WESTERN WEED COORDINATING COMMITTEE ANNUAL MEETING November 19-21, 2013 Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada

Approved Minutes

PARTICIPANTS Steve Ryder, Chair, SWC, CO Mark Coca, Vice Chair, BLM Rachel Seifert-Spilde, Secretary, SWC, ND Eric Lane, Treasurer, CO Scott Bockness, MRWC Andrew Canham, MRWC, SD Chuck Bargeron, Univ of GA Katie Kalinowski, Western Governors Assn Tim Macklin, NRCS and liaison to WGA Shawna Bautista, USFS R6, OR Dean Kelch, SWC, CA Rich Riding, SWC, UT Greg Haubrich, SWC, WA Erika Ed miston, Teton County, WY Dan Bean, CDA- Director Palisade Insectary Curt Deuser, NPS, EPMT

Slade Franklin, SWC, WY Scott Marsh, SWC, KS Mitch Coffin, SWC, NE Dave Burch, SWC, MT Jamie Greer, NDA, NV Robert Little, SWC, NV Alan Bass, UT BLM John Cantlon, Dupont Hal Pearce, USFS R2 Tom Dudley, UC Santa Barbara Kimberly Johnson, Fremont County WY Carol Randall, USFS R 1 and 4 Dave Moorehead, Univ of GA Tim Butler, SWC, OR Julie Knudson, Tamarisk Coalition

On phone/web conference: Jessica Potter Gina Ramos, BLM Wash DC Mary Ann Rondinella Doug Johnson, CAL IPC Warren Ririe, USFS R4 ID Richard Lee, BLM IPM Coordinator Tony Koop, APHIS Sandra Brown, USDA APHIS NV Peter Budde, NPS, Fort Collins Mark Frey, NPS, Washington, DC

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Tuesday, November 19th 1:00

Welcome & Introductions, Steve Ryder, WWCC Chair Approval of 2012 Meeting Minutes, Hal Pearce moved to approve the 2012 minutes, Dave Burch seconded. Financial Report, Eric Lane, Treasurer-After 2012 meeting we had $5,000. 2013 meeting expenses will be covered by sponsors. We should break even after this year’s meeting by charging $67 per person.

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State Agency Updates

Alaska – none Arizona - none British Columbia - none California-Dean Kelsch (PowerPoint) - There is zero money available for biological control in California. Cal IPC website has data. Whippet risk assessment is being used to prioritize funding. Species get added to their list through a white paper and then it has to be approved by the legislature. They hope to change this process. They hope to legislate the process by which species are added to the list using this assessment tool. In the future the legislative process will be on the process to list species not on the list itself. Dean’s presentation covered the weed list, which includes 145 species and is action based. He gave examples of problematic species including, oblong spurge, tree privet (not listed), Berkeley sedge, and Goat’s rue. He asked, how do we communicate what we are doing in weed control? Are our measuring tools appropriate? He stressed that the preventive management stage is where we expend most of our time and energy. However, the way we are measuring our success during that stage is inappropriate. 1:35 Federal Agency Updates APHIS - none BIA - none BLM - Mark Coca & Gina Ramos-Gina provided Mark information to present. BLM has a bench EIS to add 3 new active ingredients (aminopyralid, rimsulfuron, fluroxypyr ) to their approved list. A realistic goal is to have them approved for next fall. Draft biological assessments are being done. The BLM will start consultations soon with FWS and NOAA fisheries. Expect a draft EIS early 2014. Please provide positive comments. The 2014 budget picture is looking bleak. The BLM is under continuing resolution allowing them to spend up to 29% of their anticipated budget. The continuing resolution ends Jan 15th. 2

Fiscal year 2013 budget was $7.1 million. In fiscal year 2014 a small decrease is expected. The BLM is focusing on a sage grouse petition. They do not want sage grouse to be listed as an endangered species. The 2014 budget request includes funding for EDRR work. Their weeds database is called National Invasive Species Management System (NIMS). They are about done with the web reporting system so cooperators will soon be able incorporate their data (both treatments and inventory). The Nevada BLM wants to focus intensely on controlling medusahead rye. Allan Bass, UT BLM - Some BLM offices don’t have agreements with the counties anymore since they don’t have staff to complete the necessary work. Where is the best bang for their buck? The budget is a real crutch. How do they leverage the dollars they do have? Weed seed free forage requirements for BLM land do not exist at the national level. Gina is encouraging each of the states to work with their local BLM folks to establish stipulations on WSFF at the local level. Gina feels that requiring WSFF at the local level makes it enforceable and easier to administer than something at the national or regional level. Gina encourages state weed coordinators to reach out to district offices to make sure they are considering requiring WSFF. In some states management may not agree to it. Gina is still garnering support at the national level. Chuck Bargeron asked about the BLM database. Is there a way to share the database information with EDDMapS? If so, when can Chuck expect it? Gina says they are working on cleaning up the data before they can share it. They want to pool all of their information together from all of the states and are having trouble gathering it all together and replicating it. Until they figure out how to clean up all of the glitches they won’t share it. APHIS PPQ - Tony Koop-Tony does weed risk assessments. They have a new screening tool for their risk potential. It is primarily a predictive tool to generate a risk profile for a species. It generates a map of the US to show suitable areas. They have assessed about 70 species. Their goal is to assess approximately 30 species per year. Anyone can request a weed species be assessed. The completed assessments are sent back to the requesters and others interested. He hopes to post all assessments online within a year. Their goal is to get more people to use their tool to evaluate weed species. The Maryland and Nebraska Departments of Agriculture have adopted their process. APHIS has developed a four day training course on how to run their assessments. People can come to them, or if you have funds and enough people, you could fly three APHIS folks to you to give the training. They are trying to be more aggressive in identifying problematic species. It takes approximately a month to complete an assessment and is done at no cost. Most of the assessments that they have done are for weeds that are already in the US. If a species has a narrow distribution or has potential to be regulated then it is a high priority. Those species that are outside the US are the high priority. Jonathan Jones is the new Federal Noxious Weed Policy Manager. Bureau of Reclamation - none 2:15 State Agency Update

