Ranchers battle against tamarisk

The recent rains are good news for Colorado ranchers, but some parts of the plains are still dealing with drought conditions.

A plant that was imported to hold up stream banks is taking some of that water away.

Now ranchers and state officials are using a new way to fight it.

Dry conditions are an all too common sight in the ranch lands of Crowley County.

It’s a condition that rancher Bill Gray knows all too well.

“We’ve been in D4 (Exceptional) drought for four years,” he said.

Gray has seen some rain recently, and he knows every drop is precious.

“We have to use every drop we can,” he said.

And now, he’s fighting a new battle – with the tamarisk plant.

Gray explains what it does to fields that it gets into.

“It puts salts in the ground and nothing will grow,” he said.

Mixed in native vegetation in a wildlife area in Otero County is a stand of tamarisk plants.

It’s a plant that has been taking over the banks of a lot of rivers, creeks and streams around the state.

The tamarisk plant was brought to the west to stabilize steam banks. It does it’s job well – sometimes too well.

“It can cause issues with flooding because it doesn’t let the water flow out over the flood plain like it would naturally do,” said Shelly Simmons from the Colorado Department of Forestry.

Like a lot of weeds – and that’s how Colorado has classified tamarisk – can be killed with chemicals.

But there is another way. It’s small but has an appetite for tamarisk – and only tamarisk.

It’s called the tamarisk leaf beetle.

Simmons explains what it does. “Once it finishes eating tamarisk it doesn’t go on to eat some other plant,” she said.

Ghostly tangles of branches on a dry creek bed on the Gray ranch are evidence of how effective the beetles can be.

It’s a big part of why Gray chose this more natural method.

“The tamarisk is mostly dead, and that’s because of the beetles,” he said.

But like any invasive plant, tamarisk is tough to get rid of.

If it does come back, the beetles come back too.

Which is what ranchers like Gray want to see.

The Colorado State Forest Service says that the Arkansas River basin accounts for around 60 per cent of the tamarisk-infected land in the state.