Elk watches for invasive grass
Community Notes
From Wendy Babbe, of the Elk Emergency Planning Committee: This month’s topic in preparation for this upcoming fire season is “Survival Food and Water.” Survival food doesn’t need to be the expensive premade kits. In fact, some of those kits will leave you hungry. Many of these kits contain “servings” with far fewer calories than what is actually needed, so they won’t provide the number of servings they claim if you are eating all the calories you actually need.
Some foods, such as dried beans, pasta, and rice will stay viable for long periods of time when stored without major effort. Other foods that you can package up yourself for survival purposes will require additional storage steps. Freeze-dried foods stored properly can be viable for up to 20 years. Emergency coordinators are now telling us to have three weeks of food, water, and other survival items at a minimum. Go to the Elk Community Services District website at elkcsd.org and click on “Emergency Preparedness.”
The Elk Survival Fair Handout will have detailed information about Survival Foods on pages 14 and 15. Additionally, water is one of the most important components of your survival kit. We can only survive for three days without water. For drinking, you should count on one gallon of water per person per day. And, you may need additional water for cooking, washing dishes, bathing, pets, etc.
Regular, unscented bleach will purify most water and is a good idea to use when storing water. Use two drops per quart or eight drops per gallon and let it sit for 30
minutes to give it time to work. Store your water in food-safe containers such as HDPE plastic, stainless steel, or glass. Lastly, please don’t forget to register for Emergency Alerts and get your reflectorized address signs installed if you haven’t already. Read the ‘Alerts, Notifications, and Signage’ article on the ECSD website for details on these.
Invasive Grass Report from Jane Corey: For years when I taught at the Greenwood School and elsewhere in the district I tried to educate students about the spread of pampas grass…no matter how fun it was waving the fronds, that action spread invasive seeds. I wrote articles, distributed literature to landowners who had just a few plants, and spoke at town meeting, but despite my efforts, and those of others, now there is pampas grass on the path to Greenwood Commons, on the headlands, on the path to the beach, and in the fields in town.
Well now, there has recently appeared another invasive “bad grass” called Ehrharta Erecta (Common name: erect veldt grass). It is visible in many places along Highway 1, in town, and on lower Greenwood Road. It out-competes other grasses native and nonnative. I have dug some up, draped it in black plastic trying to kill it, and am trying to keep it out of flower beds and lawn. Where I can’t get rid of it, I cut back seed heads. (Unfortunately, that probably makes the individual plant stronger but an improvement because they don’t multiply through dropping seeds).
It is virtually impossible to disentangle it when it cuddles up with another plant. The California Invasive Plant Council cites it as invasive. (It was brought in the mid-1900s to help with erosion). I am hoping others will identify the plant and work to prevent the spread. It is big labor and a nuisance and I certainly don’t suggest herbicide.
I just wanted to bring it into folks’ awareness. Mowing before seeds mature is probably better than nothing. Where it has entered my flower beds, I am vigilant in weeding individual plants and I am hoping I can keep it up without becoming a nut. I wish I could find a lovely non-invasive plant that could seed quickly and strangle all the veldt grass! If you want help identifying it, please feel free to get in touch.
When I lived in Oakland in the early ’70s, I would see the “old” woman across the street poking at what to me appeared to be a pristine lawn. Now it’s me. Watch out if you see me weeding along the road!