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Colorado, Steve Ryder (PowerPoint) - Colorado has 22 species on their List A (EDRR) list. Seven of those listed are not in the state yet. Colorado has an EDRR and List B specialists. They have 37 management plans for each of the list B species (including, Russian olive and Canada thistle). They want to be able to focus on list B species, although at present very few funds are given out to control list B species. New species to be added to the non-regulatory Watch List are Brazilian elodea, parrot feather, yellow floating heart and yellowtuft alyssum. Steve’s PowerPoint included a summary for 2013 which included highlights from the field. The list A crew worked along the Front Range (and beyond). They focused on med sage, purple loosestrife and myrtle spurge. Other field highlights include rush skeletonweed, African rue, and yellow starthistle. African rue is limited to the south eastern part of the state and may have come up with sheep from New Mexico. Colorado has an interagency noxious weed team. An MOU and executive order created the team. CDA was looking for a model project and chose the Poudre Partnership. Their state noxious weed advisory committee, created by statute, passed sunset review in the 2013 session. They added two new (non-voting) committee members, from CDOT and DNR. The committee makes recommendations on listed species, rule amendments, management plans, weed control of state and federal lands and waters of the state. The CDA is not required to follow the committee’s recommendations if they can otherwise justify an alternative action or position. Members of the committee are appointed by the Ag Commissioner. The interagency team meets quarterly. They have in the past, set up training for weed identification, etc. Most recently, they wanted to find a way to develop effective interaction and initiated a pilot project (Poudre Partnership), which is the subject of a later WWCC presentation. Weed Fund grants to local entities is derived from the CDA Ag Management Fund (money from interest created/collected on unclaimed property). In 2014, they hope to return to General Fund. They are updating the states noxious weed strategic plan, which was completed in 2001. The CDA is putting together a weed app for smartphones. Dan Bean, CDA “Implementing Weed Biological Control: Pathways, bottlenecks and roadblocks” (PowerPoint) Dan covered the definition of biological control, classical biological control and the benefits (safe, effective, inexpensive and sustainable) of biological control. Biological control is part of an IPM program. What are your goals and how can you fit biological control in with other management techniques? Biological control will not eliminate/eradicate a weed but only suppress it. The ecologically based invasive plant management website can be found at www.ebipm.org. Dan discussed the process of biological control (development, permitting and implementation). In 1999, a code of best practices for classical biological control of weeds was developed and accepted. He listed the steps in weed biological control (identification of target/background research, overseas exploration, quarantine work, APHIS approval, field testing, and full scale implementation). Dan discussed insect generalists vs specialists and emphasized that only specialists are used as biological control agents. That is why biological control works and is very safe. APHIS writes NEPA docs, consults with FWS on threatened and endangered species and decides to issue based on the factors and recommendations of APHIS’s Technical Advisory Committee. Dan used the yellow starthistle rosette and root feeding weevil as examples. The weevil was approved by TAG but denied by APHIS. Monitoring includes agent establishment, dispersal, impact on target species and impact on plant community. Dan described the 4

Palisade Insectary. The insectary began in the 1940s to fight oriental fruit moth and has since moved to a new 14,000 square foot facility in 1992. They distribute over 20 biological control agents for the control of insect pests and weeds. They are a partner in weed/pest management. Field bindweed mites are distributed throughout Colorado. They have an agreement with APHIS to provide bindweed mites to other states. Dan provided information on spotted and diffuse knapweed agents. They recently found a good biological control agent (Jaapiella ivannikovi) for Russian knapweed. It prevents elongation of the shoots and keeps the plants from flowering. Folks should call Rich Hansen (APHIS, Fort Collins) if they would like some Russian knapweed biological control agents. The CDA has a program to establish and release the yellow toadflax weevil. They have seen painfully slow process thus far. It has taken over 4 years to develop insectaries to create enough agents to share. They need a higher level of production of the agent in the field and in the greenhouse. Tom Dudley, UC Santa Barbara “Progress and Pitfalls in the development of biological control for Tamarix” (PowerPoint) - Tamarix is the third most common plant in western rivers. Approximately 2 million acres are infested with Tamarix. Human alteration of rivers promotes invasion. The dense canopy of Tamarix shades out native plants and Tamarix salinates the soils making germination difficult. Tamarix is also a high water user. The dense growth form of Tamarix causes erosion and sedimentation as well as a wildfire hazard. It provides lower quality habitat than native species and results in a lower biodiversity of bird species. Standard controls (mechanical and chemical) are expensive and labor intensive. On a landscape level standard control isn’t practical. Tamarix is an ideal candidate species for biological control because it has no relatives here in the family Tamaricaceae. During overseas exploration 300 insects were identified but only three have received APHIS Technical Advisory Group approval, of which only one, Diorhabda spp., has been released (most western populations are D. carinulata, and three others are in the field in Texas or northern California) With very little feeding impact it can have an enormous impact on the plant (it dries up). The southwestern willow flycatcher was listed as endangered in 1995 because of habitat loss of cottonwood/willow. Use of biological control defoliates and exposes nests, habitat is speculated to be too degraded for recovery and beetles may be toxic. After establishment, the leaf beetle has a phenomenal rate of expansion and defoliation. The regrowth was fast, dieback gradual and mortality slow. After three full years of defoliation the mortality rates went to 65-70% mortality. Those plants that were killed had higher growth rates than those plants that were still alive. The slower plants store their nutrients rather than putting them all into rapid growth. Even without mortality, defoliated plants do not use as much water. Defoliated plants use 65-90 percent less water in the first year and even lower in subsequent years. The beetles served as a useful food source for birds in the area. There was an increase in abundance and diversity of native bird species due to biological control agents. Small mammals and lizards were also feeding on the beetles. Desired vegetation is recovering because of defoliation and mortality. Dead trees provide structural habitat which is beneficial. Establishment failed in 3 areas. One reason was because the beetles from central Asia did not recognize Tamarix parviflora, of Mediterranean origin, as suitable substrate for oviposition. Beetles prefer T. ramossisima and related forms from Asia. The beetles will not lay eggs on T. parviflora, although other species of Diorhabda from the Mediterranean region will use it. A few of the sites had existing general predators (specifically ants) that caused a site failure making establishment impossible. The third reason for failure was because beetles went into diapause too early in the season. 5

