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This is what it’s like to hike
with Bill Wolverton. If there are non-native plants growing anywhere
near his route, he will kill with impunity. Wolverton is a seasonal
ranger with Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in the Escalante sub
district. His mission has been to remove Tamarisk plants and Russian
Olive trees within the Canyons of the Escalante. The task is almost
overwhelming. The whole business of killing trees is a surprise to me
if someone has had a calling to be a National Park Service Ranger. But
the trees are not native—they are alien invaders intent on total
domination.
Wolverton has lead Sierra Club
Service Trips and Wilderness Volunteers on plant murdering sprees in
the canyons, carrying pruning saws, loppers and sprayers in addition
to their hiking gear. Some have called it the most rewarding hike of
their whole lives. Others have struggled to keep up with Wolverton’s
pace--and passion. On these latest trips, volunteers have even carried
chain saws across the desert sands and down into the canyons to rid
the waterways of the larger trees.
Cattle have not been allowed to
graze in the canyons on the rec area for over twelve years, and the
plants have literally taken over. And it’s not just the Tamarisk and
Olive—willow, maple, rabbit brush, and native grasses have returned in
abundance as well. In the desert, where there’s water there’s plant
life. But the plants that keep Bill Wolverton awake at night are
Tamarisk and Russian Olive.
Every fall, the Park Service has
to place seasonal cattle fences in the bottom of side canyon entrances
into Coyote Gulch, a tributary of the Escalante River. The fall
colors down in the deep red and black-streaked canyon are gut
wrenching in their intensity. The beauty is so impossible that it
takes your breath away. It’s like being in Las Vegas for the first
time, but the sensory overload is nature in the raw. And then you fall
in love with the place. Apparently Bill is married to the canyons; the
two are inextricably joined, and Bill is fulfilled in this
relationship.
I decide to join Bill on the
cattle fence patrol. I thought it would be a great way to kill a
Sunday morning. As a new volunteer with the Park Service, I didn’t
know exactly what to expect; I soon found out that there is plenty of
manual labor involved. Bill hikes very quickly. I had heard rumors
from the people that had hiked with him on other trips that his pace
was a bit too fast, that keeping up with Bill was really tough.
Naturally, I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to hack a
hike with him. But his pace was just fine with me, and we sped through
about five miles in the canyon bottoms that day.
At two miles in, Bill snipped the
little Tamarisk. At four miles in, Bill pointed to a canyon wall.
“Look over there. There are some pictographs you might be interested
in,” Bill said. I walked over to the canyon wall and sure enough there
was an old standby, Devil Guy. Devil Guy is everywhere in southwest
rock art. Whether it’s a pictograph or petroglyphs, Fremont or Anasazi,
Devil Guy is pretty popular--more so than Kokopelli, but just not as
aesthetically pleasing. This particular rendition of Devil Guy had a
large male organ—“Thought you’d like that,” Bill chuckles. After I
stop and look a bit, we walk on.
About 10 yards later, Bill turns
around. “I put a Russian Olive over by those paintings. Didn’t you
see it? I cut it down a few days ago and decided to put it there to
test you, see if you saw it or even recognized it! YOU WERE TOO BUSY
LOOKING AT ROCK ART!”
I cringe. “Bill you’re making me
feel bad,” I say.
“Good!” he says. I feel a bit of
the showman seeping into Ranger Bill. His voice rises and he shakes
his fists in the air. “At least my life has been lived for some better
reason. I’ve taught you to feel bad for not seeing that plant.”
I’ve just been shamed into
identifying non-native plant species. I keep my head up and my eyes
peeled while hiking from that moment on. “So Bill…do you kill Russian
Thistle, too?” Russian Thistle, better known as tumbleweed, has
established itself well in the American Southwest. “No,” says Bill
with regret. “It’s just too … too entrenched.”
Later, I ask Bill for some time to
sit down and discuss his obsession with Tamarisk and Russian Olive. He
agrees, but hands me an eleven-page memo he sent to his Resource
Management superiors at Glen Canyon. “Read this first. Then ask me
questions.”
I find that the memo is a detailed
account of Bill’s work by himself and with the volunteer groups to
kill off the intruding plants and trees. His final observation?
“Eradicating Russian Olive from
the Escalante River canyons is going to be a huge job, and is going to
take several years. It will not be easy, and constant follow up will
be required to maintain control of it. However, it can be done, and
the consequence of not doing it is to allow the Escalante and its side
canyons to become a nearly continuous monoculture of Russian Olive
from one end to the other, with nearly all the native vegetation
replaced by the invader.”
Looking at Bill, he reminds you of
someone that should be pushing paper in an office somewhere. His thick
glasses and his deliberate conversational style click with his old day
job: mechanical engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He was
laid off in 1982. He took odd jobs and lived off of his savings until
he sold his house in California and bought his Escalante house
outright in 1986. He had been hiking the Escalante Canyons since 1979,
and since he was enamored with the country, he decided to make
Escalante his home. “I wouldn’t live anyplace else,” he says. He
became a part-time park ranger in 1988 because he admired the people
doing the job. He added, “I was also out of a job and needed to do
something.”
Bill’s house is unassuming,
definitely a bachelor pad. The wood working--the doors, windows, trim
and floors--is exceptionally well done. It’s one of his personal
talents. The furniture is hodge-podge, a clear signal he doesn’t spend
much time sitting around. He explains that the house used to be a
one-room pioneer cabin. After several additions through the years, it
now looks like a ranch-style home. The kitchen is Bill’s next big
project. A new bumper sticker waits on the dining room table: “Born OK
the first time.” Camping gear and backpacks of various sizes sit
waiting by the front door, ready for Bill’s next volunteer hiking
group or patrol in the canyons. Even when Bill isn’t working, he goes
hiking. His compulsive need to hike the canyons is an addiction he
just can’t kick.
Bill says he became aware of
Tamarisk when he first moved here. “I had read Edward Abbey, Desert
Solitaire, Monkey Wrench Gang, and somewhere along there I became
aware of it (Tamarisk). That was 25 years ago. I had no idea about
Russian Olive until well after I moved here. I had no idea then that
it was destined to become the nightmare that is has become.”
Tamarix chinensis, or Tamarisk,
was introduced from Eurasia for erosion control in the west, and found
its way into Utah by 1880. By the 1920s, the Colorado River and all
its tributaries had fallen victim to the alluring plant from halfway
around the world. Its seeds are so small that they carry easily on the
wind.
The first effort to rid Coyote
Gulch of Tamarisk began in 1992 or 1993 (Bill isn’t sure of the exact
year.) “We didn’t use any herbicide, just chopped it down. It didn’t
take long to find out it was just going to come back with a vengeance.
The first organized, concerted effort to eradicate Tamarisk in Coyote
was April, 1995, with Sierra Club. We used minimal tools, and had
three herbicide sprayers between us. They all failed within the week.
We made some progress.”
Bill elaborates: “Tamarisk seeds
spread so far and so wide, you could take a bulldozer and gouge out a
hole for a pond. And sure enough, Tamarisk will grow in it after it
collects rainwater. Even with minimal water, the plant will keep
hanging on. I’m convinced, from what I’ve seen, that Tamarisk is
everywhere.
“The Green River, the Colorado
River, Tidwell Bottoms on the San Rafael…have vast forests of
Tamarisk, acres and acres. I don’t know how you could do anything
about it. I’m pessimistic. Perhaps an economic need for Tamarisk could
make a difference; maybe we could turn the paper industry loose on it.
The good thing about it is if native plants have the upper hand, they
keep Tamarisk at bay.”
Russian Olive knows no such
bounds. Birds eat and spread its not-really-fleshy seeds, which also
wash down waterways during floods. The ornamental tree was brought to
the desert southwest because it grew so well in drought conditions,
and helped to prevent erosion. The Russian Olive was first brought to
the Escalante Drainage in the late 1940s by the Soil Conservation
Service. Local high school students helped with the tree-planting
project. Now, in the upper reaches of the Escalante Drainage west of
town, there is almost nothing growing except Russian Olive.
Elaeagnus Angustifolia L.
is Russian Olive’s scientific name. The so-called “shrub” has
delicious-smelling, cream-yellow flowers in late May, June, and July
that are reminiscent of a sweet musk cologne. The larger the Russian
Olive, the larger its thorns, which are incredibly sharp. River
runners would do well to steer clear of any branches hanging down into
water corridors. Its silvery, pale green leaves are instantly
recognizable. The tree’s home turf is in Western Asia and Southeastern
Europe. Apparently, Germans cultivated the plant in the 1700’s as an
ornamental. Its popularity and its seeds) spread from there. The
reason it grows so well is its ability to fix nitrogen in its root
system, thereby taking over rocky areas and riparian areas where
cottonwoods have died. Russian Olive is so hardy it will grow anywhere
between the elevations of 800 to 7000 feet above sea level, and any
riparian areas in the Great Basin Deserts or the Great Plains.
“Everywhere you go in the west,
Russian Olive is everywhere. It’s mind boggling, a monster. There is
nothing that can compete with it. It will displace everything in the
under story, and in time become the over story,” Wolverton warns. Bill
finds an upside to the plant, though. “The Russian Olive’s seeds make
it easier to control so I’ve focused on it more.”
“I’m trying to lead the way and
show it can be done. Not just the initial clearing, but the follow-up
work, upstream and at the initial seed sources. Follow-up is
absolutely essential. If you don’t go back to make sure a tree is
dead, you could come back a year later and have a HUGE bush of
suckers—plus, there are always new ones.”
He showed me a slice of a felled
Russian Olive’s stump, 29” in circumference, 9” in diameter. The wood
was hard, almost as hard as a rock. Literally. If you hit someone in
the head with the small wafer, they could be seriously injured or even
die. The ring growth was phenomenal—it’s clear that the tree soaked up
water like a sponge. Counting the rings, it was only 15 years old.
This particular tree must have been huge.
“You can’t pound a nail into that
stuff,” says Bill. “There just isn’t an awareness of what kind of a
disaster this is. And nurseries are still selling it, and people are
still planting it! The State of Colorado actually has the Russian
Olive listed as a noxious weed and new plantings are prohibited.
Riparian areas in the whole west are at risk.”
Wolverton’s mission of Tamarisk
and Russian Olive eradication is an uphill battle that seems
impossible. I’m puzzled. Why does Bill care as long as he gets a
paycheck?
“I care about this place, the
Canyons of the Escalante. It’s a very special place to me; it gave me
a whole new direction in life--inspiration. The canyons gave me a
focus.
“In the short time we’ve done
this, the progress we’ve made gives me hope. Someone who cares will do
it; they have to want to do it. They can’t be ordered to do it by the
bureaucracy above.”
To date, Wolverton and the
volunteers who assist him have cleared 23.5 miles of the Escalante
River corridor, over one fourth of the entire length of the Escalante,
in three years. Coyote Gulch and several other side canyons have been
completely cleared as well.
I ask Bill if he thinks Ed Abbey
would have approved of his quest to rid the canyons of the exotic
plants. Bill grabs his dog-eared copy of Desert Solitaire and
turns to the section in which Abbey offers his polemic on what park
rangers DON”T do anymore…and reads aloud. Then he laughs a little and
looks over the book at me.
“I think he would approve, and
participate if he had the opportunity.”
It has been some time since I’ve
spoken with Bill about the aliens. I cannot seem to avoid seeing them
if I’m out on an errand that requires a trip to Cedar City or Kanab,
Utah. I look out the car window and all I see is Russian Olive and
Tamarisk. How has it come to this? The one place I found that seemed
to have a true riparian habitat was the Cottonwood Wash Road. Once you
drove south far enough from Cannonville, the pale green invaders
hadn’t encroached.
I decide that Bill is right; the
plants are taking over. I’ve heard talk of control measures for
Tamarisk, like releasing a beetle that eats the stuff (a thought that
scares the hell out of me), and of camels being set upon it to graze
(not as scary--it’s a native food for them back home in Eurasia).
There is nothing that I’ve heard about Russian Olive, the real
aggressor, that could stop its spread EXCEPT what Bill is doing:
cutting it down and poisoning the stump.
Hiking in the Escalante River
Corridor, you will still see the trees in some sections. Happily,
non-natives no longer exist in Coyote Gulch, a canyon that is one of
the gems of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The last time I
hiked through the lush canyon, with its maiden hair ferns, horse
tails, willows and cottonwoods, I silently thanked Bill and his
volunteers.
And I chuckled as I walked past
that pictograph panel.
Interested in helping Bill out on
a service trip? Visit
www.wildernessvolunteers.org or
www.sierraclub.org Look for
the trips listing Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
Originally published in
August/September 2004 Canyon County Zephyr
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