What’s the best way to yank out cattails or reeds without taking too much soil with it? ( tossing the green waste in a dumpster and those guys complain if there’s any dirt in the mix) maybe separate after the initial dig out? But how? Using a mini excavator and skidsteer ...I can fab up something like a root rake bucket... just not sure what works best.
FWIW cattails are usually associated with wetlands so proceed with caution.
Just a drainage ditch... nobody seems concerned(except the neighbors who complained about the road not draining during winter) even here in kalifornia.
A drainage ditch cost us $50K after the EPA got through with us when some silt left a retention pond and ended up in a ditch that drained into a 15" pipe under another contractors equipment yard, EPA claimed it was a "Water Way of the United States". In addition to the "water way" violation we had a "stained" silt fencing violation, not failed silt fencing just stained and an "inadequate" construction entrance. The inadequate construction entrance fine went like this - the night before the spot inspection by the EPA alongside ADEM (Alabama dept of Enviro management) after it rained several inches and no-one was onsite on a dirt moving site for obvious reasons. Said state vehicle drove onto the muddy site via the construction entrance then went back out across construction entrance to the main road where they stopped to take pictures of their muddy tires on the asphalt and wrote us up for it. No BS embellishment that's exactly how they wrote it up. We and the high priced lawyer went to that big federal building in Atlanta to plead our case only to be told by the EPA lawyer that they did not agree with our pleadings/argument/presentation and that's what court is for... FWIW we put up some cheap Tractor Supply gates on both construction entrances and kept them locked to keep the State and Federal gov't from fining us by violating their own regulations..
Camo clothing and a double strength mix of roundup. Don't park where you can be seen, cover your face....
Dang CM... that sounds like a nightmare!! This really won’t be all like that (I hope!) The drainage ditch is virtually dry at this point and it only “flows” down into the guys yard for a couple hundred feet. My plan was to disturb the soil as little as possible. was hoping to be able to pull out the reeds and roots... maybe bolt some heavy rubber pads to excavator bucket and thumb edge and kinda pinch and yank? Open to ideas
Better do it on a weekend, so no county or city officials can find out about it, and come out to stop/fine you.
How about a heavy duty brushcutter with a blade ?
just Got back from talking with the county. They say as long as I move less than 250yds they don’t care. ... however, they said it’s a weird gray area and they are working towards addressing it with future regulations. Also told me to call the local county conservation branch (?) and ask them if the area in question is in any “protected” areas.
but then they would come back ina matter of months, full force. Guy wants them gone, roots and all so they stay gone at least through this next winter
I fully understand that leetle factoid. But if he screws this up, he won't be in business anymore. Maybe time to "No Quote" the job eh ?
Well... called the conservationist branch of the county and I s*** you not, the lady went on vacation yesterday and won’t return until July!!
If there are cattails in the ditch then I bet a shiny nickel that it would classified as a Waterway of the United States under the jurisdiction of the EPA.
I believe there is a case before the Supreme Court concerning just this question. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/poli...rways-wetlands-epa-clean-water-act/index.html
And that article is getting dangerously close to violating the no politics rule on HEF.
It's just a fact concerning digging in ditches if you read the article.
And the diking district around here digs thousands of yards of them out of their drains every year. Bob
Municipality has to get permits from the environmental/ fisheries people to cut the grass and vegetation or clean out of any ditches that feed into a stream that is fish bearing. I am waiting for someone to give me grief for cutting the grass o the edge of the creek….I mean ditch in front of our place. Cam
If the subject hadn't been brought up with the powers that be, probably no one would have known anything about it. Are there any salmon spawning there?
Cattails are persistent growers because they have roots nearly 3 feet long. Kinda like poison ivy --- repeated mowing will eventually kill them.
John I read the article. We can discuss the law as written but the politics behind the law is for other forums, not HEF.
I remember like it was yesterday, dunking the brown part of the cat tails in gasoline, lighting it and whipping them thru the air .!! Oh what fun.. Don’t get rid of them till u try it..
My point about mowing them is simple. 1. you (or anyone else) didn't plant them, the seeds float thru the air, and the area in question is good for them to grow in. 2. digging, burning, poisoning only get's you in trouble with authorities. 3. As the seeds are always blowing in the wind, you'll not succeed in wiping them out. 4. Mowing will fix the problem of drainage. Granted, you'll need to doo it each year, but you doo mow ditch banks every year eh ?
The county has a boom mulcher that they use on the drainage ditches along side the roads. Works well but it seems they only do the ditches that might affect some important person. They always claim they are out of money to do all the ditches.
Caveat: I am merely an old-dirt appraiser. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory maps (NWIs) provides an indication of maybe whether regulatory wetlands are present. But those maps are not a delineation of regulatory wetlands, which can only be approved by the District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers within which the property lies. Remember that the EPA prosecutes unauthorized wetlands impacts, and have sent some to federal prison for such. Here's the URL to the NWIs. It can be slow loading. https://www.fws.gov/program/national-wetlands-inventory/wetlands-mapper Neill
Thanks Neill ! This helped a lot. ... the guys property is indeed right on the edge of a wetland. Bookmarked this for later reference... would be nice if the county gave me this info when I went in and talked with them!
But remember that the NWIs are only an indicator that wetlands may or may not exist at any particular point. The NWIs are not proof definite of the existence or non-existence of wetlands at any point in the U.S. Neill
Another plus for simple mowing. I made the aforementioned wedging toothbar for my skidloader to clear brush. Worked great, I use it to pull up brush, root balls and all. I got a large "tootsie roll" of brush going, about 100' long/wide, and 10' high. I would drive in as deep as I could, with the remaining "roll" coming all around the sides of me, all the way to the rear of the machine. Jam, lift, and drive forward, building and rolling. Until I got to a sloped area..... I didn't want erosion problems from removing everything down to raw soil. So I designed and built the brush cutter. If you rip out everything, and a storm comes and causes erosion, you've got another liability problem on top of the violations.
Use a strong mix of Roundup,(6-8 ounces/gal) ,and mix dish soap in with it. The will break the surface tension so it will stay on the shiny vegetation. (You can use diesel instead of dish soap, but, we are talking California here). Then use some type of mower to take them down to the ground. This will slowly reduce the amount and eventually kill them out. It may take a couple of years. I fought this same battle about 20 years ago when Wetlands delineation was on everyone's radar. Darn Govt. wanted to classify half of our clay mining pits as Wetlands, due to standing water and the presence of Cattails. Jeff
Sneaky....maybe add a small jug on the backpack with a hose leading down to the blade so no-one see's spraying going on ?