Page 398 - FY 2025 Adopted Operating Budget and Business Plan

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Champion Great Neighborhoods

Goal 2: Expand and Enhance the City’s Image
Objective 2: Develop a sense of place
Project Performance Measure(s) Department(s)
Core Invasive Plant Species • Acres cleared Parks & Recreation
CRE Removal Initiative • Rate of Success
2.2.4 • Overall Satisfaction of
Eradication
Summary:

Organic invasive plant material, mainly Chinese Location Acres Acres
Privet (Ligustrum Sinense), is prevalent on hundreds Cleared
of acres within the park system. Left unaddressed, Randol Mill Park 40 25
invasive species such as this will eventually overtake
native plants and trees and create detrimental Crystal Canyon Natural 25 25
effects to biodiversity and forest health. Area

Eradication of invasive plant material can be very Staff is documenting all removal efforts in order to develop an
difficult, time-consuming and expensive. The Parks SOP for treating invasive species in the future.
and Recreation Department is tackling these efforts
in various manners. The utilization of equipment for Update:
mechanical removal has been the primary method Mechanical removal of privet in the Natural Area of Randol
employed to date. This method is very costly and Mill North of I-30 was complete in August 2024. This consists
takes multiple applications over a multi-year period. of an herbicide application in certain areas to ascertain BMP’s.
This consists of initial removal with heavy In the Winter of 2024/Early 2025, the use of goats will return
machinery, then subsequent mow cycles every 12- to the Randol Mill Natural Area and in Crystal Canyon Natural
18 months. This along with targeted herbicides has Area.
had moderate success.

Recently, Parks and Recreation has utilized grant
funding and employed the use of goats to remove
invasives organically. The goats eat the vegetation,
that spreads the plant and destroys the shoots,
which makes it difficult for them to survive. This
method is also a multi-year effort, with early signs of
success. The advantages to the goat method are
restoring strong nutrient-based soils, accessing
areas mechanical methods cannot and curtailing the
use of herbicides.

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