Thread by @shayshinecastle

OK, now prairie dogs! Getting started at 10 p.m., which is a GREAT sign.

No staff presentation during the meeting, but here's the slides from last time (Aug. 11) www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Item_5A_O…

Here's where we are: boulderbeat.news/2020/08/08/bou…

Public hearing already happened, so this is an all-council show.

Curt Brown from OSBT is doing some myth-busting.

The plan is not extreme, he says, as some are saying. It's only focusing on one section of irrigated ag land (2,400 acres, 967 of which have p dogs on them)

Brown: Every year, thousands of p dogs migrate from city lands to our neighbors, where they are killed. We're exporting our lethal control.

"They total far more than the lethal control expected" during this limited project.

Brown: Some have stated that if we stop farming or grazing these lands, they will become native grass lands. Not so: Our southern lands have never been plowed. These have, for more than 100 years. It's nothing like a natural grass land. Their health depends on ag.

Brown: We know what happens when you walk away from these lands. They don't become native grasslands. They become barren, overrun with weeds, or lose topsoil. It has taken decades to reclaim lands, and even then we struggle.

Actually, the targeted are is 560 acres. Even if that's all cleared, there will be thousands of prairie dogs left.

Currently 132,000 across 4,457 acres of open space, according to staff.

Nagle has a disclaimer for her qs, that they might upset ppl. You said the lands have been plowed for decades. So the fallacy that p dogs have destroyed the land is not the case. The plowing has. The lands can't heal themselves bc of the plowing. Is that correct?

Not exactly, says Mark Gershman. "There are a legacy of land uses that vary throughout the northern grasslands. Some areas may have had other contributing factors. I agree sometimes p dogs get a bad rap" for other things, like livestock but...

... ag activity here keep the lands covered and therefore healthier, he says.

Nagle: But if those uses don't continue, the health would decline, correct?
Gershman: You'd have to manage the lands to allow native grasses to take root and sustain prairie dog occupation.

Nagle is most active when it comes to prairie dogs. She got involved in politics bc of prairie dogs at the Armory site, as I reported briefly here. (That was before my time) boulderbeat.news/2020/08/29/pra…

Statistically valid survey reference! Hit your Bingo card.

She's referencing this, which was a statistically valid survey. boulderbeat.news/2019/05/15/59-…

But she's not done! The questions were phrased poorly, she says. People supported lethal control AFTER everything else had been explored. It clearly hasn't, she says.

That's a point that Deanna Meyer of Prairie Protection Colorado made to me when I interviewed her for the above story.

Nagle in a very long-winded question that was really a point: Why aren't we listening to the prairie dog working group?

Gershman: There were comments from the community that the group didn't address well the issues with irrigated ag. OSBT recommended looking at lethal control; then council did. boulderbeat.news/2019/05/08/in-…

I have entirely too much prairie dog content.

Nagle: I remember Dan Burke (OSMP head) telling us lethal control might not be a silver bullet. Staff was supposed to get us data on soil health. We hired someone but we don't have those answers.

"Where is the data? Where is any facts showing that killing prairie dogs will lead to increased soil health?"

Lauren Kolb, the city's soil health coordinator, fielding this one. God bless her.

I sampled over 100 sites this year as part of a baseline assessment, she says. But they were primarily on lands without p dog occupation. Two sites did.

She's referencing this: boulderbeat.news/2020/01/05/stu…

Kolb: "We have not had many successful removals in irrigated ag lands. There's not really data to say what happens before or after" because there's never been an after.

"There's plenty of data" on overgrazing, which is comparable. "That is what we are seeing on these fields is that we're having loss of topsoil due to lack of vegetation to hold that topsoil in place."

As she told me, overgrazing is overgrazing, no matter what animal does it. P dogs or cows or horses.

Nagle: "What we're basically saying is that we're putting killing on the table with absolutely no data at all."

Kolb: "That's not what I'm saying at all."

Mayor Weaver, this might be a good time to step in.

