County noxious-weed director urges flexibility, training and statutory compliance

Chase Youngdahl, Bonner County's noxious-weeds director, told the Sandpoint Sustainability Committee that Idaho's noxious-weed statute applies to municipalities and land managers on nonfederal land and that the city should draft a policy that preserves flexibility for future responses.

"That is the Idaho noxious weed statute, and that applies to all landowners and all land managers on all nonfederally administered land," Youngdahl said while describing statutory obligations and the IDAPA listing of regulated species. He recommended reasonable sideboards for a city policy and offered to provide half-day training to parks crews on identification, label interpretation and equipment calibration.

Youngdahl gave a concrete example of where chemical controls could be necessary: a hypothetical Japanese beetle outbreak that could threaten the city's maple canopy and where systemic insecticide treatment might avoid mass tree removal. Committee members asked staff to consider including applicator licensing and training expectations in the draft policy so crews have documented qualifications before applying herbicides.