250 Birge Street to Temporarily Close Starting Sept. 23
The Town of Brattleboro Planning Department would like to inform the public that it is working with foresters from Brookside Timber Harvesting to control invasive Japanese Knotweed at 250 Birge Street. The park will be closed for 24 hours starting on Monday, September 23, 2024, at 8 a.m. as spray is applied and allowed to dry.
The park is owned by the Vermont River Conservancy, which approves of limited use of herbicide treatments, only when “the ecological and public safety cost of not using them is determined to outweigh the costs of using them.” Japanese Knotweed destroys riverbanks, reduces flood storage, degrades water quality and causes bank failure.
Brookside will spray the knotweed with an herbicide called Rodeo. The applicator is trained and licensed for use of Rodeo in non-agricultural projects. Rodeo is a wetlands-approved herbicide product with the active ingredient glyphosate (54 percent). The forester uses Rodeo in a low solution to control knotweed.
Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide that, when applied properly, kills actively growing plants. Surfactant is a chemical added to an herbicide mixture to allow absorption through leaves. With similar properties as dish detergent, this helps break through the leaf cuticle (a leaf's waxy coating). A non-ionic surfactant is used in wetlands-approved products because it does not bond to mucous membranes of amphibians, fish and invertebrates.
For further questions on this project, contact Zoning Administrator Brian Bannon at 802-251-8111.