Kolb: I can't tell you specifically what's happened in BoCo bc that hasn't happened here. I don't think BoCo has done that testing. "An analogous situation would be irrigated lands that have been overgrazed, no matter what animal does it."

Nagle: I'm assuming the data has to come from somewhere. Otherwise, why are we considering this?

Kolb: The data comes from knowing once you remove the overgrazing pressure, we can see improvements in vegetative growth. When you approve growth, you approve soil health.

Nagle: So we couldn't do that on a small piece of land by relocation?
Kolb: "The problem with prairie dogs is they don't stay where we want them to stay."

Kolb: The idea is we're removing them from an entire field or an entire complex of fields.

Nagle: I don't think it gets me where I want to be but we're going to have to move on. Thank you for those answers.

Weaver also has questions. I forgot he also voted against exploring lethal control.

Weaver: What are you measuring in soil health samples? Moisture? Carbon?

Kolb: Nutrient levels, vegetative structure, density of plants, canopy height, water infiltration, etc. We get a comprehensive picture of what's happening below ground.

Kolb with a fantastic analogy: Like anything, is my weight a good measure of my health? Maybe, but how fast can I run a mile? What's my blood pressure? You have to get a whole picture.

WEIGHT 👏 IS 👏 NOT 👏AN 👏AUTOMATIC 👏INDICATOR 👏 OF 👏 HEALTH.

We stan a body-positive city staffer, Kolb.

I mean, I'm assuming. One statement is not a measure of wokeness.

Sorry, missed some Weaver qs while I was celebrating Kolb.

Weaver: Are you including citizens in the soil sampling and health study?
Kolb: Open space in participating in Elizabeth Black's study by sampling some land, but the city is doing its own sampling.

There are multiple soil health studies going on.

Kolb: Not a lot of ag folks are regularly testing their soils. It's a good habit to get started.

Weaver: I see a conflict here. You've got ag folks, you've got prairie dog folks. It seems to be that one of the possibilities would be some kind of citizen collaborative shared learning process.

That's something that the prairie dog ppl are recommending.

Weaver: "It seems to me really important that if we're removing p dogs to improve soil health, that that's what's happening."

"that that's what's" What an awkward phrase.

Weaver: We have this fight every couple of years. We need to bring both sides together. Can you bring citizens into the process?

Kolb: I think there's opportunities for citizen science. I'd want consistency in the hard data, soil sampling. However, there is an app that is pretty user-friendly; it's a way of assessing soil and rangeland health. It's a USDA/BLM development.

I missed the name but apparently one of the developers is in Boulder. I wanna learn! I wanna sample soil!

Boulder County has a soil monitoring volunteer program.

In case you're looking for something to do.

Young: In your soil sampling, are you looking for elements that would point toward the efficacy of efforts toward carbon sequestration?

LOL she has never met a sentence that she couldn't make more complicated.

Kolb, in a long answer: Yes. Samples suggest our carbon is lower than I thought it would be.

Young: What have we learned from the Bennett property? (Where some carbon sequestration attempts are ongoing)

Kolb: "What I learned at Bennett is that things take longer than I want them to take."

Many factors over many years, all coming together, have led to soils "in really poor shape," Kolb says. Not a lot of water infiltrates; not a lot of crops take root. Prairie dogs keep eating the plants we're trying to grow.

Young: How are we going to know how the soil is doing when we only have a baseline now? (That's a rough paraphrase)

I guess bc staff is only projecting out three years of lethal control.

Gershman: That's just bc we could only project costs out that much, but the work will likely go on longer.

Black's citizen study, for example, will last 10 years.

Gershman: It's not just a 3-year plan. We're hoping it will last until the project area is completely cleared.

Young: The plan calls for relocation (900-1,200 p dogs annually) and lethal control (3,000-6,000 annually). Relocation requires Delta Dust, right?

State law requires p dogs to be sprayed with insecticide to kill fleas (which carry plague) and Delta Dust (also insecticide) is put on the burrows where they get relocated to.

Young: Does it impacts other species?
Gershaman: Yes. It has broad impacts on insects. (And the things that eat them)

Rella Abernathy: Also reptiles and amphibians and some birds. Anything living in the burrows is impacted. It lasts about a year in the land.

