also Have with Her Pat Wortman
from ‑‑ He\'s a County Commissioner in Northeast Oregon And They Will
Talk about the Partnerships in the Tri‑county Effort. So Are You Both on
the Line?

Wortman: I\'m Hear.

Brown: this Is Gloria Brown.

Hamilton: How Are You, Pat?

Wortman: I\'m Very G Thank You.

Hamilton: Could You Go Ahead And Please Share Your Experiences with Us?

Brown: Pat, Why Don\'t I Let You Start. Once Again We\'re Doing this
Song And Dance, and since It\'s Something Dear to Both of Our Hearts, I
Think it Will Be Easy, Even Though We Didn\'t Coordinate Together.

Wortman: Well, I Guess to Start off With, Gloria, I\'ll Just Kind of
Tell You the Basics And Share with Our People the Basics of Where We
Started and Where We Are. Essentially We\'re Talking about The
Tri‑county Weed Management Area, Which Is Three Counties in Northeast
Oregon That Covers a Tremendous Amount of Very Diverse Land with Various
Problems and We Looked at this For a Number of Years and Finally Started
Working on it Late in \'94, and We Came Together in \'95 with a Mission
And Goals and Objectives and Started Looking Towards Funding To Try to
Help Assist Us with Some Kind of Organizational Manage Ment and
Coordination, And in the Time That We Did This, We Put Together 20‑plus
Partnerships with Mous and Some Tie of an Educational Component With the
Whole Thing.

Brown: and I Think What\'s Significant about All That Is Our Recognition
That Weeds Do Not Know Boundaries. It\'s One Thing for the BLM to Have
Gone out with Their Weed Program to Take Care of the Weeds on Our Land,
However, If We Didn\'t Have this Important Partnership, it Would Not
Have Meant ‑‑ it Would Not Have Made As Much of an Impact on the Land Or
as Big a Difference, and So I Think That\'s Probably the Key of What it
Was That We Did, Pat, Back in 1994, Getting the Other Two Counties
Involved, Coming Together as One Group and a Lot Of Heads Thinking,
\"How Can We Accomplish These Goals of Prevention, Detection, Initial
Attack, Education,\" Which Was Also a Very Important Component Of the
Program That We Put Together, and I Am Really Pleased to Hear That That
Is Still Apparently Going Very Strong.

Wortman: Yes, it Is Still Happening, Gloria, and I Think It\'s Building
with the Emphasis ‑‑ and I Really Feel Good That Weeds Through the
Interior Columbia Basin Project Has Been Pointed out as Being One of the
Major Threats to Our Ecosystems. The Educational Processes We Are Doing
Here at Home Is Very Important with That, and to Continue to Build
Partnerships. The Previous Caller Had Talked About Grants. We\'ve Been
Very Fortunate in Getting Some Smaller Grants, and With Our Partners
Providing Some Of the Larger Funding Pieces of This, but in So Doing
We\'ve Got Someone That Can Coordinate the Educational Process
Throughout Our Large and Diverse Area.

Brown: I Guess the Only Other Thing I Would Add, Pat, Is the Fact That
by Us Coming Together, All of Us Coming Together and I Must Say, Pat
Wortman Was Instrument A.m. In Getting All This Together, and We Had the
Support of Our Vail District. As Ed Said, We Come to the Table Saying
What Our Priorities Were, And the Vail District Always Supported Baker
Resource Area in Their Weed Activities and Efforts, but One Thing I Want
to ‑‑ I Want to Leave with the Group Is by Coming Together, We Were Able
to Focus and Prioritize, and So One County or One Group Wasn\'t Hitting
and Missing by Coming Together and Pooling Our Dollars and Agreeing On
Our Priority Areas, We Actually Did More than We Ever Could Have Done
Alone.

Wortman: Oh, You\'re Absolutely Right, Gloria. It\'s All in Partnership,
and With the Recognition of the Threat of Noxious Weeds and How That
Threat Is Mounting, Partnerships Are Absolutely Necessary. Again, in
Doing It, it Certainly Takes Time to Do This, and a Lot Of Effort and
Commitment, and I Really Appreciate the BLM for Being Our Partners on
This, Because They\'ve Been One of the Major Driving Forces. Couldn\'t
Have Been Done Without You Folks.