Reproductive diapause is induced by shorter day lengths. Those beetles below 37 degrees (further south) went into diapause too early. Why did the beetles move south 37 degrees? There was evolution of a delay of the diapause induction by 45+ minutes. The beetles selected for shorter day length thereby allowing movement south of 37 degrees. We do not think that the willow flycatcher can survive in monocultures of Tamarix. If we can reduce the incidence of Tamarix and increase diversity we can create a more suitable habitat. Biological control is meant to suppress not eradicate weeds. If we can maintain a mixed assemblage we can have better habitat. Revegetation of willows can cause flycatchers to reestablish. Enhancing relative abundance of native plants by biological control and restoration will improve wildlife abundance and diversity, reduce wildfire risk and ecological impacts, improve ecosystem function, etc. _____________________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday, November 20, 2013 On the phone: Jessica Howell, Warren Ririe, Kami Silverwood- AZ, Mary Ann Rondinella, Sandra Brown, Jamie Kuzek, Brian Smith, John Klavitter, Allison Halpern, Mike Stenson 8:00 am State Agency Updates Idaho - none Carol Randall gave a brief ID update. They found a population of Diorhabda which had not been reported. Kansas - Scott Marsh Kansas is working on a major update of their law. The main goal of the update is to pull the weed list out of the law and put it in regulation. They are putting together a weed advisory committee which would have to recommend a list addition before a new species could be listed. The advisory committee’s recommendations would be based on weed assessments. They found Diorhabda on saltcedar. Scott collected some and sent them to Dan Bean. Surveys have shown it has crossed three counties (over 100 miles east to west) across the state. Northern Oklahoma just found the agent in the northern part of the state. APHIS had no issues with the existence of the agent and the USFWS is excited about the find and happy to have it spread. They are seeing more concern regarding old world (Caucasian) bluestem in the central part of the state. The livestock won’t graze it. Montana - Dave Burch The MDA is in the process of updating their weed list. The weed list had some true aquatics (Eurasian watermilfoil, flowering rush and curlyleaf pondweed) on it. The governor’s office came out with an AIS blueprint. This turned the aquatics over to fish wildlife and parks. FWP has a prohibited list which they 6

will use. All 3 will also be listed on the weed list as priority 2B, which only requires eradication/containment when less abundant. They have had no success on flowering rush with herbicides. They are looking into a biological control agent to control it. They have tried land treatments and water column treatments. EWM is in NW part of the state at Thompson falls, the upper Missouri watershed and the Jefferson River, and on the lower Missouri at Ft Peck and below Ft Peck dam. The sentence “has a limited presence in MT” has been added to describe priority 1A weeds. They moved dyers woad to the top priority list. The dyers woad program has done a fantastic job. They went from 911 counties down to 6 counties with active infestations. They are using dogs to find dyers woad in a few counties. Dogs have been doing a good job. When they list weeds it is done through a rule making process. There is a working group that comes together to talk about the weeds that have been petitioned. The working group makes a recommendation to the agriculture commissioner to list them or not list them. The rule process takes 60-90 days. In the next couple of years, he expects that MT will have a revised ANS plan. Once that is completed they will remove the aquatics from the weed list. Once removed, it will alleviate the burden from the counties. There is fear that weed money would be drained on their control. The weed program has taken a hit personnel wise. Dave coordinates grants and weeds. Their forage program took a hit too. It has been subsidized by the trust fund. The MDA can no longer run the program with trust fund dollars. They used rulemaking to raise fees from $2.25 to $4.50 for an inspected acre. The counties will take half and the MDA will get the other half. They have increased their tag price to $50 for a 100 or $.50 a tag. Twine went up to $50 a box. They certify 11 palleting plants. Three of those plants are out of state. They sell the plants a certified label for the bags. Now they will charge $.40 per label. They sell approximately 120,000 labels per year. These increases will help fund that program. They hope to get some general fund money to bring back to the program so Dave can do more weed coordinating. The federal partners (BLM, FS, BOR, FWS) were approached to help pay for the program since weed seed free forage is required on their land. There were two new weed sightings in Montana. Two yellow starthistle plants were found along the Lolo Pass highway. Surveys were conducted and no other plants were found. In the NW, in Flathead lake and Sanders counties they found 1400 acres of rush skeletonweed. Nebraska - Mitch Coffin In Nebraska, they get their noxious weed funding through pesticide registration. They charge thirty dollars per registration and register 11,500 products each year. At one time, it was matched with general funds but over the years the general funds have been reduced by the legislature. At one time, they had 8 FTEs but through budget reductions they are down to three. Mitch feels they have been waiting too long (to be right) in designating noxious weeds. They spent eight years discussing whether or not to add purple loosestrife while it got much worse in the meantime. They are hoping to identify new problems and control them sooner. Their statue allows for counties to petition the agriculture commissioner to add weeds to their county list. The creation of their invasive species council has brought in more partners. The council website has allowed weed/invasive species detections. It specifically allowed for the rapid response to a zebra mussel report. They are now using the APHIS weed risk assessment tool as a guide. There are currently 13 recognized WMAs in Nebraska. During the200709 biennium the legislature appropriated $4.5 million to treat river channels. They have incorporated 7

