January 23, 2012

National Invasive Species Awareness Week

February 26 - March 3, 2012
Washington, DC

A week of activities, briefings, workshops and events focused on strategizing solutions to address invasive species prevention, detection, monitoring, control, and management issues at local, state, tribal, regional, national and international scales.

Here are 10 ways to observe NISA Week.

Learn more at link.

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Florida considers controversial cure for polluted Lake Apopka: Let hydrilla spread

By Kevin Spear, Orlando Sentinel

9:17 p.m. EST, January 22, 2012
The sickly Lake Apopka has been healing at a snail's pace despite undergoing some of the more costly environmental rehabilitations in Florida history.

So a state agency is thinking about speeding up the process by encouraging an aggressive, aquatic weed — hydrilla — to take root in the lake.

It's a hotly contested idea that appears to be leaving little room for compromise. Those who want the lake restored to a natural condition say the foreign plant would devastate native varieties if allowed to spread and would destroy any real chances of reviving the polluted lake. Fans of hunting and fishing counter that the fast-growing plant, imported from Asia but now considered a costly nuisance throughout much of the U.S., would work wonders in the lake as habitat for ducks and largemouth bass.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will decide whether hydrilla is a new friend or old foe of Lake Apopka, which covers nearly 50 square miles of Orange and Lake counties. Agency officials will take public comments Tuesday from 6-9 p.m. in Winter Garden's Tanner Hall. ...

Learn more at link.

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Town of Brookhaven, New York, next to tackle invasive bamboo

By Brittany Wait
Times Beacon Record

Responding to complaints from residents, one Brookhaven Town official hopes to restrict the planting and maintenance of bamboo within the town.

A proposed resolution, sponsored by Councilwoman Kathy Walsh (R-Centereach), restricts the distance that bamboo can be from a property line.

"It does tend to travel," Walsh said in a phone interview. "We won't be able to go into someone's yard and tell them to remove it, but if it encroaches into the neighbor's yard we'll have law on books to tell them they have to remove it to the property line limitation that was adopted." ...

Walsh is hoping to set a public hearing on the bill at the Feb. 7 Town Board meeting.

The councilwoman is currently working with John Turner, who deals with environmental cases in the town's Planning Department, and Beth Riley from the Law Department, on the language of the law. Turner retired from his position at the Planning Department and was brought back as a part-time consultant. ...

Read the full story at link.

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Using a Wasp to Catch a Beetle: The Quest to Save Ash Trees

By Stone Ng

AudubonMagazine.org

For nearly a decade, a tiny alien menace, a beetle known as the emerald ash borer, has been destroying some of the nation’s most iconic native trees. Now researchers are honing a new method that uses wasps to ferret out these invasive beetles. The technique could help prevent the spreading of the emerald ash borer, as well as benefit other imperiled plants in the future, both in the U.S. and abroad. ...

Learn more at link.

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14th Annual SE-EPPC Conference and 10th Annual ALIPC Conference

Join in bringing you the Past, Present and Future of Invasive Plants in the Southeast

May 8-10, 2012
Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center
241 South College Street, Auburn, AL 36830

More information is available at http://www.se-eppc.org/2012/ .

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NEW Blight Ravages Boxwood

A new, aggressive, exotic disease called Boxwood Blight is now affecting all species of boxwood on Long Island and other areas of the US. If you live on Long Island and see bare twigs on your boxwood this winter, send a sample to the LI Horticultural Research & Extension Center at 3059 Sound Ave. Riverhead / 631-727-3595 to ID the pathogen and slow the spread of this serious disease. Non-commercial samples can be brought to CCE-Suffolk Diagnostic Lab at 423 Griffing Ave. Riverhead / 631-727-7850. For more info. click Boxwood Blight Cornell Fact Sheet 2012.

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