Pasco County Commissioner Kathryn Starkey said Pasco needs to deal with invasive cogongrass before it becomes the kind of problem that the Everglades has with pythons.
“We don’t want our county to get inundated with cogongrass. We don’t,” Starkey said during a recent county board meeting.
“I’ve asked and asked to have a policy about development and cogongrass,” Starkey said, referring to a request she made during an October meeting last year.
“At the very least, we need to be identifying if cogongrass is on a property before they start clearing it,” she said.
She showed her colleagues a photo of cogongrass growing along Starkey Boulevard, in a Longleaf neighborhood.
She also talked about cogongrass popping up in an island on a newly built stretch of State Road 52.
“It blew my mind,” she said. “The island is brand new. The grass coming up is cogongrass. So they put the fill in there, and brought the cogongrass in.
“There really needs to be a policy on how we protect ourselves from this,” Starkey said. Then she asked if the county had a policy, if it should be applied to regulations involving mass grading.
County Administrator Mike Carballa told Starkey the county is working on the issue.
Public works has an eradication plan, but that happens after the cogongrass has spread, Carballa said.
“That’s more expensive.,” Starkey said.
“I agree with you on that,” Carballa replied.
Brad Tippin, the county’s manager of development services said the county’s development, public works and natural resources teams are working on the issue.
Tippin noted: “We actually have started putting language in conditions of approval on projects that are going to be going to construction that for those invasive species they’re going to have to use the proper process to get rid of them.”
Starkey: “I’d like to add it now to say: ‘You have to identify if there’s cogongrass on your property and confer with someone on how you are going to properly deal with it’ — before it gets to every neighborhood.”
Commission Chairman Ron Oakley agreed.
“I think it’s something that we really need to take hold of, because if you don’t make it a point to get rid of it, it will never be gotten rid of and it will spread all over the county,” Oakley said.
“Let’s make sure that we get rid of it the right way,” the chairman added.
According to the University of Florida, cogongrass was planted in Florida during the 1930s and 1940s, as a potential forage crop and for stabilization purposes.
However, it was found to have little benefit as forage and was viewed as a potentially serious pest, and was placed on the noxious weed list.
The university reports that cogongrass has been spread by illegal plantings and unintentional transport in forage and in soil during roadway construction.
In a published report, the university says: “Allowing this plant to grow unchecked ensures its continued spread along roadways and into pastures, mining areas, forest land, parks and other recreation areas.”
Anyone having questions concerning the identification of cogongrass is advised to contact their local county Extension office.
Carballa said the county’s team is working on the cogongrass issue.
“Like any process, it takes a little bit of time for you to see it come out of the ground,” Carballa said.
But Carballa’s response didn’t satisfy Commissioner Seth Weightman.
“It’s been a solid year, when Commissioner Starkey and I brought this up, very early in the year,” Weightman said.
Starkey chimed in: “It’s been more than a year.”
Weightman added: “For 12 months to go by on something that’s a real problem – when I think this board, collectively, over a year ago said, ‘Hey, let’s get disciplined and address this problem,’ it’s not acceptable to me — this timeline.”
Carballa responded: “I think we’ve been very disciplined in moving ahead on a lot of the advances that the board has asked over the last year, as well, to include cogongrass, and to include a number of other things in the development arena.
“We continue to make advances on the development services front, with how we handle and manage development in the county.
“I certainly share the impatience in wanting to push a lot of things forward. The team is not sitting on its hands. We are moving and advancing the board’s directives and it just takes a little time,” Carballa said.
Starkey suggested one way to potentially reduce the problem.
“What I was told is it’s (cogongrass) on the scrapers.
“Maybe we provide a place somewhere they can go and get washed down, if they’ve worked on a piece of land that has cogongrass on it,” Starkey said. “Because that’s one of the ways that it’s getting spread, it’s from the equipment.”
Published February 07, 2024
