Resident critical of herbicide use around county culverts
- Charlene Sims, Journal staff
- May 25
- 6 min read
By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com
MOUND CITY – While many people have taken note of the dead vegetation surrounding the culverts and corners in Linn County, one resident decided to go the commission meeting and point out that dead grasses did not add to the beautification of the county.
Blue Mound resident Mack Carlisle spoke to the commissioners about the areas along the road near his home. Carlisle told the commissioners that he did have some credentials that gave him the experience to talk about the spraying that caused these areas.
Carlisle said that he had worked for the Army Corps of Engineers for 35 years and the last 21 years he had worked as the project manager of Melvern Lake.
“So I was responsible for overseeing lots of projects that were under my purview as far as road repairs were concerned and park repairs for roads in the park, roads that were used for the public to travel from park to park,” said Carlisle. “So I am not without a certain amount of credentials in that regard.
“One thing I always emphasized to my crews was we left an area looking better than we found it. That’s not always easy to do. We used a lot of stone and underlayment that would be pervious to water but impervious to vegetative growth. That seemed to work pretty well.
“Sometimes you can’t afford to do all that though. There’s lots of that type of work that would be required to do in the county to accomplish the same thing.”
“Nonetheless there are ways of approaching it.” Carlisle continued. “The areas that I noticed that had been sprayed and basically killed off were where culverts are located and intersections converge and serve as conduits for runoff and flood waters.
“In other words, those are our most vulnerable locations to losing our topsoil and subsoil. And a lot of that happens right near creeks and streams. And, of course, chemicals used in those areas would, you know, end up in those waters at some point. Unless something is escaping me that I don’t know about, it seems like we’re kind of making a serious mistake in how we approach it.
“Establishing dense vegetative growth for the placement of large stone has always been key to preventing erosion from undermining culverts. Then there is the little matter of the chemicals, as I mentioned, that could wash into creeks and streams. I am thinking maybe there could be more use of selective herbicides that would not target all vegetation.
“To me it would be better to have some vegetation there even though it might be a little unsightly than to have nothing. Anything is going to protect the soil better than nothing.”
Carlisle said a lot of these area are in ditches where it is not impairing the sight line of vehicle operators.
Carlisle pointed out that these sprayed areas are not small areas. At the intersection of 200 and Jackson Road, in his opinion, it is an unsightly mess where the vegetation has been killed off on all sides of the intersection.
Carlisle said he certainly appreciated the challenge that the road and weed departments have along the highway, and he realizes that they cannot go out with a hand sprayer like he does to get it done.
Carlisle said that maybe the county could be a little more selective and target smaller areas to spray because once you kill an area off, it’s going to keep coming back in weeds. It’s not going to come back in fescue or grass that’s going to hold the soil very well.
“I don’t like to come in and complain about anything,” he said. “But to me it’s a serious job. A serious situation that’s going to worsen. What we already have as far as trying to maintain our roads an our drain and culvert areas and overpasses and places where there are serious erosion possibilities,” said Carlisle. “I would just like to see us take a more target approach in how we deal with it.”
Carlisle said he did appreciate the efforts of the county employees and he thought if Linn County citizens and leadership work together we can do a little bit better in meeting one of our goals, which of course is the beautification of Linn County. He said the county could not do that if they kill the vegetation.
Commissioner Jim Johnson pointed out that Johnny Taylor, the noxious weed director was there and he asked him to come up and talk about the issue.
Commissioner Alison Hamilton said that Taylor could go over some policies and procedures to address the concerns.
Taylor first said that he wanted to compliment Carlisle on his competence and experience that he has.
He said that everybody has different opinions on how to approach the issues Carlisle spoke about.
Taylor said that this was the first season he had chosen to do this and he has been weed director for four years.
He said that he had spoken with the previous public works director Shaun West and then Jesse Walton when he was made interim Public Works Department director about his plan. He said he sends the public works supervisor an email or every other week on updates and overviews of what we have been doing and our goals going forward. He said that he assumed those emails get forwarded to the commissioners.
“April was always a challenge to do broadcast spraying for broadleaf,” Taylor said. “It’s a very windy month. It’s a very wet month. You have standing water in ditches. I’m not comfortable spraying in standing water,” said Taylor. “So, my goal was to spend the month of April working on culverts, bridges, guardrails, whistles, line-of-sight issues.”
Taylor said he had also spoken to the road foremen and received everybody’s input. He said he was thinking that April was the month before mowing season starts and he though he would get a jump ahead to actually benefit the mowers. He thought that the mowers would more efficiently be able to mow those areas where he is spraying without having to back into those areas.
“So, it was kind of a joint effort from all of us and I actually got a lot of comments,” Taylor said. “I mean obviously I respect this gentleman’s comments and observations on it, and I actually had a lot of comments throughout this month of people noticing that the bridges and the culverts and so on and line of site.
“Obviously, when you spray bare ground, it’s not pretty. It’s bare ground. It’s not vegetation anymore. I even understand that someone may think that it is unsightly.
“And it wasn’t something I wanted to practice repeatedly, like next year we may take a year off doing a bear ground screen in those same areas because of things he brought up with erosion and things and concerns that you might have.”
Taylor said that because there was a shortage of people to mow last year, the Johnson grass got out of control and there were a lot of complaints. While mowing can control Johnson grass, the mowers were not available so he chose to use the bare ground spray. He said that the best way to control Johnson grass is to mow it and let it get to about 8 inches tall and spray with a specific chemical that only kills the Johnson grass but not the other grass around it.
Taylor said he would like to control Johnson grass by that method but that has not been possible so he sprayed with the bare ground spray that kills everything around it.
Taylor said he would like having a discussion with Carlisle. He said that he is always willing to work with residents about spraying.
Taylor said that he has not problem with any of the residents in the county calling him and asking him to put them on a no-spray list.
“I very much respect this gentleman’s knowledge and from what he said he used to take care, I could probably glean some good information from this person,” said Taylor.
Johnson said that he had noticed some of it and that there are some places where it is pretty excessive. He suggest that Taylor look at another type of spray that doesn’t kill the grass.
Taylor said that for people that wanted to talk to him, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, is a good time to call his office.
Taylor told the commissioners that there are two ways to get on the no-spray website. The first is a website called Driftwatch.com that they check before they go out to spray. This website registers organic growers, beekeepers and others who do not want spray along their property.
The other way to get on the county’s list is to call Joyce Hall in the public works department at 913-795-2229 and she will tell Taylor to put them on his list.
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