The Verde Watershed Restoration Commission is continuing its current five-year plan to help clear out invasive plant species from along the Verde River and its tributaries.
The group isn’t working alone.
It enjoys partnerships with many other groups ranging from public and government agencies to private landowners and foundations.
The commission established the five-year plan in 2011 with some financial help from the Walton Family Foundation, a group that has put money into various projects involving the Verde River.
The group depends on interns and volunteers from agencies like AmeriCorps to explore along the waterways and take note of where invasive species are, plants like the tree of heaven, russian olive and saltcedar.
Another difficult plant to deal with the giant reed, also known as arundo, a plant that resembles bamboo and is tenacious in its ability to regrow new plants from just a small piece that breaks off and ends up somewhere else.
Last week, members of the commission met at the Camp Verde Marshal’s Office as part of the group’s education efforts, an important prong of their overall approach.
“It’s a difficult job and sometimes it seems like it’s never going to be over,” said Laura Jones, community outreach and development with the commission, noting that she could even see some invasive species creeping up from outside the CVMO window.
The Verde River is not in as bad as shape as it could be, Jones said, something that gives the group a leg up.
Jones said that the situation along the Gila River is much worse.
“We want to get on top of this so we don’t end up like the Gila,” Jones said.
The organization is working with more than 200 private landowners, Jones said, from the headwaters of the Verde River, including along Oak Creek and Clear Creek, to down below Camp Verde.
A lot of removal work is focused upriver, Jones said, because everything flows downstream.
Private land is often where the organization finds the highest concentrations of invasive species, Jones said.
The treatment of invasive species often takes multiple years.
“We could do just one year of treatment on a property,” Jones said. “The chances are that they’ll come back with a vengeance.”
When Jones first took the job a few years ago, she said she was warned that many private landowners wouldn’t let people on to their property.
On the contrary, “People have been very welcoming,” Jones said.
The program also provides employment for young adults and veterans.
The work is costing around $500,000 a year Jones said, most of which is covered by the Walton Foundation.
“We are looking for other sources of funding to keep the program going after five years,” Jones said.
