How Government Deals With One Invasive Species, The Dandelion

by

Dave Harbour

(Point of personal privilege)

This is, admittedly, a pet peeve.  The only way I could relate the dandelion invasion to our study of energy, is to make a point that bureaucracies will never be as efficient with public dollars as citizens are with family dollars.  In Alaska, oil pays most of the cost of state government while families pay virtually nothing in support of their state government benefits.

As a homeowner, I go out and dig up every new dandelion.  My wife plants a wonderful array of floribunda alaskana every spring.  Church volunteers cull dandelions and cultivate daisies.

But government cultivates dandelions and kills desirable species while simultaneously holding ‘Invasive Species Workshops’.

This morning I provided a comment to Alaska Business Monthly regarding an upcoming ‘Invasive Species Workshop’ listed on its Industry News page.  I don’t know if the organizers will make a dent in the invasion of unwanted species next year.  They do justify spending public money on workshops and publications and ‘public outreach’ — which incrementally increases the demand for higher taxes.  So, hopefully, the effort will produce cost-effective results.

Meanwhile, with a little common sense, at no additional cost and without workshops government planners could significantly slow the spread of one invasive species, the dandelion.

Below we reprint for your information and, perhaps, entertainment, “A Dandelion Story”, slightly modified for our readers.

P.S.  If Invasive Species Workshop participants do make a dent this coming year in stopping or slowing the growth of invasive species — particularly the dandelion invasion — we will look forward to receiving information from them and including it in our searchable archives.  We know these public employees are well intended and we look forward to hearing about their results. 

---

---

Commentary for readers: Alaska Business Monthly (as modified)

A government-sponsored “Invasive Species Workshop” will occur October 28-30-2014 in Anchorage (www.alaskainvasives.org).

Government agencies have generally ignored the invasive species ‘elephant in the room’, the ubiquitous dandelion.

From public rights of way, dandelion seeds attack neighborhood lawns and establish beach heads throughout our wilderness.

We plant daisies and poppies in the rights of way to meet beautification / landscaping / environmental standards for federal dollars. But the folks who make the plans don’t maintain the projects.

Then, dandelions invade. The dandelions are first to pop up in May and early June. Smart maintenance managers could mow then, before yellow dandelion flowers go to seed and before delicate poppy and daisy heads pop up.

But no. Maintenance managers allow the dandelions to flower then go to seed, just as the wonderful poppies and daisies are coming up in mid to late June. The street/highway maintenance managers then send out the lawn mowers to cut down the dandelions just as they are going to seed, spreading the invasive seed, while simultaneously cutting off the heads of daisies and poppies before they can develop seeds.

Most summers there is a bumper crop of dandelions in August. Simultaneously, a few remaining daisies and poppies try again to propagate–just in time for the 2nd mowing.

At the forest edge of East Northern Lights Blvd. in Anchorage, where mowing does not occur, the daisies flourish and dandelions are sparse.

Where the miscoordinated mowing occurs, the expensively planted daisies and poppies die off for lack of progeny while the invasive dandelions multiply with help from street/highway maintenance managers.

​Other government agencies also cultivate the invasive species in this way.  The Anchorage School District, with its own thoughtless mowing practices, is a major cultivator of invasive dandelions whose seeds invade nearby neighborhoods throughout the city.

It seems that an “Invasive Species Workshop” goal should be to “pick the low-hanging invasive fruit”. By simply changing the mowing schedules, maintenance managers could cheaply and efficiently accomplish two goals:

1.  They could restrain the propagation of the most invasive of plant species, while

2.  simultaneously protecting taxpayer landscape investments intended to beautify public rights of way and other government properties.

Respectfully,

Dave Harbour

Ref: http://tinyurl.com/mktjs5v, http://tinyurl.com/qbpuhve, http://tinyurl.com/k7ubpdg

---