Weed Management Area rolling into operation on Republican River

Stratton-area landowner John Diehl of Stratton (left), Andy Havlicek of the Trenton Natural Resources Conservation Service office (center) and Hitchcock County Commissioner Scott McDonald study an oversized map of Hitchcock County during a meeting Thursday morning of the South West Weed Management Area in Trenton. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

TRENTON -- Directors and members of the new South West Weed Management Area will contact owners of land along the Republican River in four Southwest Nebraska counties to enlist their participation in a project to control vegetation along the river.

SWWMA coordinators are writing a $1,253,264 grant that, over two years, will pay for chemical spraying (not aerial) and mechanical clearing of saltcedar, phragmites, red cedar and Russian olive trees on the Republican in Dundy, Hitchcock, Red Willow and Furnas counties.

The grant, from the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, also will pay for mapping, debris removal, meetings and educational materials, livestock (grazing animals such as goats), project administration and the hiring of project coordinator.

The grant will be added to $60,000 from the SWWMA and Southwest Nebraska RC&D, $25,000 from the Middle and Upper Republican NRDs and $12,000 from the Bureau of Reclamation and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Preliminary figures indicate that the entire project will cost $1,350,262.

This four-county project on the Republican will coordinate with an identical project being conducted by the Twin Valleys Weed Management Area to control vegetation on the Republican in Harlan, Franklin, Webster and Nuckolls counties.

The SWWMA covers 174 miles from the west end of Harlan County dam at the "Carter" trestle bridge to the Nebraska and Colorado and Kansas state lines (on the Republican and the Arikaree rivers) in Dundy County.

A unique challenge to SWWMA coordinators is the proliferation of out-of-state landowners. They and their tenants will have to be contacted.

Property owners with questions are encouraged to contact RC&D officials in Cambridge: (308) 697-3477 or (888) 585-1085.