Hamilton: Great. Well, We Can See Why this Is Such a Successful
Partnership Just by the Interaction Between Pat and Gloria. So Thanks So
Much for Being with Us Today. We Appreciate That. Bye. Ok. Well, Before
We Go on down Our Road We Have Some Faxes That Have Come in and Again We
Really Appreciate Those People That Have Taken the Effort to Do This.
Let Me Read this First One. This Is from Someone in Prineville. So They
Want to Know: How Can Public Affairs Folks Help on This Effort? I Don\'t
Know If Pat or Bob or ‑‑

Bolton: I Could Probably Address That, Kniffy. The First Thing That
Comes to Mind with Public Affairs Is Obviously Being Able to Help With
Education and Awareness Programs. You Know, to Be Able to Be Involved in
Some Educational or Environmental Ed Campaigns for That Area. Also I
Think Being Able to Just Bridge the Communication with Other Disciplines
That Normally May Not Be Always Involved with Weed Management That
Should Be, As Ed Discussed Earlier.

Hamilton: Great. Pat, Have Anything to Add?

Fosse: I Think I Agree with Bob. I Think He Has Pretty Well Covered It.
They Can Reach the Masses That We Can\'t Reach, the Urban People That
Really Aren\'t Aware and Don\'t Even Know about the Problem. They Could
Help with Education With Those Type of Folks.

Hamilton: Right. We Nod All the Help We Can Get. Here Is Another Fax and
this Is Actually More of a Comment, but It\'s from a Team Leader of
Americorps in Medford, Oregon And What They Say Here Is That We Are
Learn and Serve You a Mayor Core Base. We Have Written a Noxious Weed
Curriculum Implemented at the Local High School and Was Very Educational
for All Involved and They Are Doing Field Work with The BLM, the Rogue
National Forest Service, the City of Bashland on Eradicating Noxious
Weeds. This Person Would like to Urge Agencies to Use Groups Such as
Theres. There Is Another Partner We Might Hook into. Great. Well, like
to Thank You for Sending in Those Faxes. We\'ll Also Get to Some More in
a Little While. Now, Let\'s Go on to Our next Road Sign along this Road,
And, Ed and Pat Are Going to Talk to Us about the Importance of
Developing and Maintaining Partnerships to Prevent and Control ‑‑
Maintain Our Great Environment.

Singleton: Given That Weeds Do Not Respect Jurisdictional Boundaries as
Gloria Brown Mentioned, and Also Given Invasive Weeds under Creasing on
All Our Land Types and Affecting All Resources. So We Need to Make a
Commitment To Maintain Partnerships with All Impacted Parties That Will
Prevent, Control and Contain the Spread of Weeds to Maintain Healthy
Plant Communities. We Would like to Share with You Some of Our
Experiences Gained In Organizing and Working Together with Partnerships.

Fosse: Our Goal Is to Manage A Living Organism Such as Weeds, And the
Only Way to Succeed Is To Work Together, to Somehow Take down the Fences
in Our Minds.

Singleton: What Steps Did Your Group in Utah Use in Starting a
Successful Partnership?

Fosse: Well, There Have Been People Concerned about the Squarrose Weed
for a Long Time This. Shows a Group from 1954. So They Have Been Talking
about It for over 40 Years. They Were Concerned Then. So There Has Been
Very Committees in Place over the Past 40 Years and They Have Been
Working on Individual Efforts, But Nothing Was Ever Coordinated. So it
Was Kind of Futile Because The Right Arm Didn\'t Know What The Left Arm
Was Doing. So When We Went to Form this Partnership, We Got the
Committee That Was Already in Place, We Planned an Initial Meeting and
Invited Committee And All the Other Potential Partners and Were Prepared
with Maps and Information.

Singleton: He Had Pat, What Was the Purpose of this First Meeting?

