‘It’s Taken Over Everything’

By DEIRDRE FERNANDES

By Deirdre Fernandes

The Virginian-Pilot

Virginia beach

Tall, reedy and unwelcomed, they stretch for acres and ring the Back Bay like a noose.

Phragmites. Or phrag, as locals and environmentalists call them, with more than a hint of disdain, have been spreading rampantly around the bay.

The reeds have choked off native marsh grasses and driven away the ducks, egrets and other waterfowl that once feasted in the bays of southern Virginia Beach.

Federal officials burned swaths of the invasive plant on Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge property. But that only solved half the phragmites problem. This week, they started torching the reeds on some private property near the refuge.

“We can’t do a thorough job of controlling it unless we involve the private lands,” said John Gallegos, a senior wildlife biologist with Back Bay.

On Wednesday, a crew of federal and state fire officials spread through the marsh on buggies equipped with tank threads. Using drip torches they set fire to about 50 acres belonging to the Horn Point Hunt Club. Flames followed the buggies. The reeds crackled before disintegrating into ash, and clouds of smoke wafted into the air over the bay.

Billy Riggs, the caretaker of the duck hunting club, smiled as he watched the plants disappear. They have been a nuisance, preventing other plants from growing, blocking the view of the bay, and keeping the ducks away from the property, Riggs said.

“It’s taken over everything,” he said.

He hopes that the shorter and more diverse native marsh will grow back when the 10-foot-tall reeds no longer block the sun.

The plan is to burn more than 400 acres of private lands this year, Gallegos said.

Gallegos expects that more private landowners will let the federal government conduct these controlled burns when they become familiar with the program.

Some already burn the plants on their own, with mixed results. Sometimes the fire spreads to wooded areas. Occasionally, structures, including portions of homes, are accidently burned.

But in most cases, the private property owners don’t first spray the phragmites with herbicide, so the reed quickly returns, Gallegos said.

The most effective way to apply the herbicide is by helicopter, and that can cost $50 an acre, said Timothy Craig, a fire management officer with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

“These guys want to see this done, but that’s beyond their means,” Craig said of private landowners. Federal officials have to spray herbicide on the refuge land, and doing it on neighboring private property isn’t that much more trouble, Craig said.

In fact, the weather at Back Bay ha s been more of a problem. The controlled burns have been postponed several times this winter because of wind direction and flooding in the marsh, Craig said.

Now, with spring approaching and birds coming to nest in Back Bay, the controlled burns will have to stop, Craig said.

But they’ll be back burning the phragmites in the fall.

“This is one of our highest priorities, because we realize how much of Back Bay’s wetlands has been lost to phragmites,” Gallegos said.

Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121, deirdre.fernandes@pilotonline.com

what are phragmites?

Phragmites australis, or common reed, is a type of perennial wetland grass 3 to 13 feet tall. It thrives in sunny wetland habitats and has become a destructive weed in Virginia and elsewhere. Invasive reeds eliminate diverse wetland plant communities and provide little food or shelter for wildlife. Once established, common reed is very difficult to eradicate.

Source: Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation – online

Check out a photo gallery of the controlled burn at Pilot Online.com.

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