PORT TOWNSEND – Local organizations are joining forces to eliminate invasive weeds in Kah Tai Lagoon Park.
The Port Townsend park is overrun with noxious weeds that make it difficult for native plants to flourish, said Fowler Stratton, Jefferson County Noxious Weed Control Board weed surveyor.
The grounds are badly in need of tending, he said.
That prompted the program.
“It’s a 360-degree thing,” Stratton said.
“Not only are we taking out, we’re putting back.”
The county Noxious Weed Control Board, along with Admiralty Audubon Society, the city of Port Townsend and Gray Wolf Ranch recovery lodge are working together to clean up the weed problem at Kah Tai Lagoon Park, located north off East Sims Way.
The problem plants are meadow knapweed, scotch broom, spotted knapweed and poison hemlock.
The grounds around the salt-water lagoon have been marked, and work will begin early in April to pull the weeds, section by section.
Stratton estimates the job will take about two weeks, working every Tuesday morning and afternoon.
“As long as there are weeds, it won’t be done,” he said.
Patients at Gray Wolf Ranch recovery lodge will volunteer during the two months.
Gray Wolf is a drug treatment center in Port Townsend that incorporates community involvement in its program.
“We’re out and about in the community doing all kinds of volunteer work,” said Gray Wolf Founder Peter Boeschenstein.
“A part of our program here is giving back to the community.”
Last year, Gray Wolf patients volunteered 8,618 hours in Port Townsend.
Also participating are Admiralty Audubon Society volunteers.
They say the lagoon is an excellent place to spot birds.
Rosemary Sikes of the Audubon Society said she’s already volunteered at the park on a regular basis.
Sikes said it’s important to get community involvement at the park, because the city can’t afford parks workers to do the necessary maintenance and weed-pulling.
She and her husband Ron have planted native plants around the lagoon, such as shore pine, cascara, red twig dogwood and snowberry, to give birds a natural environment so they’ll continue coming back.
Eve Dixon, Jefferson County weed control coordinator, said replacing the weeds with native plants is essential.
“There’s no point removing noxious weeds without replanting something else, because if not, they’ll probably come back,” Dixon said.
“They can just spread rampantly and produce monocultures.”
The program accepts community volunteers to help get rid of the weeds at the park.
To volunteer or for more information, phone the Noxious Weed Control Board office at 360-379-5610, Extension 205.