Fosse: the Goal Was to Generate Additional Interests So That We Could
Get Moving on an Action Plan. We Asked Each One of the Partners to
Select a Planning Team Member to Help with the Planning. We Asked the
Planning Team Member Needed to Have Good Social Skills, a High Level of
Commitment and Energy and a Positive Attitude and a Desire To Be on the
Planning Team. From My Experience, I Think That\'s One of the Most
Important Steps of a Successful Partnership, Is to Have These Type of
Folks on Your Planning Team with the Real Commitment And Energy to Do
the Job.

Singleton: Could You Explain What the Role of the Planning Team Was?

Fosse: the First Thing the Planning Team Did Was to Sit Down at a Table,
Come to Some Consensus on Goals and Priorities and Then Prepare a Draft
Plan of the Weed Management Area. Then like I Alluded to Before, We Sent
this Plan out and Got Comments ‑‑ We Sent 200 Plans Out and Got
Comments.

Singleton: Once the Plan Was Completed and Memorandum of Understanding
Was Signed, What Was the next Step? How Did You Implement the Plan? Who
Took the Lead?

Fosse: the Planning Team Began to Implement it Through Their Respective
Agencies. We Did That by Holding Several Coordination Meetings a Year
and At Those Meetings We Do an Annual Operating Plan Based on Goals and
Objectives in the Main Plan and Then We Set Our Priorities for the Year
and Update the Priorities as We Need To.

Singleton: Within Your Partnership, Who Is Accountable For Making Sure
Assignments Are Completed.

Fosse: the Planning Team Is Accountable. We Make Assignments at the
Beginning of Each Field Season To Individual Planning Team Members and
That Doesn\'t Mean That That Planning Team Member Needs to Go out and Do
That Assignment by Themselves, but Just to Ensure That it Gets Done,
That They Get Some Help And Get it Done. Then at the End of the Field
Season, We Check Back with Those Folks and If Someone Has Had Trouble
Getting an Assignment Done, We Seek Solutions on How To Help Them So We
Can Get All Priorities Completed. One of the Things We Have Done Is We
Have Picked a Priority Area Each Year That the Planning Team Works on
Together and We Go Out on the Ground and Roll up Our Sleeves and Just
Work on the Problem Together, and When We Do This, We Usually Have a
Picnic Lunch or Something, and this Has Helped to Earn Credibility with
Each Other and to Build Trust. I Think That Helps in the Long‑term
Success of the Plan.

Singleton: What If You Have Problems Getting Partners Involved? What Do
You Do Then?

Fosse: I Think If Only a Few Committed People Show up at the Meetings,
You Need to Keep Moving Ahead, and as You Make Progress, it Seems like
You Show Results on the Ground and You Get More People That Want to Be
Part of it and More Money and More Momentum. We Have 27 Partners
Involved Now In the Squarrose Knapweed Demonstration Weed Area. It\'s
like the Snowball Rolling Downhill Effect. You Have to Give it the First
Push and it Gains Momentum as it Goes.

Singleton: What Kind of Advice Would You Offer Offices With Small
Budgets for Weeds.

Fosse: like Anne Knox Said in The Telephone Call‑in, You Have To Build
Support for Your Program. It\'s like \"Build and it They Will Come.\" I
Think If Can You Show How Your Partnership Can Convert Dollars To
Results on the Ground in an Efficient and Effective Way, Have Your
Partnership in Place, There Is Ways to Get Money and The Money Will
Come. Also If You Work on an Interagency Team, You Need to Be Extremely
Flexible. Not Everybody Can Contribute Equally or Even Proportionately
And That\'s Ok. Some People Have Equipment. Some People Have Money. Some
People Have Knowledge. Some People Have Experience. And Whatever They
Want to Contribute or Can Contribute, You Just Need to Accept and That
Trust Them and Be Grateful for What They Can Contribute. Seems like
Pooling Resources Always Is a Win‑win Situation. The Other Thing Is
Sometimes ‑‑ A Lot of Times We Can Use Each Other\'s Processes to Help
Reach Objectives More Efficiently and Effectively. For Instance, When We
Were under Some Time Constraints with Trying to Treat Weeds in a Burned
Area, We Had the Nepa Done and Everything, but Our Contracting Process,
as You All Know, Is Kind of an Arduous and Time Consuming Process. So We
Were Able to Transfer the Money to the Counties. Their Contracting
Process Takes A Lot less Time and So We Were Able to Get Around Those
Time Constraints. You Have an Example of an Odot Thing You Worked On,
Too.

