Letters to the Editor - Lakeville Journal - 9-27-18

More on Japanese knotweed

Last week’s excellent Lake-ville Journal article about efforts to control Japanese knotweed along the banks of the Wild and Scenic Housatonic River needs a bit of elaboration and one important correction.

First, credit where credit is due. The survey described in the article is a seven-town cooperative effort, made possible with the endorsement of the Housatonic River Commission (HRC) and the support and expertise of the Housatonic Valley Association’s GIS mapping division. In addition, 10 volunteer paddlers, land trust board members and HRC board members were involved in this first phase of the survey.

Second, while the scenic impact of knotweed infestation is indeed a serious problem, the ecological impact of this extraordinarily aggressive invasive plant is even more troubling. It creates a dominant monoculture that displaces all native plants in its path, and spreads rapidly and successfully because of its multiple methods of reproduction through wind and waterborne seed distribution, as well as root and stem fragment trans-location. 

The important correction relates to the suggestion near the end of the article that Roundup Pro is a preferred method of Japanese knotweed control. While indeed effective against knotweed, it should not be used in wetland contexts because of the wetlands-incompatible surfactants incorporated in the Pro formulation.  

Wetlands-approved formulations such as Rodeo, with a wetlands-approved surfactant such as Cygnet Plus, should be used instead whenever wetlands are involved — and treatments should be permitted only through normal inland wetlands commission procedures in each town. Knotweed can be controlled with both foliar applications and stem injections, and best management practices need to be determined on a site-by-site basis. Removal by hand is limited to very small patches, as any remaining root fragments will likely regenerate.

Tom Zetterstrom

NWCT Knotweed Network

North Canaan

A benefit to knotweed?

I read The Lakeville Journal last week for the first time in  many years. As an explanation for that, I just moved back to the area after 18 years.

On the first page was a story about the plants that are choking the rivers and lakes, the Japanese knotweed. Several ideas were bandied about, but essentially the article was begging ideas about what to do.

I have been a user and proponent of resveratrol for years. If you are not aware of the science behind it, it is the only substance found that has been proven to extend the life of living mammals. Its value in benefits to the heart, the eyes, and the organs has been studied and shown to be of the greatest value when used in the proper range on a regular basis.

Originally, this was touted as the “Red Wine Molecule” because of the health of the Mediterranean peoples that had wine with each meal. Although red wine has available resveratrol, it is low in trans-resveratrol, which is the active component. As it turns out, Japanese knotwood root a has high concentration of trans-resveratrol.

I say when you have lemons, make lemonade. Don’t kill the tree. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Todd Aichele

West Cornwall

Is local news important?

Below is a quote from The Week magazine:

“Do we still need local news?”

Only if things like schools, taxes, infrastructure, and government accountability matter to you. Where fewer reporters cover local business and government, Margaret Sullivan warned in The Washington Post, “corruption can flourish, taxes can rise, public officials can indulge their worst impulses.” 

So here’s a thank you to The Lakeville Journal for being my/our “local news”. 

There is too much we wouldn’t know if you didn’t exist.

Norma Haight-Colman

Canaan

The product of a Catholic education

I’ve had 18 years of Catholic education, six at major Jesuit universities. I served the Latin Mass (“Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum” - I’ll spare you the rest, but be assured I have it all in my sometimes porous memory).  I was proud to be an altar boy attending St. Tarcissus grade school in Chicago in the ‘50s. 

The boy Tarcissus, as the story had it, was martyred when he refused to give up the Communion host to a band of boys who would have desecrated it. St. Tars was a typical Catholic grade school at that time - nuns and priests living in separate quarters.  

(As an aside, I believe now that two of the three priests in residence were gay and one, the pastor, Father Kush, Kushinski for long, took regular vacations in the Caribbean with his housekeeper, a comely woman of “un certaine age”.)

Lonnie Carter

Falls Village

Vote for change

The incompetence for all to see

Continuously on the TV

While fawning Pence sits on the side

Nodding with a smile that’s snide

What have our politics become

Just murk with a floating scum?

No matter, in 50 days or less

We can vote to change our stress

To a more positive mien

A chance to wipe the slate clean

So do not stay in your dwelling

But find another also rebelling

And head off to the Town Hall

To VOTE and not be AWOL.

Michael Kahler

Lakeville