Blue flax plants aren't the only wild life that need friends.

The August 5 waste spill from the Gold King Mine east of Silverton shows the dangers to plant, animal, and human life hidden in these beautiful mountains.

Thank you to the Los Angeles Times for this page-one summary five days later.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-river-mine-spill-20150810-story.html#page=1

"The danger posed by mines was laid out in a 1993 report from the Mineral Policy Center, a Washington think tank dedicated to identifying threats to natural resources. The study said there were about 557,650 of these sites in 32 states and 50 billion tons of untreated waste covering public and private land. The waste included arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, cyanide and mercury," reports David Kelly.

The gold rush thinking was "Get the gold now, worry about waste later."

Now it's 150 years later, and we are encountering the poisons turned loose in 1880 and later.

Trees vs. Internet--Guess Who Loses?

On July 2 around noon my sister, brother-in-law, and I were in the family cabin near Trout Lake and heard the buzz of a chainsaw.

We looked outside to see our neighbors cutting down quaking aspens only 91 and 92 ft. from the front door of the cabin.  Here are the photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/102150538747404124091/2015TreesCutDownForInternet#

Why?

To improve their internet access.  The trees had grown a few feet and gotten in the way of a signal from across the lake.

Why couldn't the neighbors, Daniel and Josephine DeSantis, just get a satellite dish, as many others have done?

Unanswered.  

Why wasn't this discussed with us?

Unanswered--but they did consult the neighbor on the other side, who approved the cutting.

Why couldn't the trees just be topped?

Unanswered.

Did the Board of Trustees of the Trout Lake Owners Association approve the action?

One did, Phil Woodard--and the president of the Trout Lake Land Company, Jim Whitehead, also approved it.

Was this action legal?

Probably not, though Phil and Jim claim that a 200l easement for then-existing utilities applies to the internet in 2015.  Give me a break.

In any case, the trees are gone.  

Their crime?  

Growing.  Yes, trees do have a habit of doing that.

Why protect blue flax?

When I was a child in the 1950s, the hillside near my grandparents' cabin at Trout Lake was covered with blue flax.

The small bright blossoms atop each slender stalk moved in even a slight wind.

Since then that hillside has been dug up for a water line.  Gravel has been dumped on the hillside by snowplows scraping the road in winter, and dandelions are everywhere.

I can't find a single blue flax.

When native turf is disturbed, invasive species take root.  Dandelions are the primary opportunist on this hillside, multiplying each time a puffball of seeds is scattered by wind.

Elsewhere around this lake, dandelions and thistles are growing along every road.

Some residents think they are protecting nature by not disturbing whatever grows here, including dandelions.

They don't realize that human building of railroads, roads, and houses tore up the native sod and caused the proliferation of dandelions, thistles, milkweed, ox-eye daisy, etc.

Instead of a hands-off approach, which causes many native species to retreat, humans today need to undo the damage we have caused by uprooting the invaders whenever possible.

Do your part!

If you are hiking and see a dandelion in full flower, pull it up.

If you own property, remove the dandelions from your area.  You can either pull them up, spray them, or have a responsible professionals do the spraying.

In southwest Colorado, BackCountry Vegetation Management is a good resource.  This company does spraying for the national parks in Colorado.  Its owner has a MA in this field and lives in Redvale, near Norwood.

The chemicals they use dissolve within 24 hours and do not enter the ground water.  They target each individual plant rather than spraying a noxious cloud that could harm nearby native flowers.

Whether you use a pronged trowel or a spray, do your part to protect the wildflowers!

Strike Back!

Some flowers just don't make as many seeds as a dandelion does.

One dandelion can produce ten seed heads with more than 50 seeds on each head.  One blue flax plant produces less than 50 seeds total.  Guess which one wins!

The dandelion doesn't even belong in the midwest.  It was imported from Europe to nourish imported honeybees, which had also just been introduced.  http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Dandelion.html

The name comes from "dent de lion," or lion's tooth, referring to the jagged leaves.

Other names for the plant are "piss-a-bed" (based on its diuretic properties) and "dog piss" because it grows at the sides of roads or lanes, according to Wikipedia.

Whether it's dog piss or lion's teeth to you, fight back.  Remove it so native species can grow around your cabin in the mountains.  

I invited BackCountry Vegetation Management to spray my property in June, as they do every year.  
That was after I filled 6 black plastic yard bags of the seed heads and plants I had pulled up from both my property and my grandparents' cabin.

Strike 3 is the herbicide BackCountry VM uses.  To find out more about it or place an order, see http://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/strike-3-herbicide

Or call BackCountry at 970-327-4179.  They'll spray for you at a cost of $100 per hour plus the Strike 3.