helicopter surveys to map river systems. Riparian control poses many challenges including access, equipment and land ownership. Noxious weed funding is stable. Their weed designations have gone from reactive to proactive. The WMAs have gone above and beyond and are recognized statewide. Most of them have paid weed coordinators. They only have 15 acres of knotweed in the state. Most of those are ornamentals versus the truly wild variety. 9:15 NGOS, other updates Western Governors Association - Katie Kalinowski (handout) The WGA covers the Great Plains and west (19 states). Policy resolution (13-02) was passed in July. Section B outlines their motives. Katie would like to know if there are areas that we see where WGA could be helpful. They will be putting together a policy briefing for the governors’ staffs. The policy resolution is good for a minimum of three years. They want to know what they can do from a policy standpoint. The WGA has talked to the states at this point. They have yet to interview federal agencies. Carol Randal has a concern regarding the definitions included in the policy resolution. She thinks including invasive natives dilutes the efficacy of what can be done. Most USFS invasive programs are all non-native. Separate NEPA documents are needed to attack invasive non-native species with the USFS. Tamarisk Coalition - Julie Knudson (handouts and PowerPoint) Julie gave a brief overview of what the coalition does. She stressed that they work with all invasive species that occur in riparian corridors. She handed out a newly updated map for 2013 for tamarisk biological control. The map provides an early warning system for land managers so they can be prepared with a restoration plan before the tamarisk beetles move into their areas. The coalition works on the cross watershed network, which is a forum for sharing information. They are putting on a riparian restoration training series in 2013-14. Recent workshop topics have included native and exotic riparian plant identification, how to improve the success of cottonwood and willow riparian plantings, etc. They are working on rapid monitoring strategy. They needed an easy way to track restoration progress while helping to plan for the future. They needed to look at the entire site to ensure accurate representation of progress. Land managers set realistic site goals and the rapid monitoring helps provide progress reports.. In summary, these techniques are for land managers working on very large sites that have experienced years of degradation or neglect. The goal is to tip the balance in favor of desired species. They are working on new revegetation techniques on tamarisk sites which includes removing/cutting in alternating strips or pathways. They are helping to support local growers to be able to provide cottonwoods for future pole plantings. They have been putting on a funding webinar series (20122013). Webinar #10 is focusing on how to work with and benefit from Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs). They have several past webinars that will be posted on their website soon. The RRC or Riparian Restoration Connection website has new funding opportunities. Pulling for Colorado Events include weed rodeos and control events (including removal of Russian olive).The Colorado Weed Management Association holds several trainings (winter conference, weed identification, NPDES, etc.) and have calendars, newsletters, etc. Missouri River Watershed Coalition (MRWC) - Andy Canham and Scott Bockness (PowerPoint) 8

Andy gave a brief history before he gave an update. He listed the goals of the MRWC which include 1) reduce the spread and introduction of invasive species 2) increase regional coordination 3) maximize funding efficiency 4) join government, businesses, universities, etc. in private-public partnerships. EDRR and education are two of the things that the MRWC feels strongly about. The MRWC’s 2013 tasks included continued maintenance of the website and list serve, current grant administration and reporting, and program management. EDDMapS was the answer to the groups EDRR need/concern. The 2014 objectives include: maintenance of the website and list serve, focus on education and awareness, continue to support EDDMapS West and trainings, Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) project, and to address the challenge for funding. Coordination is difficult without funding. CIG Project (PowerPoint) - Major objectives of the project 1) collect baseline data 2) investigate bioenergy potential of invasive species 3) outreach and education. Huge amounts of biomass are produced by removal of invasive species (especially of Russian olive). The $1 million project was matched by $1 million from Wyoming and Montana. Scott reviewed the 2011-2013 project timeline. Nine project sites were selected in MT, WY and SD. Four to ten tons of biomass per acre is created by removal of Russian olive. They tested the seed viability of Russian olive and found seeds can be viable twenty-five to thirty years. If biomass needs to be transported further than 100 miles the cost to transport it outweighed the bioenergy benefit. Wood fuels feasibility comparisons showed that Russian olive and saltcedar compared with traditional fuels were similar. However, treatment costs and transportation make invasive species high cost fuels. National Park Service (NPS) Biological Resource Management Division - Curt Deuser NPS EPMT, Mark Frey and Pete Budde out of Ft Collins The National Park Service has been working on an updated work performed database. NPS expects the new web-based system to be in operation in 2014.. The Exotic Plant Management Team (EPMT) program started as a pilot project at Lake Mead in 1969. As of 2013, they have 17 teams. The southwest team started in 2013. In California, their scotch broom project has achieved 98% control. After the invasive material is cut down a prescribed burn is completed. The idea is to compress the control window. The Great Plains team is working with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to produce locally sourced plants. One of the major things EPMTs can do is to partner with other agencies. The northern cascade team is working with 10 different private entities to work on knotweed control. Curt Deuser reiterated the necessity of the partnerships by the EPMT teams. Base funding continues to be whittled away. The EPMTs develop professional capacity to treat weeds on the ground. They have equipment and will travel. We should look at ways we can work with those teams. Cooperative agreements are used to facilitate cooperation at several levels. It is a good way to encumber funds. NPS has a new invasive plant alert app (currently in the internal testing phase). Expect a release in the spring of 2014. It is compatible with iPhones and other androids. It links to EDDMapS. Each park will be able to manage their own list of target species. EDDMapS can be set up to send an email alert when a new observation is made. The goal is to be park specific. So a person can download a specific park plant list prior to their visit. Each park unit may have established vegetation management programs. The EPMT serves multiple areas and travels quite a bit. Their response to tamarisk beetles has changed their 9

