Weeds!

[cowman]

Last week a local farmer hired me to spray around a gravel pit the municipality built last year. It was a mess to say the least!
He was very disgusted and said the county should be ashamed of itself! I have to admit, I agree!
The whole pit was full of toadflax, thistle, and absinthe and was moving into the land outside the fence where the property line ended! He told me he got the run around when he phoned to complain and figured if he didn't do something the weeds would be out of control on his land!
This is actually pretty typical of the county, most of their pits are full of scentless chamomile, tansy, ox-eye,leafy spurge and thistles! When an oil lease is dirty, in comes the sprayer...when the county pits are dirty they haul it out and spread it on the roads!
Maybe the county needs to take a look at who is spreading the problem instead of sending the weed inspector around chewing out farmers for a few weeds?
Incidently I told him to send the invoice in to the county to see if they would reimburse him for the cost...then suggested he talk to a lawyer. The bill was slightly over $1,000.

[coppertop]

In our county some farmers have received weed notices about tansy along culverts where the county has been in doing work. In these cases there was no sign of tansy before the county moved earth etc.

[cakadu]

The amount of toadflax along some of the roads is shocking to say the least. It seems as though there is a huge proliferation of it this year, when last year there wasn't much, if any, to be seen. Same with buttercup.

What can or should be done in order to get to take a municipality to task, if indeed they are found to be the one's spreading the problem.

Incidentally, in some municipalities, there is thistle that has gone completely to seed - huge areas of it. If it were on the farm, we would have the weed inspector here lickety split. Instead the thistles are just standing there, or like last week, I saw the mowers out mowing the gone to seed thistles. Think that cures the problem?

[coppertop]

The best way to embarass any county into addressing the weed problems along their roadways is to attend a council meeting and present pictures to council, that will likely end up in the media and before you know it the weeds will be taken care of. Next year is election year !!!