Singleton: Yes, I Think What The Message I\'d like to Share Is, Look for
Nontraditional Partners. The Vail District in Oregon Recently Completed
an Agreement With the Oregon Department of Transportation, and Our ‑‑
and Are Accessing Federal Transportation Dollars. This Partnership Also
Involves a County and We Have Employed a Control Position. We Have Put a
Brand‑new Spray Unit on the Ground, State of the Art Computerized
Equipment and What We\'re Looking at Is Treating Weeds Across the
Landscape Irrespective of Land Stat Us to Deal with Priority Problems We
Have. It\'s Been a Successful Partnership up to Date. You Mentioned
Building Support For Your Project. How Do You Get Support and Maintain
Support over the Long‑term.

Fosse: I Think You Can Gain Support by Establishing Your Partnership and
Getting Your Plan in Place and Demonstrating Cooperation and Then Start
Sending out Funding Proposals To. Maintain Support, We Set up a Field
Tour Early on and Showed ‑‑ Invited Everybody, Ranchers, Congressional
People, Environmental People and Showed Them the Impacts Early on and
Then as We Started Gaining Progress, We Have an Annual Tour And We Show
That Each Year. I Think It\'s Extremely Important To Move Quickly
Through the Paper Work Stage and Show Some Results on the Ground Because
If You Don\'t Start Showing Results, You Might Lose Some Support.
Another Way to Maintain Support As Well as to Become More Effective and
Efficient Is to Have a Good Monitoring Plan in Place. If You Even Have
Pre and Post Photos to Show the Progress That You\'re Making, You Can
Develop a Slide Show from That. You Can Use Much to Help Maintain
Support as Well as for Education and Awareness.

Singleton: How Have You Found Is an Effective Mechanism to Keep Partners
from Drifting Away? What If They Start Losing Interest?

Fosse: in Weed Management it Easy to Become Overwhelmed or Discouraged
Because It\'s Such an Uphill Battle but We Try to Dwell on the Successes
and the Progress That We\'ve Made, and Not to Lose Sight of Our Goals
And Priorities, and We\'ve Made Some Mistakes and We\'ve Had Some
Failures along the Way, but We\'ve Tried to Learn from Them And Adjust
Our Strategy and Just Keep Moving On. In Many Cases, it Took These Weeds
Several Decades to Get to The Infestation Levels That They\'re At. So
It\'s Unreasonable for Us to Expect to Control Them in a Few Short
Years. Persistence and Long‑term Commitment Are the Keys to Success. And
in Our Partnership We Encourage Each Other a Lot and Readily Share
Recognition for All the Progress We Do Achieve.

Singleton: Do You Think You Have Been Able to Achieve More Through Your
Partnership than Alone?

Fosse: We Have Definitely Been Able to Accomplish More Than Any One of
Us Thought Was Possible or More than the Sum of Our Individual Efforts
Through Forming and Empowering this Interagency Team.

Singleton: Well, Considering The Fact That Biological Organisms Don\'t
Recognize Jurisdictional Boundaries and We Must Deal with These Complex
Land Patterns, We must Use the Best Science That\'s Available to Us, the
Best Social Science, as Well as the Best Physical and Biological
Sciences to Deal with This Integrated Weeds Management Problem.

Fosse: Yes, We Have the Very Important Task of Main Take the Health of
the Land and Preserving Options for Future Generations. This Is a
Picture of Squarrose Knapweed near a Junction in Utah And There\'s Large
Areas That Look like That. One of the Areas We Have Treated As an
Interagency Team, it Burned Through Here. We Sprayed It. We Seeded it
and Chained It. It Now Looks like this. We All Can Be Successful and
Make a Difference Regardless of Our Current Situation with Weed
Infestations. A Successful Partnership and the Other Tools That We Have
Given You Today Is the Way to Do That.

Singleton: Thanks, Pat.

Fosse: You\'re Welcome. Back to Kniffy.

