Rural landowners get grants to battle leafy spurge

• Dry early spring could discourage mosquitoes

Cascade County commissioners got an update Tuesday about joint efforts among property owners and the county Weed and Mosquito Division to control pesky leafy spurge growth in the Stockett and Hound Creek areas.

Weed and Mosquito Superintendent Josh Blystone also said it’s too soon to forecast for sure, but conditions are so dry now that mosquitoes might not be much of a problem this year. Nevertheless, he said, county mosquito crews are getting an early handle on spraying against mosquitoes in the typical Great Falls problem areas and will hit other areas such as Belt and the Smith River soon.

Field supervisor Norma Borgstrom said she has helped landowners in the Stockett area do research since 2013 on water drainage and endangered animals necessary to get grant money to help control noxious weeds. This year nine landowners were awarded a $10,000 Noxious Weed Foundation Trust Fund grant, which they’ll match, to spray 350 acres to control leafy spurge, a creeping, deep-rooted weed that chokes native grass and is inedible to livestock.

A good share of that money will pay for helicopter spraying in hard-to-reach rocky cliff areas, she said.

County Commissioner Jane Weber said anybody stopping for a sandwich at the American Bar in Stockett can see that bright yellow-green weed proliferating on an opposite hillside. She praised landowners for taking part in the effort to control the weed that easily spreads to Forest Service and other public lands.

Five Hound Creek landowners were awarded $40,000, which they will match, to spray for noxious weeds on 1,589 acres of ranch land southeast of Cascade. Officials said they’ve been participating in the weed control program successfully for seven years. A separate group of six landowners in the Lower Hound Creek area were awarded $10,000 to spray 990 acres.

In a report to the commissioners, Blystone said he is renewing a biocontrol program to control noxious weeds, but is just starting to collect leafy spurge beetles and other insects this year. Distribution of the anti-weed insects probably won’t occur for a few years, he said.

Blystone said the county got $5,600 in grant money to buy new weed control sprayers, and will now rent them for $20 a day to landowners. They previously were lent to landowners for free, he said, but the rental money will help cover repair and maintenance.

In another matter, commissioners approved a contract to purchase a fifth condominium unit in the Tribune Plaza, 121 4th St. N., for $90,000, from a private appraiser who is retiring.

The purchase makes sense, Commissioner Joe Briggs said.

“We do need space,” he said. “It’s part of a continuing jigsaw puzzle of where to put staff.”

Public Works Director Bryan Clifton said the county now will own about 73 percent of the building, and is trying to consolidate offices. He said the county began purchasing condo space in the Tribune Plaza in the early 2000s as court-related functions took up increasing space in the courthouse.

The county treasurer and clerk and recorder’s offices are on the first floor, the accounting division is on the mezzanine level and the county attorney and county planners offices are on the second floor.