AN ORDINANCE relating to the Cedar River Municipal Watershed; amending the Secondary Use Policies, adopted by Ordinance 114632, to provide for the limited application of the herbicide imazapyr to treat invasive knotweed species.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Customer Turbo. Please read the next agenda item. Agenda item to cancel 119502 relating to the Cedar River Municipal Watershed, amending the secondary use policies adopted by Ordinance 114 632 to provide for the limited application of the herbicide and as a power to treat invasive knotweed species. The committee recommends the bill pass. Because consumer herbal. Thank you. So this is an ordinance related to the application of the herbicide superior to treat treat the invasive knotweed in the Cedar River watershed. This ordinance would allow for three additional years through 2021 of limited spraying of a massive pier with the goal of eradicating knotweed. The legislation would amend a 1989 ordinance that banned herbicide use in the Cedar River watershed and extended the authority described in ordinances from each 2010, 2013 and 2015. So each of those three years, we have amended the 1989 ordinance to extend the authority to allow very limited application of this herbicide, and has appeared in order specifically and only to treat knotweed. Knotweed poses the greatest risk of any invasive plant in the watershed. The plant takes over habitats near water, displacing native plant species, degrading habitat for salmon and other fish, and threatening water quality by destabilizing stream banks. Herbicide has declined. Herbicide use has declined every year since 2011, and the amount used to treat knotweed throughout the watershed reached a low of 2.4 ounces per acre treated in 2018. This is a 95% reduction in the use of of this of this herbicide. And it's also the Seattle Public Utilities has gone to great lengths to adjust its application practices, specifically to minimize potential impacts to pollinators. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments? Catherine and Brian. Just a quick comment. Thanks for your work on this council, Councilmember Herbold. I will be clear. I'm frustrated that we are still allowing this, but my frustration lies solely with the persistence of knotweed. I was part of the works under the original piece of legislation in 2010 to create this exemption. And I will say that I am convinced that Wspu has done some amazing work to continue to reduce the footprint and the amount of pesticides herbicides are using. And it's an amazingly invasive, pervasive, persistent beast to this knotweed. And it may be a number of years until we can say that they're confident that it is completely gone and will not come back. But I also want to say that this is part of an overall strategy all the way down to see the river, not just in the watershed, the scale of public utility where we get our water from, but all the way down to the lowlands. And King County and other partners have been working collaboratively to remove that along the bank because it does transfer by water, too. So I'm happy to support this, and I think Espey is doing a really great job in a really difficult situation. Thank you. Customer and brand. Customer. Bagshaw Councilmember Herbold, without asking for you to give me any numbers, do we know whether or not the acreage has been reduced greatly? And can you talk a little bit about, if you know, how much left that spew is focused on? So they are anticipating being able to move more into a maintenance stage. But the the amount of area that they have to cover has greatly reduced over the years that they've been doing this application. And as I mentioned before, they are very careful to not apply them as a peer on knotweed plans when they're flowering, specifically to address folks concerns about the impact on on pollinators. And when I say they're anticipating being able to move into sort of more of a a maintenance approach there, they although their goal is to eradicate knotweed, they are still anticipating that even in a maintenance approach, they are still going to have to go out and spray because and it will be spraying more to deal with the the buds that come out of the ground while they're still there are still routes. They've tried doing manual eradication of knotweed, but just because of how invasive it is and how it travels, the manual eradication doesn't isn't effective. But at some point they feel that the root system is going to degrade so much that that the the the threat of larger plants is going to be greatly reduced or continue to be greatly reduced. And my recollection from the presentation was it was about a 95% reduction also in the in the acres of where it is. So and I believe they haven't seen any any new places where it's popped up, sort of still dealing with the same areas that they have. And they're just going back there on a regular basis, checking it. And when little pieces pop up, they're going to treat them until they win the battle over the energy left in the root system injections. I don't know if that's true. They used to do injections where they would go break the plants. Here they're doing they're now switched to spray. And I forget I don't know if that's the reality of the maturity of the plants they're dealing with is much different. Or if it's a different technology or that's evolved. I'm not sure. Okay. Everything you need to know about knotweed. Here you go. Okay. If there's no further questions or comments, please call the role on the passage of the bill. So on I make sure Gonzalez Herbold, I macheda I. O'BRIEN All right. PACHECO Hi. President. Harrell Hi, Aiden. Favorite unopposed bill passed and chair of Senate. Please read the next agenda item. Agenda items four and five appointments of Alice Kurihara Day as member of Pioneer Square Preservation Board for Term two March 1st, 2021. Excuse me, excuse me. The report of the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee Agenda Item three Cancel 119 493 relating to city employment, commonly referred to as the first quarter 2018 Employment Ordinance, designating positions as exempt from