BLM Prineville District plans post-wildfire herbicide treatments

The Bureau of Land Management’s Prineville District Office plans to aerial spray the herbicide imazapic (brand names Plateau, Panoramic 2SL, Nufarm 2SL) to treat noxious weeds and invasive non-native weeds on approximately 34,000 acres of BLM-administered lands affected by 2018 wildfires, the agency said Friday.

All treatments are designed to keep public lands healthy and productive and to minimize impacts to other resources such as water, wilderness, wildlife and recreation. Application is weather-dependent and may occur any time between Sept. 3 and Sept. 30, 2019.

Spraying will occur in a variety of locations in areas burned by the Boxcar, Long Hollow, Substation, Seale and Jennie’s Peak Fires.

For safety, members of the public should stay out of these areas during spraying and for 12 hours after spraying is complete. No herbicide will be applied within 100 feet of the Lower Deschutes and John Day Rivers. All public entrances to these lands will be posted with herbicide and specific closure information prior to spraying, the agency said.

A pre-burn analysis of the area identified one-third of the approximately 70,000 acres of BLM lands burned in the wildfires as being infested by noxious and invasive annual grasses.

The analysis determined that the entire project area would be infested in seven years if left untreated. All treatments would be designed to minimize impacts to other resources such as water, wilderness, wildlife and recreation, the BLM said.

For more information, please call the project lead, Sarah Canham, at (541) 416-6785. Project maps can be found at https://www.blm.gov/office/prineville-district-office.