Events
Upcoming Event:
CWNA Spring General Meeting
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
6:30pm - Open House
7:00pm - General Meeting
Sunrise Village Clubhouse
Guest Speaker - Jim Clinton, Bend City Council
Annual Weed Pull Event
A Community-wide Weed Program, “Let’s Pull Together”
Each June, Century West Neighborhood Association participates
in “Let’s Pull Together”, a tri-county
noxious weed eradication
project, sponsored by the award-winning SOLV Project Oregon, an
Oregon non-profit organization. The program involves
neighborhood associations,
community groups, government agencies, and individual
volunteers in an on-going battle against invasive and noxious
weeds in Central Oregon.
The project is also designed to educate the general public
about the threat that noxious weeds pose to our ecosystems.
Noxious weeds are
non-native plants that have no natural enemies within our
environment. They take over native vegetation leaving wildlife
with little or no food and by
creating wildfire hazards. Among the most serious threats
in our area are Spotted Knapweed, Diffuse Knapweed, and
Dalmation Toadflax.
Hundreds of volunteers participate in the half-day event,with
many having no prior knowledge of what represents a noxious
weed. A site
coordinator is assigned to each weed pull site, and often one
noxious weed
specialist is available to educate volunteers. Last year, in
four hours several
tons of knapweed were removed and bagged at over 17 locations
throughout the
tri-county area. Also filled were three public work dump
trucks, one
privately-owned dump truck, three 30-yard dumpsters, and one
15-yard dumpster.
CWNA coordinated the Skyline Sports Complex site, which drew 56
volunteers
(more than any other site in the county), producing nearly 30
bags of Spotted
Knapweed.
The state of Oregon spends more than 100 million dollars
annually in the battle against noxious
weeds.
“Let’s Pull Together” began as a Bend
neighborhood event in 2003, and expanded
to a county-wide program when Sisters and Redmond joined the
effort in 2004.
Last year, the community of La Pine participated, and the
project became a
tri-county effort with the addition of Crooked River Ranch and
Prineville.
The weed pull sites throughout the area are diverse: city
and county owned easements, park, school, and irrigation
district properties,
as well as private and public lands are included.
The next program will be announced in early 2008.
Useful links:
CWNA Weed Pull Chair: David Light dmlight@bendbroadband.com
“Let’s Pull Together” website: http://www.letspulltogether.com
“Let’s Pull Together” coordinator: Cheryl Howard, howard@bendcable.com
Deschutes County: http://www.deschutes.org
(Dan Sherwin, 322-7135)
SOLV Project Oregon: http://www.solv.org
