AN ORDINANCE relating to the Cedar River Municipal Watershed and amending the Secondary Use Policies, adopted by Ordinance 114632, to provide for the limited application of the herbicide Imazapyr to treat invasive knotweed species.
Agenda Item 37 Council Bill 118481 relating to the Cedar River Municipal Watershed and amending the secondary use policies adopted by ordinance 114632 to provide for the limited application of the herbicide and Wmas appear to treat invasive knotweed spray species. The committee recommends a council bill passed. Councilmember Bagshaw. Thank you. Councilmember Liccardo, do you want to present your amendments? And I will support them and then I can speak to the amended legislation. Councilmember Liccardo Thank you, Customer Bagshaw And thank you for your work on this ordinance. I have two amendments and I'll read both of them. The First Amendment is I moved to amend the Council Bill 11 8481 with attachment one at page six, third paragraph, third sentence by the reading between early August and mid-September and adding a new fourth sentence entitled Prior to application. Visual inspection is made to verify that the plants are one in the pre bud stage at the time of the application and two are not actively being worked by pollinators and is conductive to such activity as the First Amendment. The Second Amendment. I move to amend Council Bill 11 8481, Section one, the second to last sentence by substituting a sentence with the following sentence. Seattle Public Utilities will provide Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhoods a committee of the City Council, an annual report on the Knotweed treatment program in the Cedar River municipal watershed, summarizing the effectiveness of the Knotweed treatment program. Evaluating the long term financial and environmental implications for knotweed control beyond 2018. Evaluating the water quality monitoring results. Summarizing the latest available science on the environment and human health effects of IMA Zapper and describing any plans for the future application of a zebra within the watershed, including maps of proposed treatment areas. Estimated quantities of IMA zapper. I'm really destroying this name. Sorry. To be applied. The application methods and schedules and plans for water quality monitoring in front of each of our deaths is the actual wording in red to strike out in blue is the substitute and I'll address both amendments after the second. Secondly, these amendments came forward by those in the Washington Beekeepers Association, and they pointed out that the legislation could be improved by making sure that the guidelines provided were consistent with the guidelines provided by the Washington State Noxious Weeds Department. And that. By codifying them, we assure that we bring forward in the future that we do not fall back on practices that may fall through the cracks and therefore result in harming the population and the ability to pollinate plants in this area. I want to thank the citizens who are beekeepers, including our former mayor, Wes Allman, for participating in a activity that hasn't really been given much, I suppose attention but critical to the sustaining our agriculture that provides many of our food sources. So I'll leave sit at that. So the First Amendment is Mark Amendment number one. Are there any further questions or comments about this amendment? Those in favor of passing amendment number one, vote I. I oppose vote no. The amendment is adopted. Amendment number two is before us. Any questions or comments? One quick, quick comment and that we don't have line numbers on this one, but there's a specific reference to the Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhoods Committee. And there's the intention of this amendment is to bring back regular reports. I would recommend and suggest that we have Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhood Committee or its successor. Yeah, I that's a friendly amendment to the amendment because I caught that as I was reading it. And that's the language that we should be included that's accepted. And we'll we'll make that part of the amendment. Any further comments or questions? All in favor of adopting amendment number two, vote I. By a plebiscite. Vote No. Amendment number two is adopted. We now have the ordinance as amended in front of us. So just to speak quickly to this ordinance, it provides for the continued application of this herbicide. And the purpose of this is to abate the invasive knotweed that's found in the Cedar River watershed. And we've tried to do a lot of things. We first started off by injecting amounts up here into the plants. We tried light starvation by putting black plastic over it. And it really is an annoying weed that was brought here, unfortunately, years ago because somebody thought it looked great. But it's been taking over and taking over around the watershed, which provides the native species, provide the kind of of tenacity to hold the banks together. But the knotweed has proven not only to take over for the natives, but then also begins to diminish the water and the water quality and especially along the Cedar River. It's important because that's where we get our drinking water. We, the council, have twice approved the use of a mouse up here along the Cedar River. This legislation will allow it to continue through 2018. And I do want to recognize the beekeepers concerns. Seattle Public Utilities has reassured me that they are well aware of this, that they do not apply the mouse up here during flowering. They do the visual inspections. But as Councilmember Licata pointed out, this is good to have it clarified in our ordinance. So I certainly support the amendments as proposed. Any other. Councilmember O'Brien. Yeah. Just briefly comment. I. It's really disappointing, frankly, that we're at a point where we're applying pesticides within the watershed. And but for me, this is an issue that was important when I was chairing the committee a few years ago. And the threat of this invasive species in the watershed is so dire that I think it definitely justifies and warrants the steps we're taking. This knotweed has proved to be very hard to get a handle on as it's taken a number of years longer than we had hoped to eradicate it from the watershed. Based on my reading, it sounds like there's about 18 acres of it scattered throughout the watershed, and my hope is that we don't have to keep renewing this. I appreciate that the pesticide or the sorry, the herbicide that's being used has been studied. And has the study seemed to indicate that it has low impacts? I'm always skeptical of those studies and I would just much rather have the knotweed be gone and eliminate pesticides, herbicides completely from the watershed. I fully support this moving forward and I just hope that in the next couple of years we'll get to a point where we've eradicated knotweed from the Cedar River watershed. Please call the role on the passage of the bill. Harrow. McCarter, I. O'Brien, I. Okamoto. Rasmussen. I want. Bagshot. Garden and President Burgess. Nine. In favor and unopposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Please read item 38.