But it's hard to say what the concentration is and what levels lead to impacts, Abernathy says.

"We know that it's toxic," she says. There are also concerns about ground-nesting bees. We have 500 species of native bees; 80% are ground-nesting.

Nagle apparently not concerned. Farmers using pesticides are more troublesome, she says, bc it's continuous application not one-time like Delta Dust.
Abernathy: I handle every single application for pesticides. Most of our lands don't use those.

Another staffer, Andy something, says 1 application for pesticides in the last 4 years.

Did NOT have a Bingo spot for prairie dog castration, but there you go.

That was in regards to a Friend q: Why doesn't sterilization work?
Gershman's answer is that surgical sterilization is impossible and expensive; other solutions (pharmaceuticals, etc) are not available and could have impacts on other wildlife.

Friend (I think) asking if the city could accept volunteer time/money/land for relocating more prairie dogs.
Yes, Gershman says, but we have limits on staff time for overseeing projects.

Gershman: Additional receiving sites would be good, but there are limits. We can't send them across county lines without the commissioners agreeing. And only a few contractors do this work and it's expensive.

"Because of liability issues" (volunteers can get the Plague) "it's preferable to work with contractors who in turn work with volunteers," Gershman says.

Friend: What's the timeline for receiving a proposal from residents who might want to volunteer for relocation?
Gershman: It's a longer process. We need agreements with all the parties, permits for the activity, etc.

Nagle: We have hundreds and hundreds of acres on the Southern Grasslands that could use prairie dogs. Also there are projects at Rocky Flats and the arsenal lands.

"The lands are taken care of. I know for a fact" that volunteers are willing to help. Why can't we get started?

"We have the tools, we have people willing, we have the First Gentleman" giving us this offer (Polis' husband, who is opposed to lethal control) so "the hurdles aren't here" why is this being "pushed off?" Nagle asks.

Nagle now reading a text from the First Gentleman that she apparently just got.

Gershman said the First Gentleman's involvement was recent but welcome. Staff is happy to work with him.

Nagle: Why is Boulder Valley Ranch not part of this?
Gershman: They are part of this.
Nagle: But down the road, not immediately.
Gershman: They're part of the project area... I'm not sure what you're saying. We don't have any recommendations for things to happen immediately.

OK maybe BVR is part of the northern grasslands, not in the first priority area...? "Boulder Valley Ranch is very much part of this project," Gershman says.

Andy Pelster, which is the Andy I referred to earlier, said that same family who owns Boulder Valley Ranch, leases other properties that are higher priority.

Nagle: We don't know how long this project will last. So we're just killing animals with no real plan, for however long? Why aren't we being innovative? Why not grow hemp here?

Gotta say, in the past when council members have been this antagonistic, the mayor has usually stepped in. I'm thinking of Morzel and Zan.

Absolutely NOT happening tonight. They are just letting Nagle get after it.

Nagle: Is there any type of vegetation, other than hemp, that prairie dogs might not eat? References a study in New Mexico that was "scientific" and "published"

Gershman: The scientists at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal have been "working for years" to find species that can co-exist with prairie dogs. It takes "quite a while" to establish some native species and "quite a while longer" with the presence of prairie dogs.

"We've had very limited success in having restoration projects in the presence of prairie dogs."

Pelster: We are learning more about plants that are tolerant to prairie dogs.

Kolb: Are you talking about Jeremy Gregory when you mention hemp?
Nagle: Yes, he tried here
Kolb: We never got an application
Nagle: Well, he tried last year ... let's not get into it

LOL this meeting is a f-ing joke.

Gershman responding to Nagle but I missed about what: Prairie dogs are just one species we're committed to in open space. We have limited capacity.

Nagle referencing the First Gentleman again. He wants to meet with staff and council. "It's unprecedented to have the type of help we're being offered at the state level. ... It shows the interest" the state has in what we're doing.

We'll see how keen she is on the First Gentleman's husband's recommendation to not enforce Boulder's occupancy limits...