priorities for treatment in many areas of the west. Now, western teams more on Russian olive, Russian knapweed, pepperweed, and camelthorn that co-exist with tamarisk and may flourish with tamarisk control. There is burned area rehabilitation money that continues to be a good funding source that can be used to have the EPMT teams do work 3 years post fire. They are in the EDRR phase in UT for Saccharum ravennae (ornamental Ravenna grass). This grass has outcompeted tamarisk in some systems. It has tremendous amount of potential to explode with tamarisk biological control spreading. New Russian olive control is happening in Nevada using high concentrations of glyphosate (75-80% concentrations) delivered via the hack and squirt method. They leave the tree to die in place. Cut stump glyphostate treatments work better than triclopyr for control of Russian olive. EPMT teams can work with local groups (conservation corps, etc.) to train on control techniques. It is a role they also play internally by training local NPS staff to manage their weeds. BLM national seed coordinator - Paul Krabacher, ID BLM is the largest purchaser of non-agricultural seed in the US. Their record buy last year was over 2.6 million pounds of seed. They have a very reactive procurement system going on related to post fire rehabilitation. Their warehouse system includes a capacity of ~2 million pounds. They can mix around 100,000 pounds per day. The average price per pound is approximately $10. Every seed lot purchased requires sampling. The government complies with all laws and final acceptance is per state seed laws. There are specifications that spell out seed acceptance. Most seed gets delivered in October-December. Prequalified seed based on seed test results from certification expedites delivery and is only for blue tag certified seed. Besides the consolidated seed buys, a grass increase contract for future deliveries includes thickspike wheatgrass, slender wheatgrass, bluebunch wheatgrass and Siberian wheatgrass. Everything is based on PLS quality and adherence to State prohibited and restricted weed seed laws. If within allowable tolerance and meeting minimum PLS, they will offer a lower price for a lower PLS. There are low PLS minimums. O.5% for all types of weed seed is the maximum amount allowable. What is next is to expand pre-qualified seed for species in critical demand, allowing selection of downy brome free seed and perhaps other species. They are going to try to get ahead of the curve regarding their list. In the future they anticipate reduced funding. The consistency and uniformity between states on these lists is important. It is important to consider invasive species on an ecoregional scale versus arbitrary state boundaries. 1:25 Brian Smith - Federal Highway Administration, Chicago office The Federal Highway Administration will be releasing a new book Vegetation Management: An Ecoregional Approach authored by Bonnie Harper Lore. Information on how to identify ecoregions is included. The book will be released in early 2014. Phragmites is a challenge in the great lakes. There is a collaborative group through the great lakes restoration initiative fund. There is a regional advisory committee associated with the group. It produces quarterly webinars and has an informational wiki page (www.greatlakesphragmites.net/webinars-presentations). Wiki topics range from biology, ecology, biological control, mapping and monitoring. It is a way for managers with little time to get involved and

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informed. The goals of the Greal Lakes Phragmites Collaborative are to engage stakeholders, reduce redundancy, and facilitate adaptive management. John Klavitter - USFWS and refuge system-John has only been on the job 10 weeks. FICMNEW - none Chuck Bargeron - EDDMAPS (presentation) Since April 2013 they have had 344 new downloads of the IOS app and 724 updates. They have developed and released over 20 apps thus far. Overall apps have been downloaded nearly 50,000 times. Six weeks ago a new version of EDDMapS West was released. It includes a field guide. You can search by species (common or scientific name). It also has species grouped into grasses, aquatics, etc. If a person snapped a picture they could upload it. The photo is a voucher for that report. The only issue is that if you upload a photo the location where the photo was taken may be different than the location it was uploaded. They are working on creating something called my list, which is going to be a real time tracking of location. It might be broken up by state and may have more fields for reporting. Recent developments include: addition of field guides, species added, iPad optimized, IOS 7 optimized, EDDMapS GIS, ibiological control app (includes bio release form), etc. EDDMapS GIS will allow users to add different layers, edit the data through an ArcGIS interface, etc. Over the next few months they will add a web portal for the ibiological control app which will include a smartphone app with field cards and a way to report releases and occurrences, distribution maps, catalogue of agents, etc. In the future, they hope to be able to allow users to see the releases in real time, edit the infestation, etc. They will work on a multi-year project to fill in national county distribution maps for major invasive plants. EDDMapS has all of the plants database and Biota of North American (BONAP) records. They are trying to get the plants database to take back information so they get new information updated information that is submitted through EDDMapS. There is concern that folks may be able to falsely report insects that may not be correctly identified and may cause trade/export problems. EDDMapS will be the US ACOE national invasive species database to be used on the planning site and the maintenance and operations side. They hope this project will help facilitate the data sharing with NAS and NAPIS. They are launching a NPS app for invasive plants built off the what’s invasive platform. It will launch in spring 2014. People can choose their park, download species and reports. Reports will go to park managers but also state coordinators. They have been able to develop some time lapse mapping/dist mapping over time. The North American Invasive Species Network and Global invasive species information network has EDDMapS data. NAISMA mapping standards are in desperate need of updating. Chuck is on ISAC and is trying to get them to integrate agency data sets to improve assessments. They are working on a new verification system. Verifiers can delete and edit reports, get batch data and contact those that submitted reports. Chuck thinks polygons will be part of the near future. They would like to work with CAL IPC to integrate their CAL IPCs Cal Weedmapper into EDDMapS. In the future folks reporting will get a verification email saying thanks for your submission. They will be developing better ways to get the data out of EDDMapS into your systems. 11

