Members of the Knox County Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA) group erected this billboard along U.S. 41 warning people of the dangers of the Callery pear tree. The sale of this species, also called the Bradford pear, is now prohibited by the county’s Invasive Species Ordinance.
Submitted photo
A member of a local group dedicated to the removal of invasive plant species pleaded with the county commissioners on Tuesday to reconsider their decision earlier this month to amend the county’s Invasive Species Ordinance.
Ray Chattin and a handful of other members with the Knox County Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA) group appeared before the county commissioners and, during the public comment portion of the meeting, encouraged them to “reverse their decision” to allow local landscape professionals to sell prohibited inverses species of plants, trees and grasses to clients living outside of Knox County.
Chattin took particular issue — sharing his own personal “horror story” — with Callery pear tree, also commonly called the Bradford pear. The non-native species “took over” 16 acres of his tree farm four years ago, he said, and he’s been battling it ever since.
It’s costly and laborious, he said, to rid of, adding that it’s a “dirty, backbreaking, time-consuming job.”
“But I know if I don’t stay ahead of it, it’s going to take over,” he said.
The commissioners two weeks ago made some changes to the Invasive Species Ordinance, which prohibits the sale of 64 invasive species of plants, trees and grasses.
The first — and biggest — of those changes is one that allows local vendors to sell these now prohibited species to clients living outside Knox County.
The Invasive Species Ordinance passed in August of 2018 and was the first terrestrial invasive plant regulation in Indiana. It went into effect in January of 2020.
In its first full year, however, a handful of business owners expressed frustration that they couldn’t sell invasive species to customers living outside Knox County, so commission president Trent Hinkle suggested months ago that they take a second look at the legislation.
The commissioners have said that prohibiting the sale of these species to other counties is overreach and outside the original intent of the legislation. Too, they don’t have jurisdiction over what can or can’t be planted in other counties.
So a clarification of the original ordinance, Hinkle has said, was necessary.
A relatively new state law does prohibit the sale of several invasive species of plants, grasses, trees and shrubs as well, although Knox County’s ordinance is more comprehensive — and it includes the Callery pear where state law does not.
Members of CISMA feel so strongly about the dangers of the pear tree that they have erected a billboard on U.S. 41 to help spread their message.
And they argue that allowing the sale of these invasive species to neighboring counties puts Knox County in just as much danger.
“As long as these are anywhere near my neighborhood, my work (in getting rid of them) won’t be done,” Chattin told the commissioners.
He, too, cited other reclamation projects in other Hoosier counties costing lumber businesses millions.
“And it’s hard for me to believe you would want to impose this kind of hardship on people in surrounding counties just to allow a couple of landscapers to turn a quick buck selling this junk to unwitting land owners,” Chattin said.
He called the commissioners’ decision to amend the ordinance “disappointing” and “extremely out of character.”
“I was a big fan up until this occurrence,” he told them. “But I believe it to be an honest mistake, an error in judgement. But sometimes the best intentions yield unintended consequences.”
Hinkle thanked Chattin for his statement, but the commissioners didn’t take back up discussions of the ordinance, indicating they will leave it just as it is.
And while there were several other CISMA members in the audience, none of them addressed the commissioners.
Copyright ©2024 Vincennes Sun Commercial