Hamilton: Ok. Pat and Ed, You Have Both Identified Some Very Important
Steps to Us in Developing a Successful Partnership. I Know You Both
Experienced in That Your Own Fields in the Squarrose Demonstration Area
and Also in the Vail District. At this Point We\'re Going to Open up Our
Final Question and Answer Session and We Have Gotten Quite a Few Faxes N
We Will Try to Cover Some of Those. If We Don\'t Get to All of Them,
Someone on Our Panel or Someone On the Team Will Get Back to You And
Respond to You. So We\'ll Get Answers to You as Soon as We Can. This Is
Addressed to Any and All Panelists, So Anybody That Would Like to Jump.
The First Question Is: Are School‑age Children and Established Groups
like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, Ffh, Audubon and Sierra Club Being
Contacted Actively about the Weed Problem? Have You Had Any Experiences
in Your Areas with That?

Fosse: as I Mentioned, in the Coal Fort Weed Day, That Was the Purpose
of That Program, Was to Raise Awareness for the School Kids and We Have
Gone into the Middle School and a Couple of High Schools and Given Thome
an Orientation of the Impacts and Stuff Before We Go out and Then They
Help Us on That. So There Is Some of That Being Done in Our Area.

Singleton: We\'re Actively Working Through School Systems And Through
Community Outreach Through Fairs and Education Days. It\'s an Integral
Part of Our Outreach.

Hamilton: We Have Another Question Here About: Have Recreation Staffers
Been Briefed Yet? Can Any of You Think of in Your Districts or Your
Offices ‑‑

Fosse: in Our Office in Utah, The Recreation People Are Well Aware, and
They Help Us Distribute the Brochures and We Just Had a Motorcycle Race
this Past Weekend Where the Recreation Specialist Went up With an Air
Compressor and Sprayed the Weed Seeds off the Ohvs as They Came in
Because They Were Going Through an Infested Area. So, Yeah, We\'re
Involving Those Folks.

Lovich: I Would like to Add, I Know the Bureau of Land Management
Barstow Resource Area Has a Very Effective Salt Cedar Removal Program at
the Afton Canyon Area of Critical Environmental Concern. They Are
Involving Range Conservationist, Wildlife Biologists and Also Folks in
the Recreation Side of the Shop. So They Do Have a Very Important Role
to Play.

Hamilton: Ok, Great. How About, Here\'s Another Question: Will There Be
an Internet Site for Weed Management? I Think They Are Talking about
Like an Interagency Web Site. I\'m Not Sure ‑‑ I Know There Is A Web
Site and People Can Look That up and Recently after the April ‑‑ about
the Same Time as The April Weed Symposium, We Established a BLM Web Site
and I Can Give You That Address Which Is www.blm.gov/weeds. So We Are
Getting Some Information on That Web Site. Hopefully People Will Access
That. And That Links to the States and What They Are Doing as They Come
On Line. Ok. How about Another One. This Might Be Address to You, Ed,
Because It\'s Sort of a Budget Question Here. Which Department or Agency
Can Funds Come from for Weed Control?

Singleton: I\'m Not Sure I Understand the Question Completely. I Think
‑‑ If the Question Is Which Activities Within Our Budget, I Think Our ‑‑
Any Activity Within the Bureau\'s Budget Process Could Logically
Contribute to Weeds Because Any Of Those Activities Could Logically
Support the Function Given That Weeds Cross All Boundaries. They Should
All Be Looked at Where It\'s Appropriate to Help Fund Fund the Weeds
Problem.

Hamilton: I Know at the National Level We Are Trying to Work as
Effectively as We Can With All the Agencies. There Are 17 Agencies on
the Control and Management of Noxious Weeds and Awful the Agencies Are
Working on Projects Together, like the Pulling Together Strategy, We\'re
Looking At Funding Sources, the White House Initiative That We Call It.
So There Are a Lot of Different Things Going on at the National Level
Where All of These Agencies Can Contribute to What Is Appropriate for
Them to Do, But We Can Collectively Do Things to Do More on the Ground,
I Think.

Singleton: Yes.

Hamilton: How about ‑‑ I Think We Answered That One, Then. Unless ‑‑
Maybe We Should Talk About Any Relationships Between The Agencies like
the Forest Service and BLM at the Local Level. I Think We\'ve Heard a
Little About That.