Warren Ririe - USFS R4 A new National Strategic Framework for Invasive Species Management was published in August of 2013. The framework focuses on internal coordination between branches of the USFS. The other focuses include collaboration and a new approach towards reporting priorities and accomplishments within the agency. Use it in your communications with the USFS when you are working with them. Warren presented a spreadsheet of recent accomplishments for FY 2013 in treatment of noxious weeds. Total acres treated were approximately 342,110. They continue to emphasize partnerships and continued work with the states. Shawna Bautista - USFS R6 Quick turnaround may be needed again in the spring to get the state and private forestry funds allocated. Something to keep in mind is to get started on narratives in case there is a really short deadline again this year. Massive increases in shade tolerant weeds invading in-tact forest systems in the pacific NW including garlic mustard, etc. This is a serious issue that traditional weed programs might not be prepared for considering they are used to roadsides, trail habitats, etc. versus these sensitive areas. They moved into a new building in Portland and found the landscapers had included myrtle spurge in their planting. She encouraged state folks to work with them to work on larger landscape type projects and make sure weed control is included in these big projects. We should be asking the USFS how they are going to address weeds. Arundo donax is being considered for biomass production. The risk side of using invasive species for biomass is a real concern. They will be finishing up environmental analysis to use herbicide on yellow floating heart infestations in water. A new handbook for field staff will be coming out this year. It will include the marching orders for USFS field staff. She stresses we hold their agency accountable. Hal Pearce - USFS R2 He encourages state and county folks to coordinate and to discuss priorities. The new budget being talked about is a reduction of at least 5%. They encourage us to help them in priority setting. Region Two’s percent accomplished will be around 62% of their assigned target. Carol Randall, USFS R1 Steve Shelly wanted Carol to report that in Region One they were able to accomplish 62% of their assigned target. Additional treated acres were accomplished due to partnerships. In Region One they got additional fire suppression funding. They did have a starthistle find in MT that was taken care of immediately. One hundred eighty-seven biological control releases were accomplished with the help of some other collaborating agencies. Dave Burch said that he is working with Steve Shelly to develop an adopt-a-trailhead program. It may end up helping the WSFF program. It may include new signage, etc. Mike Stenson - SDDA

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South Dakota was a lot wetter this year with excess moisture causing an increase in thistle acreage. Fewer thistles occurred in CRP as CPR acres were down. They collected and distributed over 1.5 million flea beetles for leafy spurge control. This was the fourth year of phragmites control. They received SD conservation money for phragmites restoration. They have a cooperative project with Nebraska to focus on establishing insectaries for purple loosestrife biological control. They did a lot of survey and control work for saltcedar on the lower Missouri and also worked on cleaning up saltcedar on the Cheyenne River and on Lake Oahe. Other biological control activities targeted Dalmatian toadflax, spotted knapweed and common mullein. Rachel Seifert-Spilde – NDDA (presentation) The NDDA has developed two programs to distribute the approximately $1.4 million that appropriated by the legislature each biennium to the county weed boards. The NDDA has come up with a new in-kind rate table for their partners to use. NDDA seeks USFS state and private forestry funds each year for different weed issues (biological control, land enhancement post flood, yellow and Dalmatian toadflax control, houndstongue, EDRR, etc.). The NDDA is currently focusing on biological control programs for leafy spurge and yellow toadflax. ND has a WSFF program and has made available/allowable the use of colored twine in 2013. WSFF tags are available at no cost but twine needs to be purchased by the producer once approved by the NDDA. ND is nearly finished with a new pocket-sized weed identification guide. It will be available in January of 2014. The guide will be paid for, in part, with USFS funds. NDDA has their own mapping system using dataloggers and provides data to EDDMapS. The ND Game and Fish Department is responsible for aquatic nuisance species in ND. The department’s Aquatic Invasive Species Committee has listed curly leaf pondweed, Eurasian watermilfoil and didymo as ANS. Zebra mussels and silver carp have been found in limited locations within the state. Quantifying weed acreages, pesticide container recycling, expending funds at the county level (inactive weed boards) and movement of infested gravel and other materials continue to be challenges for the NDDA. Dave Burch will send info on Montana’s container recycling program to be included in the minutes. We should try to include a presentation on container recycling for next year’s meeting. NM - none Jamie Kuzek - AZ Arizona is using IMAPs as their main invasive species database. It is a state specific program but has a user system with polygons, etc. They are developing a management module to accompany it. Any state could join but would pay a startup fee and maintenance costs. There are data sharing agreements that are being signed. They haven’t fully committed to how they will share their data with EDDMapS. Robert Little - NV Budgets are an issue in Nevada. They do not receive any general funds. Counties do put some money toward weed control. Those funds are limited and split between weed control and mosquito vector control. The majority of funding comes from USFS state and private forestry. Nevada increased their 13

pesticide registration fees from $100 to $125. That is where they get funding for weed control. They bring in about $107,000 per year through pest registration fees. With that registration increase they are planning on putting money into weed control with regard to sage grouse habitat restoration. They are revising their statutes that deal with abatement laws. They plan to increase their regulatory program. They will formalize or update their noxious weed list. Priorities are medusahead control, outreach and education, regaining organization and infrastructure within the state (rebuild ties and collaborate), gain county involvement, increase the funding counties contribute, establish a biological control program, increase monitoring of biological control releases and move forward in the mapping program with EDDMapS GIS. They are working with Carol Randal and the western task force regarding toadflax biological control and are seeing establishment of Mecinus janthiformis for Dalmatian toadflax. They are having issues with seed growers wanting the state to remove mayweed chamomile from their list. The weed community decided to keep it on the list. However, mayweed chamomile may be removed from the state seed list. Jamie Greer reported that they took on weed free gravel certifications. They have seen a big jump in WSFF. They have been using a lot of Montana’s educational materials. Local organizations are interested in noxious weed education. She sees more interest in education in the future. They have a lot of folks looking out for medusahead because of the sage grouse and wildfire issues. Tim Butler, OR Their program deals a lot with EDRR and has a very active biological control program. They work with about 72 biological control agents on 37 plant species. They have a staff member that is doing a master’s thesis on Dalmatian toadflax biological control. It should be a great case study on a successful biological control program. They have 11.5 full time employees in their program stationed in six regions in the state. They have great county level cooperators as well as USFS and BLM. Their budget is broken into general, federal and lottery funds. A little over $3 million per biennium is allocated to the noxious weed program. $2.5 million per biennium of lottery funds go into weed grants for their cooperators. They have an OR weed mapper project that is ongoing. They share data with EDDMapS. In 2000 they did an economic analysis which will be out in February or March of 2014. The 2000 report revealed a 34 to 1 benefit to cost for EDRR. They have 20 A-list weed species. They have 118 state listed weeds. BLM and USFS help to support some A-list weed projects. Wooly distaff thistle is an A-list species and has been reduced from 123 to 3.4 acres since it was found. African rue is present in two counties on 19 landowner’s properties including the tribes. Yellowtuft is another A-list species and is occurring in small acreages. They are working with the USFS and BLM to control and keep it in check. Three species of spartina have been found in Oregon in 5 locations. Giant hogweed is another A-list species that is on the decline. They have 55 sites on 223 landowner’s properties. Goats rue is present on two sites near Portland. APHIS SITC folks found it being sold in an herbal store. Taurian thistle, purple starthistle, orange and yellow hawkweeds are listed weeds of concern. Yellow floating heart, which is being spread by waterfowl, is on 8 sites in stock ponds and

