NORTHAMPTON – Anne Maynard likes to grow vegetables and garlic in a plot at the Northampton Community Garden. But when she found out the garden committee applied to the Community Preservation Committee for $12,000 to use pesticides on Japanese knotweed, an invasive species growing next to the plots, she was upset. “The betrayal is very real right now,” Maynard said.
She started an online petition against the proposal, which now has about 50 signatures.
The problem: The garden is still battling Japanese knotweed, an invasive species that grows quickly and is difficult to get rid of.
The garden committee proposed the use of a product based in glyphosate, a popular herbicide, to tackle the weeds.
Maynard takes issue with what she describes as a lack of transparency in the process. “We were not involved in any way in this decision-making process,” she said.
“We’d love not to use a chemical,” said Larri Cochran, a leader of the garden committee. But she added that the committee, made up of volunteers, has spent about 100 hours researching Japanese knotweed and doesn’t see another solution. “We can’t just let it grow,” she said.
The garden requested just over $12,000 for a five-year plan to control the problem. Land Stewardship, Inc. of Turners Falls conducted a site visit and said in the proposal, dated in June, that they can’t necessarily eradicate the problem — but that they can control 99 percent of it.
“The challenge with Japanese knotweed is it’s a really gnarly plant — it’s tenacious,” said University of Massachusetts Amherst associate professor Bethany Bradley, who studies invasive species, as part of her work in the department of environmental conservation. “Rather than spreading through seeds, one of the main ways it spreads is through little plant bits,” she said.
Japanese knotweed was brought to the U.S. in the 1800s as an ornamental, Bradley said. It’s not a problem specific to the Valley; it’s all over the place, she said.
The plant is a “botanical monster,” said Gaby Immerman, who’s a landscape and education specialist at the Botanic Garden of Smith College and co-moderator of the Mill River Greenway Initiative. She has been involved in the battle against several invasive species, including Japanese knotweed, along the Mill River at Smith College. She said the school also worked with Land Stewardship, Inc., which used chemicals, along with cutting and pulling, to address the problem.
When it comes to this plant, she said, there isn’t really a good solution. “Everybody would agree this is a bind,” she said.
When Japanese knotweed is present on a small scale, Immerman said, it’s possible to pull it by hand, but once it has spread, you can’t easily do that.
Bradley said that because the weeds spread through pieces of the plant, mowing it can disperse the plant bits around, and they will re-grow.
“The reality is — these days if you want to control invasive plants, chemical control has to be a part of the way you approach it,” she said.
Maynard’s goal is to find a non-chemical solution. She said she brought Mike Bald, of Got Weeds? a company that doesn’t use synthetic chemicals, to assess the area. Maynard said he concluded it could be addressed with non-chemical methods.
The garden committee’s grant proposal to use glyphosate has some people worried.
Kate Klemer lives 50 feet away from the area that would be treated with the chemical, and she signed Maynard’s petition to stop it. “It’s kind of a big deal for me,” she said.
For 30 years, Klemer has had a health practice where she does chiropractic and nutrition work. She said that when glyphosate gets into food and water, it can damage your gut biome.
A study in rats, in the Guardian reported in May, showed that rat babies born to exposed mothers had “significant and potentially detrimental effects” in their gut bacteria.
“I see the Japanese knotweed out there,” Klemer said, “and I see the health risks, and I think the health risks outweigh the Japanese knotweed 10 to the 10th power.”
The chemical has been in the national news recently. Over the summer, a California man with terminal cancer sued Monsanto, a major agrochemical company which Bayer bought for $66 billion, saying that the company’s glyphosate-based pesticides caused his illness. He won, and Reuters reported that there are now 8,000 similar lawsuits.
Last Wednesday, the Community Preservation Committee heard public comments on all proposed grants for its fall 2018 funding round. The committee only has about half the amount of money that all the proposals are asking for, according to Sarah LaValley, a conservation, preservation and land-use planner who provides staff support to the committee. The eight requests total more than $1.5 million, but LaValley estimates the committee will have roughly $800,000 available.
At a meeting Wednesday evening, the committee will discuss the projects and potentially give recommendations which then go to the City Council for approval.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com