Bolton: I Could Address a Little of That. I Know for Instance with Some
of The Agencies ‑‑ Some of the Districts in Oregon, We Have Some Joint
Efforts Going on Right Now with Shared Positions. For Instance with Weed
Treatment Contract in One of the Districts Right Now, We Went in and Did
a Joint Weed Treatment Contract Between BLM and the Forest Service. I
Think We Will See More of this Opportunity as Time Progresses.

Hamilton: and We Have to Pool Our Resources as Effectively as We Can to
Do the Job We Need to Do. Here Is Another Question from The University
of Nevada. So Thanks for Joining Us Today: Is There an Opportunity to
Use Monies Directed at the Wild Horse and Burro Program for Weed
Management, Control and Restoration near Watering Holes, Riparian Sites,
et Cetera, Degraded by These Animals?

Singleton: I Would Say That Would Be Totally Appropriate If There Was a
Threat to the Wild Horse and Burro Populations in Those Areas Due to the
Noxious Weeds on the Landscape. It Certainly Would Be an Appropriate
Use.

Hamilton: Ok. Here\'s Another Fax from Arizona: What Is Being Done
Regarding the Public\'s Concern of the Use of Herbicides on Public
Lands? This Is a Question We Get Oftentimes.

Lovich: I Might Respond to That Again by Saying in Integrated Weed
Management It\'s Important to Consider All of Our Options and We
Certainly Shouldn\'t Remove the Option of Using Herbicides When They\'re
Appropriate and When Proper Environment Analyses Are Conducted to Make
Sure the Natural Resources We Are Trying To Protect Are in Fact
Protected From Our Treatment of Those Areas.

Hamilton: Here\'s One on Proper Function and Condition. I Will Try to
Read All of this. This Is from California. Should BLM and the Forest
Service Proper Function and Condition Analyses Incorporate The Weedses
‑‑ That Is, If Weeds Are Consider Invasive or Noxious, Be an Indicator
of a Nonfunctioning System or a System at Risk in Terms of Riparian
Areas? Similarly on Upland, Would You Do the Same Kind of Thing? So
Should We Acknowledge That?

Fosse: I Think They\'re Definitely a Threat and There Is A Category on
That Form That Lists the Threats and If It\'s Totally Infested with a
Noxious Weed, it Will Probably Still Function but the Biodiversity
Isn\'t There and So, You Know, There Is Definitely Some Impact. I Think
it Needs to Be Listed And it Needs to Be Addressed.

Lovich: One of the Things We Have to Be Very Careful about Is
Simplifying That Model. There Are Some People Who Would Advocate That
Simply Counting The Number of Invasive Plant Species in an Area Is an
Indication of the Health of That System. But We Have to Remember That
There Are Some Ecosystems That Have Relatively Low Numbers of Invasive
Species like the Mohave Desert, Only 7% of the Flora Is Composed of
Exotics and Yesterday It\'s One or Two of Those Species That Create
Massive Havoc in the Ecosystem. So Counting the Number of Bad Plants Is
Not a Good Way of Assessing Ecosystem Health. It\'s Better to Look at
the Overall Effect of the Individual Species on the Environment.

Singleton: I Would Say That\'s Something We Certainly Ought to
Communicate to Wayne Elmore\'s Group and Let Them Discuss it Internally.

Hamilton: Here Is Our Last Fax and It\'s from California. Where Can We
Get a Copy of the Wyden Amendment? This Is a Tough One.

Singleton: I Can Talk to the Budget Folks and Make Sure They Get a Copy.

Hamilton: We\'ll Get That Copy Out to You in California. Ok. That\'s All
We Have for Faxes Right Now, and So We Really Appreciate All of You That
‑‑ All of You That Called in or Sent in a Fax. If You Have Any Others
and That You\'re Going to Be Sending In, We Will Get to Those as Soon as
We Can after the Show. Well, the Success of Weed Management Also Depends
on the Steps That Each of Us Takes, and So What We Challenge You with
Are What Are Your next Steps? Are You Satisfied with the Current Efforts
That You\'re Doing in the Particular Office Where You Are and Where
You\'re Living? And What Do You See That Needs To Be Improved? Well, to
Help You out a Little Bit in this on Page 47 of Your Course and
Reference Guide You\'ll Find an Evaluation Guide That Will Help You to
Consider Your next Steps. So in Closing, What We Want to Do Is Have Each
of Our Presenters Just Give Us a Take‑home Message. What Would You like
to Say to The People That Are in the Audience for Some Final Thoughts
And Some Closing Thoughts. Jeff, Could We Start with You?