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water features. Last winter they did a listening session with their cooperators to gather input on how they are doing at a state level and whether or not they are meeting their goals. Arundo donax has been discussed heavily as a biofuel. Portland general electric wants to grow arundo as a biofuel to power their coal plant. Arundo was run through an assessment and scored as a noxious weed. APHIS’s risk assessment came back showing that the ODA risk assessment was sound. APHIS did make a statement that just because it will grow doesn’t mean it will be invasive there. ODA is trying to provide for effective mitigation. 4:10 Erika Edmiston - Teton County Weed and Pest (presentation) “Jackson Hole Weed Management Association-Working Together to Preserve and Protect Habitat” The Jackson Hole Weed Management Association (JHWMA) was created in 1998 and includes nearly 3 million acres (only 3% private land). They make plans and conduct work according to drainages. They make up a fifth of the Greater Yellowstone project area. Saltcedar, Russian olive and pepperweed are all EDRR species along the Snake River within The JHWMA. Spotted knapweed is a problem. They have spotted knapweed spray days on the Gros Ventre River bottom. A big goal is to keep spotted knapweed out of the elk refuge. The Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee (GYCC) spray days have included 75-80 sprayers for 2-3 days in Grand Teton Park. In 2013 it was on the NE side of Yellowstone. Private properties are a challenge and approximately 75% of their weed problems. They also do a wildlife expo, conduct horseback spraying, and an annual weed report with their partners. WY Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust money is being used to control cheatgrass through a grant. Challenges faced by the JHWMA include ox eye daisy, funding, different species coming up (including mussels, EAB, etc), spurge coming in in rootballs of trees, inconsistencies in the federal budgets, contract timing, awareness and a call to action. The biggest challenge is staff turnover in the federal agencies. Getting buy in and keeping momentum up is tough. Teton County uses USFS and the National Elk Refuge equipment with their spray crews to do work on their land. This ends up costing the agencies less to hire the work out because they end up paying for only employee wages. Teton County has chosen not to get non-profit status. They have had to get creative because of their challenges. They sit down as partners and have identified clean areas of their county where zero tolerance is enforced. They have helped fund Healthy Habitats Coalition with $7,000. They are involved in NAISMA/marketing, and the GYCC. They are not official members of GYCC because they are not a federal entity. They do a lot of grant writing for work to be completed on federal land. If grants go through them, overhead is not charged. Steve Ryder - CDA “Lessons Learned (so far) from the Poudre Partnership” (presentation) They are trying to establish a long standing interagency relationship without necessarily formalizing it via MOUs or the like. Their goals are to develop a model of multi-agency collaboration that can be used to effectively address challenging noxious weed problems on the ground and provide outreach and education. Colorado’s interagency noxious weed team was established by an MOU in 1996. It was reinforced by an executive order in 1999. They have great federal agency cooperation and presence. The 15

on the ground setting is the lower Poudre Canyon in northern Colorado. The area experienced fire in 2011 and 2012. Dalmatian toadflax and leafy spurge are concerns within the area. The fundamentals of the partnership are voluntary and informal, ad hoc, INWT is the steering committee, on the ground group is made up of local managers of state and federal agencies plus local entities and private landowners. They have used existing resources up to now but are seeking additional funds. They have treated spurge and released toadflax biological control agents. In year 2 they hope to delineate the toadflax perimeter and conduct outreach. They put out close to 4,000 Mecinus bio agents (approximately 250 per release). The lessons they have learned so far have been to keep it simple (no MOU), it was finite and limited and ad hoc, they had a strong local presence, they harvested low hanging fruit in year 1, they encouraged the slackers and relationship building. _____________________________________________________________________________________ November 21, 2013 Thursday 8:00 State Agency Updates Rich Riding, UT (presentation and video) Their noxious weed act is centered on the counties. They have the full responsibility to take care of the noxious weed law but they were never given money to do it. In 2012 the legislature allocated $1,000,000 through an invasive species mitigation fund. They were funded another $1,000,000 in 2013. Each county has a noxious weed board (approximately 50% are good). They also have cooperative weed management areas. 2012 projects included: squarrose knapweed, rush skeletonweed, medusahead rye, and phragmites. They get so many applications they have implemented a ranking system for their grants. They have approximately 70,387 acres of phragmites. They have formed a phragmites working group. They are using herbicide, grazing, etc. Rich provided a video that we watched. Greg Haubrich and Allison Halpern - WA (presentation) Their budget has remained untouched. However, the state and private forestry funds are extremely important in funding the smaller projects. Spartina has been a huge problem. They have achieved control and acreages are going down. They spent over a million dollars controlling spartina. They are being re-infested by spartina coming in from British Columbia. They use an app called iform (iPad, iPhone, iPad mini, android phones, etc.) for data collection. They hand out iPod touches to counties to collect data. That way they don’t need to pay for a data plan, etc. They can customize the forms. They get 5 to 10 meter accuracy. They are easily able to map from their computers without using ArcGis, etc. It allows folks to take photos and gives Greg direct access to their data forms. They use iform builder and buy a bunch of licenses for the summer at $10 per month. It does not do polygons. Greg doesn’t ask for treatment data but a county could use iform to track control info. Allison discussed their 2014 weed list. The weed control board generates the noxious weed list. They have a very open public listing process (they accept proposals from the public, agencies, etc.) and use a rule making process. They added lesser celandine and a series of non-native cattail species and their 16

