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Keene committee accepts invasive‑species education recommendations after residents describe public‑health and budget risks
Summary
Residents and staff urged education and volunteer action to limit spread of knotweed, wild parsnip and other invasive plants; Public Works warned a full removal program would overwhelm the city budget. The committee accepted the conservation commission’s recommendations as informational.
Members of the Keene Municipal Services, Facilities & Infrastructure Committee on the evening heard residents and staff describe a growing problem with invasive plants along waterways and roadside frontage and accepted, as informational, recommendations focused on education and volunteer management.
Bob Milliken, a member of the Hogback Mountain Conservation Group, described two plants that he said pose both ecological and human‑health risks. “There’s a wild chervil and wild parsnips … the sap … you get, like, a second degree burn,” Milliken said, urging volunteers and neighborhood efforts to remove plants before seeds spread.
Duncan Watson, assistant public works director, told the committee an aggressive, city‑run removal program would be costly. “Frankly, the amount of resources that it would take to deal with this in an effective manner would overwhelm the city’s budget,” Watson said, and recommended starting with best‑management practices and an education point of contact housed in Public Works and the Highway Division.
Other residents described multi‑year volunteer efforts and cited examples in nearby towns where sustained removal campaigns reduced knotweed; one resident offered a written Adirondack Park work plan for the committee’s consideration. Deputy City Manager Andy Buena and the Friends of Ashwillett River Park were cited as local partners already running volunteer removal work.
After public testimony and committee discussion about funding, staffing and the best locus for a point of contact, Councilor Williams moved to recommend accepting the invasive‑species and education management recommendations as informational; the motion was seconded and carried unanimously.
Next steps include collecting existing educational resources, identifying a staff liaison (Public Works was suggested as the logical home) and returning to the committee with options for volunteer coordination and potential grant sources.