Lovich: Sure. We\'ve Seen That Invasive Exotic Pest Plants Have the
Ability to Impact Ecosystems at Every Level Of Biodiversity, from
Communities of Native Plants and Animals That Are Changed Structurally
Right down to Various Species Whose Very Existence Is Jeopardized by the
Presence of the Plants. Similarly Every User Group of Public Lands and
Resources Is Impacted by the Spread and Infestation of These Weeds from
Ranchers to Forest Products Industry Right down to Hikers And Other
Recreationists. This Is an Unusual Group of People but We must Come
Together As Common Allies to Battle this Common Enemy. If We Don\'t,
We\'re Not Going to Stop Sowing the Seeds of Destruction. Research Will
Play an Important Role in Getting New Solutions to The Pressing Weed
Problems We Have Today.

Bolton: It\'s Obvious, Kniffy, We Have Many Challenges Ahead of Us, and
I\'m Concerned, I Know as Well as a Lot of My Colleagues I Work With,
about What Our Landscapes Are Going to Look Like in 20 or 50 Years down
the Road. We Know What They Could Look Like If We Don\'t Act. I Would
Hope That We Will Look Back in 10 or 20 Years from Today and Be Able to
Say, Yes, We Have Made a Difference Together to Be Able to Maintain The
Desirable Landscape Integrity We All So Cherish.

Fosse: since I\'m in a Field Office, I Walk in the Same Shoes That Many
of You Do, and I Know That We\'re Short‑handed and We Have Low Budgets
Right Now, and It\'s Hard to Say, Well, We\'re Going to Change
Priorities. And Sometimes We Get Caught up In What We Can\'t Do. But I
Think We Need to Dwell on What We Can Do, Whether it Be Education and
Awareness or Prevention Schedule and Just Start on Those Things That We
Can Do and Just Go Do It.

Singleton: I\'d Have to Say Not to Wait for Additional Funding. The
Helping Hand Is at the End Of Your Arm. Can You Make Some Very Subtle
Changes in Your Program Management and Your Activities That Will Make
Differences in The Long Term. So Just Get Started.

Hamilton: Well, as We\'ve Tried to Portray Today, Weed Management Is
Everyone\'s Concern And Our Partners and How We Do This Is So Important
to Us, and We Really Rely on All Those Partnerships to Get the Job Done
And Just as Everyone\'s Concern Is Also Each of Our Responsibilities to
Be Part of The Solution. I Hope You Will Take That Message Home and Work
with Your Partners and Do the Kinds of Things We Know You\'re Doing and
In Those Areas Where You\'re Thinking You Might Need to Do More, Maybe
Oven Gotten Some Ideas Today from the Presentation to Help You out.
Before You Dart out the Door, We Just Have a Couple of Last Housekeeping
Items. We Know You\'re Anxious to Get Out and Have Lunch or Whatever,
But We Would like to You Take Time to Complete the Course Evaluation
Found on Page 8 in The Course Guide Because These Comments Are Really
Important to Us and They\'re a Vital Part of Any Future Broadcasts That
We Will Be Designing. Also If the Site Coordinators Need to Send in a
Roster, Would You Please Do That and List Everyone That Attended
Today\'s Broadcast. We Appreciate Everybody Taking Their Time Today to
Join Us, and We Would like to Document Their Participation in the
Course. Also, Remember to Visit the NTC Home Page at www.ntc.blm.gov.
For Any Current Information on The National Training Center Products and
Training. Or If You Want a Transcript of Today\'s Program, You Can Get
That on That Web Site, Too. So Thanks Again So Much for Taking the Time
to Join Us, and We Hope to See You on the Road To Successful Weed
Management.