Swetlik concerned about Delta Dust in the water system. I think he's confused about where it goes, bc he mentioned irrigated ag. IT DOESN'T GO THERE, IT GOES WHERE THE P DOGS ARE RELOCATED.

I know it's late ppl, but C'mon. Pay attention.

Abernathy: The relocations happen in the fall when we're not irrigating anyway.

Wallach asking about the burrow disturbance. Can't currently damage the burrows in any way; staff recommended allowing disturbance up to 3 inches. OSBT wants 6-12 inches.

Wallach says the recommendation is "arbitrary," an attempt to "balance" interests but that they may not help ag folks at all.

Wallach: What's the actual standard to determine the 3-6-12 regime as opposed to 1-2-4? "Is it coming out of thin air or is there a scientific basis?"

Pelster: The ag community wants as broad an exemption as possible. Organic producers plow at deeper depths, for example.

Keyline plowing can go up to 22 inches, Pelster says.

Wallach: Did any producers say 3-6-12 is great?
No, Pelster says. "We did generally hear from the ag community that they would prefer as deep a depth as possible."

Wallach: So why 3-6-12?
Pelster: Most of the conflict is in hayfields or pasture. 3-6 inches would allow some flexibility, light tillage to seed hay or cover crops to establish more vegetation.
12 inches with a permit would allow key line plowing or deep tillage in some areas.

Wallach: How do you enforce this? Do you go out with a ruler?
Pelster: We would explain requirements and use our best judgement in that enforcement.

Burke adding in: It's when you're in the presence of active prairie dog burrows. Obviously no restrictions if they aren't occupied.

Weaver has 2 qs and then maybe MAYBE we'll move to discussion. I'd expect a passionate Nagle speech. Grab yo' popcorn.

I missed the first one and most of the second. It's about when we're assessing conditions post-lethal control, I think. How often? 5 years? 10? 15?

Kolb: The recommendation is 3-5 years is kind of the minimum. Some of those indicators take a long time to show up. Short in the sense of relative time but long what we're talking about in terms of this project.

Relatively, this council meeting is short.

Kolb: Unless we can visibly observe significant changes, I don't think more frequently than 3-5 year check-ins will reveal much of what's happening below ground.

Weaver: How can we make a holistic process, to involve ppl who are most concerned by lethal control? I fear we won't end up educating them.

Gershman is answering but it's a lot of jargon and I'm fading.

Young makes a motion to OK the staff plan for lethal control and burrow disturbance in 2,400 acres of irrigated ag land north of Boulder.

Wallach seconds.

Nagle proposes the amendments from Keep Boulder Wild. I haven't seen those, so I don't know what they are exactly. But I know it includes parcel-by-parcel analysis and some other stuff.

Nagle: This topic is literally what got me on council.
She is crying.

"I find it ironically hilarious that we have pollinator month promoting the importance of our wonderful bee community ... and we forget how important the prairie dogs are. I understand the charter. I understand these are on ag lands."

Nagle: I fully understand that we are outsourcing the killing of our prairie dogs. "What I don't understand is that we allow killing, that we cannot be smarter than that."

"I will be out there breaking my back over and over again to build barrier fencing and help with relocation," Nagle says.

Says she has PTSD from watching videos of horrible things being done to animals. "I hate to use PTSD bc I think that should be left for our military."

Oh, cool. Guess I'll pass the word along to my fellow survivors of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence that we don't have PTSD.

Seriously. Educate yourself.

It's post TRAUMAtic stress disorder. Military, yes, but also anything else TRAUMATIC. Human traumas are legion.

Anyway, back to prairie dogs. She's reading the proposed amendments. Reducing the project area size, do more relocation w/outside $$, parcel by parcel analysis b4 lethal control, license for lethal control would expire in 2022

Weaver, summarizing, Nagle clarifies that stakeholders need to be involved in the parcel-by-parcel analysis.

Young offers an amendment about citizen involvement.
Wallach supports IF it doesn't interfere with staff process. "It should not be another mechanism for kicking this can down the road."

