When is an Invasive Plant a Noxious Weed?
Why Both are Important in Vegetation Management.
Federal Law now supports State Noxious Weed Law.
Recently Congress passed SAFETEA-Lu which has a paragraph relevant to the discussion to your left. Section 6006 adds Section 329 to the US Code Title 23: (please refer to the page 7 for the full reprint of Section 6006. Section 329 applies to allocations and activities of Maintenance, Landscape, Roadside Development, Environmental Services, Erosion Control and Turf, Ecological, Planning, Pre design, and Construction Design Units within each State Department of Transportation. |
When your State Agriculture or Natural Resource Department and/or Legislature says so. That is how most pest plants are designated noxious weeds. So if and invasive plant is an alien plant whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm, or harm to human health, what is a noxious weed? Most States use a definition of noxious weeds similar to that of the Federal Noxious Weed Law. The term "noxious weed" means any plant or plant product that can directly or indirectly injure or cause damage to crops (including nursery stock or plant products), livestock, poultry, or other interests of agriculture, irrigation, navigation, the natural resources of the Untied States, the public health, or the environment.
In the beginning of noxious weed law (in the 1800's) plants were designated weeds if they in any way threatened crops and/or livestock (agriculture). Later, plants that are of potential harm to human health and/or the environment have been added. Because noxious weed law is grounded in agriculture, understandably both native and nonnative plants were placed on State Weed Lists. These Lists have legal standing with most States inspecting private and public lands for these detrimental plants. When they are located, most States notify the landowner and direct them to eradicate those weeds within a certain time. If the landowner is noncompliant, the State or its designee (often County Weed Boards) can enter the property, treat the noxious weed, and bill the landowner.
Fines can be levied for noncompliance; but such enforcement is rare. These days, noxious weeds are likely to be controlled out of self-interest (crop production, property value, rangeland, etc.) and neighborhood pressure than by notification. Public awareness about noxious weeds and/or invasive plants has increased greatly in the past 10 years.
So what is an invasive plant? The definition was agreed to by 16 agencies who signed a cooperative Memorandum of Understanding in 1994 on Invasive Plants. The same definition became a part of the 1999 Executive Order on Invasives.
The characteristics of an invasive plant are often synonymous or overlapping with that of noxious weeds. Invasive plants are described as being nonnative and the large majority of noxious weeds are also nonnative plants that were intentionally or accidentally introduced to this country and then went wild!!! So when an invasive plant becomes a noxious weed is when a State determines that an invasive could potentially harm agriculture, human health, and/or the environment. It seems strange that more invasive plants are not on State Weed Lists. However, every plant added to the State list currently goes through a long, sometime political, process and that takes time. Unfortunately, we do not have the time or especially the money to wait for some of these aggressive aliens to make the list. They need to be identified as quickly as possible and controlled on first sight. Waiting years to prevent their spread only gives an advantage to the weedy invasive plant, not to any of us vegetation managers.
