By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com

He's for the declaration as president of the Nebraska Weed Control Association. He's against it as director of the Hall County Weed Department.

Phragmites is a tall wetland plant that can send out roots as long as 32 feet in search of water.

It's become increasingly invasive along the Platte River and other Nebraska rivers, Schultz told the Hall County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. It depletes water and takes away wildlife habitat.

The Nebraska Agriculture Department declared phragmites as a noxious weed in the Republican River Basin in August 2007 but is now receiving requests to expand that designation statewide.

Schultz said the Nebraska Weed Control Association, over which he presides, recently voted in favor of that expansion. The 10-member board of directors voted 6-3 in favor of the noxious weed designation. One director abstained.

But the designation could be costly to landowners, Hall County Supervisor Jim Eriksen said.

"We need to control noxious weeds and phragmites, but my concern is how that's going to be done and who's going to pay for it," Eriksen said. "Noxious weeds the landowner is (financially) responsible."

"I think we've got a situation here on the Platte and on all streams," Eriksen said. "I don't feel that it should be completely the individual landowner's responsibility. If we lean that way, I don't feel it's ever going to get done."

Eriksen said the seeds of most noxious weeds are airborne and can be controlled by individual landowners in a fairly easy manner. But that's not the case with river-based weeds.

A conscientious landowner can be fighting a losing battle if upstream landowners are doing nothing, he said.

"My only concern about making phragmites a noxious weed that we don't, in the same process, then require the individual to be responsible for control," Eriksen said.

Schultz had the same concern.

"We did bring it to the Hall County Weed Board, and we did not support phragmites being a noxious weed just on those particular circumstances," Schultz said. "It's going to be very expensive if you get out and try to enforce that."

Schultz would prefer to wait on a designation and work on obtaining grants to combat the phragmites problem through weed management areas. Several projects are already in the works.

If phragmites were declared a noxious weed, it would join eight others already on the state's list. Those are saltcedar, Canada thistle, leafy spurge, musk thistle, plumeless thistle, purple loosestrife, spotted knapweed and diffuse knapweed.

For the record

In other action on Tuesday, the county board:

* Renewed a conditional use permit for five years for a 300-foot communications tower owned by Electronic Services on land owned by Emil Schaaf southwest of Grand Island on Engleman Road.

* Approved the removal of a 180-foot communication tower owned by Electronic Services on Bluff Center Road on land owned by Glenwood Hargens.

* Renewed a conditional use permit for five years for Cooperative Producers Inc. at a location about a mile and a half west of Wood River on Wood River Road. The site was formerly owned by Heartland Co-op of Wood River. It serves as an anhydrous ammonia, propane and fertilizer distribution site.

* Renewed a conditional use permit for five years for Platte River By-Products at 5251 W. Guenther Road.