The utility company came through yesterday and sprayed this 50 ft strip of goldenrod, milkweed, and other natives (yes, a few invasive too at the road edge). Zoom in on the pic, and you can see everything wilting. It goes on like this for miles. I knew they were coming, so a few days ago I dug up a dozen young goldenrods and another dozen milkweeds, and l transplanted them to my second-year prairie. I’m babying them while they’re in shock, but hopefully few of them will make it.
Every year there we’ve lived here (Northwestern Wisconsin), this strip is filled with butterflies and bees. In July, you can literally hear it humming. By August, the whole area is a brilliant orange-yellow. But it won’t be this year. All so that a utility company could have better access to their line.
We plop down our homes in these woods and fields, fill our land with turf, and then demand that nature complies with us.
by loki_cometh
21 Comments
Our utility did something similar this year without a good warning and ticked off a couple of towns. The common milkweeds have come back up but the mature trees obviously won’t. Plus I assume there was some Japanese knotweed they probably assisted to spread out of control. What’s that they say about every disaster movie having a scientist nobody listens to?
Anyway, *you* did a really good thing that a lot of people wouldn’t have even tried to do. May your prairie bring you the kind of joy the Ingalls sisters had running through theirs every week on Wednesday nights in the 70’s/80’s.
Unbelievable that they would do that
This is devastating. Thank you for doing what you can.
That’s awful. 😞
I feel your pain. Last summer I had scouted a power cut full of milkweed and some other natives, but it was mowed mid-summer (terrible timing) and the edges were sprayed (they left the bamboo right in the middle of the cut intact, of course…).
Utility corridors can actually be really beneficial places for native plants to survive because they keep trees from establishing. The regular disturbance helps some species as well. Unfortunately, spraying is a really bad way to go about this. mowing once a year (or every few years) should be enough to keep the woody species at bay.
Woah, that stinks! I guess I’m fortunate that my local utility company actually has a huge native planting initiative and actually supports and funds native plantings under these big transmission lines.
Who knows if they’d be responsive at all, but maybe point them towards this work as an example? https://stories.pplelectric.com/tag/ppl-in-the-community/#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20taking%20action,environmentally%20focused%20groups%20since%202017.
Do they spray the entire area? Are they using backpack sprayers? I work for a utility company doing vegetation management and this would be very bizarre to me.
💔😣
Not even sure what they gain. If they are doing work in the area why wouldn’t they just brush hog it right before working there?
I’m a CRM archaeologist, so unfortunately a large part of my job is surveying/testing lands for clearance prior to development. I dig up plants all the time and take them home since the land is just going to be paved over.
Everything good grows around the lake in my town and then just at the wrong moment they
weed whack the entire edge. I steal everything knowing it’s going to die.
I know the feeling. Worked for a company that helped maintain natural areas for businesses and HOA’s. There was a gated community that had a man made stream running through the neighborhood, and the homeowners always complained that the native plants blocked their view of the water.
Eventually, a representative from our company met with the HOA board, and the final verdict was that we had to herbicide all the plants blocking the view of the stream. It was devastating because it was arguably the highest quality site we managed. My entire crew spent at least an hour digging up dozens of plants before spraying it all.
There a new volunteer patch of borage that sprouted along the road in a stretch of post industrial riverfront road . This pic is when they first popped up. It went on to bloom into a really plush mound of purple spikes, buzzing with bees, clustered around the telephone pole. I would take the long way downtown because it made me happy to see them.
Yesterday they were all mown down, their purple bodies lying strewn about- feels like a massacre to me!! 😓
https://preview.redd.it/bl4v0pe48y7f1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ac189093033bf67d24aa9d22f589257e7696941
This makes me genuinely sad
I’ve been trying to figure out how feasible it is for there to be a program to let specific people know when there’s about to be a development/mow/spray/etc. so a team of people can get in there asap and salvage natives. So far haven’t heard much
That’s awful. Thank you for trying to save some.
If there was another biblical flood, I wouldn’t even be mad. We take this world for granted. Smh
I agree with the other commenters, name and shame these ‘green’ posers! I’d even sign a petition.
I wish the utility company by me would spray their corridor to get rid of the jungle of invasives.
I’m so sorry—that sucks! Especially since open corridors in forests can have huge wildlife value. Maybe put it in those terms when you contact them. Ask them what their needs are.
I have power line ROW in my front woods and they came through and cut all the woody stuff down and widened the corridor a bit last year.
But I think I can plant forbs and grasses and they’d be fine. Of course I need to finish getting rid of the vinca that escaped my own property (prior to me obv) first.
I hope your rescues make it, and the natives come back! They’re tough plants!!
While the poisoning of plants is hard to excuse, this habitat wouldn’t exist but for the easement… the repeated herbicide keeps it a disturbed area, where plants like milkweed and goldenrod flourish
I was very dismayed to see this post but also extremely relieved to see the positive outpouring from this sub. This is a great source of information about how to actually fight back (peacefully) the damaging of these native landscapes