House Bill Would Target Cedars

State Representative Mike Dobrinski of Okeene has a bill before the Legislature that he is hoping will gain traction.

The Terry Peach North Canadian Watershed Restoration Act would fund a trial from the Texas Panhandle border to Canton Lake and from Canton Lake to Oklahoma City. The trial would seek to eliminate invasive woody species, specifically Eastern Red Cedar and Tamarisk trees in the watershed.

“We want to attack those species that are zapping our water supply,” he said Thursday from his office in the Capitol.

Early study has indicated the species slow water inflow into the lake and when Oklahoma City draws water from the lake, it only winds up with two-thirds of the water that was sent out. The rest is slurped up by the thirsty invasive shrubbery.

The trees also increase the fuel availability for wildfires, reduce grasses and ground cover because little or nothing grows in their shadow, harms grazing by competing with the grass for space and moisture, and increases the likelihood of erosion because there is little else to hold the soil in areas where the trees are prolific.

“It is a real conservation nightmare,” Dobrinksi added.

The trial location is almost made to order. To the north of the Canadian is the Cimarron River watershed, and to the south is the South Canadian watershed. Each of those areas faces the same infiltration of the woody plants and the same dry climate and limited rainfall. With those two watersheds acting as controls, Dobrinski is hoping the trial could show measurable return on the investment it takes to clear the watershed of those plants.

There is an existing study from Oklahoma State University from the 1990s on the Eastern Red Cedar that forecast the exact situation that exists 30 years later – diminished water resources that can be laid directly at the doorstep of the invasive species.

“This is the perfect opportunity to take this on,” Dobrinski said. “We can address a problem that is decades old.”

The timing is right, he noted, because there are benefits from the success of the study to some influential players.

One is Oklahoma City, who is invested in the outcome because it directly effects the water supply to the urban area. Another is the Department of Agriculture and Forestry Service, each of which is struggling with controlling erosion, protecting food supply through improved grazing and preventing destructive wildfires. The Oklahoma Water Resources Board is keeping an eye on the proposed project because water resources are its business.

With that many powerful supporters of the outcome of the trial, the bill is more likely to make it through the multiple steps required before it can be passed into law and be funded by the state.

“We can’t afford to kick this can down the road any further,” Dobrinski said.

The trial would use multiple means of control and elimination of the woody plants, including chemical application, controlled burns, physical removal of the trees and introduction of insects that target and feed on the foliage.

The North Canadian Watershed Restoration Act is named for the late Terry Peach, a former Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture. The North Canadian River runs through a ranch Peach owned in Woodward County and he also owned a property in Canton.

A similar bill is being floated by Sen. Casey Murdoch of Felt, in Cimarron County, would spur state agencies to address the proliferation of the species on land they own or administer, including highway rights of way and that owned by the Commissioners of the Land Office within the next five years.