From the Cortez Journal (Melinda Green):
The beetle is working in McElmo Canyon, stripping the leaves from tamarisks, then flying away to another stand of tamarisks. The beetles may return when the tamarisk grows more leaves, until in three to four years, the tree dies, Miles said. That gives time to revegetate with more desirable plants.
However, in June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ended its program of releasing the beetles in 13 states, including Colorado. The move came after the Center for Biological Diversity and the Maricopa Audubon Society sued, saying that release of the beetle in southern Utah in 2006 had destroyed tamarisk trees containing endangered southwestern willow flycatcher nests. When tamarisks crowded out the native willow preferred by the flycatcher, the bird moved to tamarisk trees, Miles said. He believes a better strategy would be to reintroduce the willow in areas where the beetles have killed the tamarisk. The beetles already released continue to thrive and help with tamarisk control, he said.
With an estimated 9,000 acres of tamarisk in Montezuma County in 2005, organizers have been successful in slowing its progress, Miles says. “We’ve definitely made progress (controlling the tamarisk locally),” he said. “You don’t see much around McPhee Lake. We treated (chemically) 200 acres in 2005 above McPhee. We’re helping keep tamarisk out of 50,000 to 60,000 acres of agricultural land in the county, spread through irrigation water. The Conservation District, National Resource Conservation Service, private agencies, and state agencies spent half a million dollars here in the last seven years.”
Work was also done on the upper reaches of McElmo Creek and the Hawkins Preserve. In addition, Miles said the Mancos Conservation District and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe have been working to control tamarisk on the Mancos River.
“We’re working on revegetation projects with landowners to find the best way to get appropriate plants back in,” he said. “Most of the time there’s enough native seed source to come back in. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if we take out one noxious weed, we don’t want another noxious one to come in.”