He had 2 signs in that one response. Someone should start a Wallach Sigh-O-Meter

Some tussling with public participation. Sounds like Nagle wants a public process every time a parcel is set for lethal control. Farmers were concerned that would lead to more vandalism, bc ppl will know where equipment is going to be.

Young is rejecting that in favor of the staff plan for engagement, which does include feedback but maybe on a different scale...? Damn this is confusing.

Young doesn't want Nagle's amendment about licenses for lethal control expiring, but wants them reviewed every three years (that's the staff plan).

I think Young is confusing things by referring to amendments and rejecting/accepting them when she really just means the staff plan, which is the motion on the table.

Burke weighs in on the review process: Reporting back to council every three years on progress of controlling prairie dog populations.

Yates and Friends also confused. "I'm getting frustrated," Yates says.

Ditto, Bob.

Swetlik: I'd like an amendment that if there is a resurgence of plague and p dog populations drop, we reassess lethal control.

And maybe doing more relocation if we get a good offer for more land.

Joseph (who notably flipped on lethal control during campaigning, first being for it then against it)

Oh, meant to finish that sentence: It's very expensive to do more relocation. Millions of dollars. From last year.

boulderbeat.news/2019/05/07/sta…

Dear god it is after midnight and we still have 50 min of other biz to do once we finish this.

The years prairie dogs have stolen from my life.

Meant to say hours but honestly years is probably right.

Nagle slowly reading the amendments.

Young is rejecting 1-2 of them and the other two with some caveats. It's her motion, so she can reject any amendments she wants.

Yates: If $$ was no object, and someone just showed up with a pile of it, would there be any barriers to doing more relocation?
Burke: Yes. Availability of contractors, objections from neighboring landowners (which plays into permitting)

"Money alone is not the only consideration," Burke says.

Young: If we move prairie dogs aren't we just transferring the problem? (Southern Grasslands have far lower populations)
Burke: We've done a parcel-by-parcel analysis there to determine desirable areas for and levels of prairie dogs.

Heather Swanson: We've been relocating to the Southern Grasslands every year since 2013. Each receiving site is a pretty major undertaking. This year we installed $150K of barrier fencing.

She's from OSMP. I'm willing to work with ppl who want to help us, I also don't want to create unrealistic expectations that throwing $$ at it will solve things.

That was Swanson, btw.

Another amendment! Ugh I might take a break until things make sense again.

Burke: "We need a year's planning time" for budget, relocation permits, etc. That's why staff is suggesting annual check-ins.

Nagle wanting more frequent, bc by then, the prairie dogs will already be dead.

Nagle arguing with Young.

This would be fun if it wasn't 12:30.

Friend: OSMP staff is "not psyched" to go and do lethal control. When I met with them, they told me they got into OSMP bc they love animals and nature. I think we should trust what they've recommended.

Yates: I agree. We are micro-managing. That's exactly the type of thing we said we wouldn't do.

Yates: If there's a plague, staff isn't going to "blindly" keep killing prairie dogs. They're going to go back to OSBT and say we need to re-evaluate.

Young agrees "because we seem to be going into the weeds with each of these amendments and every time we come to one, staff says we've already done that, or it's already included or we've already thought of that."

Her motion was to move forward with the staff plan, so she doesn't have to accept any amendments.

Wallach on board. Amendments are now "suggestions" for staff to take into account. "We could be here until next Tuesday trying to parse every word of their proposal and improve it. I think it's time to just act."

Brockett: "I think the intention of these amendments is to reflect the great deal of concern" in our community. "It's important to show that we're listening and some of these ideas for increased resources to reduce lethal control are important to carry forward."

And to make sure we're creating the data and following a plan that is successful, he says.

OK with leaving the amendments off. As does Weaver. So that's a majority. No idea where Joseph and Swetlik are.

I mean where they stand. Joseph is in front of her Colorado flag background and Swetlik is on his backlit couch, per usual.

Vote is 8-1 with Nagle opposed.

"OK," Weaver says, "that was a lot of fun."

Ditto. @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks.