Fighting Invasive Weeds mapping and pulling!
Protecting the biodiversity of the Tri-Canyon area.
As the result of a multi-year mapping project, the CCF has determined a baseline level of all existing weeds in the Tri-Canyon area and created a mitigation plan working closely with a Forest Service botanist. A window of time still exists to effectively mitigate the small sized infestations within key watershed areas to prevent further spread and damage of existing populations, whose spread is fueled by heavy recreation use. Invasive weeds are listed as one of the USFSs four major threats to National Forest System lands nationally. Locally, the spread and strengthening of existing populations not only threaten the stability of the watershed (increased fire danger, reduced ability for the soil to hold back erosion, etc.) which provides culinary drinking water to the Salt Lake Valley, but also to the ecological integrity of the extensive biodiversity found within the Tri-Canyon area.
Our efforts in 2007 are funded by a grant from the National Forest Foundation.
Presently, existing partners include the National Forest Foundation, the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities Watershed, Salt Lake County Public Works, the Utah Department of Transportation, the Bonneville Coordinated Weed Management area and, of course, our community volunteers.
Mechanically removable species targeted include Dalmatian toadflax, houndstongue and Dyers Woad. Previous CCF efforts at mitigation have demonstrated measurable success in areas such as Storm Mountain, which now has a negligible population of Dalmatian Toadflax. Continuing these mitigation efforts will continue to push back the size of the populations to a manageable size. Most of the biomass of these populations are found near the mouth of Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, where we have targeted our early spring weed pulls.
Key to our plan is community involvement! If you would like to get involved, email volunteer@cottonwoodcanyons.org or call (801) 733-2667.