hybrids to the Class-B and Russian olive as a class-C noxious weed. They reclassified velvetleaf from a class-A to class-Bb. They also reclassified buffalobur from a class-A to a class-C noxious weed. They now group 2 sub genera groups of hawkweed instead of listing each species individually. They added Arundo donax as a class-B noxious weed. They worked with the Department of Agriculture to license/permit growers of arundo. They don’t have much interest from folks wanting to commercially cultivate it. In 2014 they listed Japanese eelgrass as a class-C species. In 2014 they will have 147 noxious weeds on their list. Slade Franklin - WY (presentation) WY is dealing with the affordable care act. Districts are going to end up spending more on healthcare, etc. Most of Wyoming’s funding is on the county level through the mill levy. 2012 mills brought in $17,696,453. WY has 25 weeds listed. The Department of Agriculture does have grant funding (pesticide registration fee grant, state and private forestry, etc.) They have contracts with the WY DOT to do weed control on the roadway. The Department of Agriculture accepts the funds then contracts with the counties to do the work. Five supervisors in the past year retired. They are running into some turnover challenges. They are doing a cheatgrass prioritization project in WY. Prioritizing control of cheatgrass locations based on sage grouse. They have cheatgrass in every county. WY has a state list of 25 species and then a county list. They need to review/assess the species on their list. They need to review the county lists and see if some of the species should be moved to the state list. They are working on rules and regulations to allow for an emergency declaration to add a species. They have a state invasive species team that meets every few months. $527,000 was spent by WY DOT to control weeds on rightof-ways. New federal regulations (to increase safety) require changes that will increase costs. State and private forestry has decreased exponentially over the years from $149,000 in 2009 to $46,787 in 2014. Slade suggested a regional approach to spending the reduced funds. Slade handed out a WSFF video. John Cantlon - Healthy Habitats Coalition (HHC) Update HHC is a 501(c)(4) through Idaho. John gave a detailed background/history regarding HHC. There is an overview and bill from Rob Bishop on the HHC website that is based on efficacy. It details the percent to be spent on education, on the ground control, etc. Mr. Horsford has been asked to cosponsor the bill with Mr. Bishop. They are looking for other Democratic sponsors. It is important to go to our delegation (especially the governors) because they will be instrumental in making this happen. If the bill passes we will see more on the ground. The net result of every program needs to be a 5% reduction of invasive species on the ground. Partnerships are crucial. NEPA is the third critical portion of the bill. HHC has done this all for the good of the whole. Roger Batt is Executive Director. John Cantlon has passed the baton and will no longer be with HHC. Roundtable Discussion Slade suggested we have a disconnect with DC. He thinks that the federal agency representatives should be discussing with WWCC what they don’t like about HHC instead of blaming or complaining to John Cantlon. Shawna suggested that maybe the high level feds feel that FICMNEW involvement is good enough. Are we working with the right folks? Should we continue to work with or ask for high level 17

federal involvement or is dealing with our regional folks enough? It was stressed that several folks feel that we do need to have the high level folks at our meeting. Shawna suggested that we identify specific issues that we want to bring to them and ask their input on if we want participation from DC. Focus the agenda more on roadblocks or discussions at the high federal level. We should also be emphasizing the value of having the regional folks at the meeting to their supervisors. Scott suggested that the regional folks request an agency specific meeting that coincides with this meeting with their higher level supervisors (ie Shawna, Hal, Carol, etc. meet with their USFS supervisors) either before or after WWCC. Slade suggested use of Perspective on federal land, use of state and private forestry funds on the pine beetle, etc. Could we have the Western Governors’ Association invite the high level supervisors? Katie said possibly. Tim Butler suggested that each of us work to cultivate relationships with those we want here. John Cantlon said we should do an incredibly great job on a huge regional landscape level to show our credibility and draw attention. Is this the group to do that? Could we achieve that? Should we be talking about killing weeds or talking about the policies affecting our ability to kill weeds? Next year’s meeting-Folks want to meet the week after Thanksgiving so it is closer to the rodeo finals, but either before or after will be OK. Scott suggested we phase out the adobe connect and go with just conference calling. Dave Burch suggests we focus on regional efforts rather than wasting our time on FICMNEW. The videoconferencing was over $2,000 and only 8 people were on the phone at one time. We should have people submit presentations ahead of time and post them to the website. Scott suggested we have a landscape level theme for next year. Slade thinks we should really review WSFF on a regional level. An in depth discussion on pesticide container recycling is needed. Maybe we could all bring our education coordinators along so they can help to develop a regional education campaign. NAISMA set up a committee to discuss a marketing campaign. We may need to get a bigger room. Eric Lane may get bids to explore options for a different venue. Robert volunteered to set up a tour on Monday afternoon for folks that might come in early. Julie suggested we put together a video or public message and target Hollywood. She thinks we need a positive message that details the measurable accomplishments. The meeting adjourned at noon.

Respectfully submitted, Rachel Seifert-Spilde

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