Shoal Creek Greenbelt Needs Our Help!

submitted by Leslie Christensen

The Shoal Creek Greenbelt in the Allandale neighborhood needs our help. Please come to the September 27th meeting of the neighborhood association and let us know if you think this is a priority the association should spend money on. Also come if you would like to help with volunteer work necessary to get things done there. It's our greenbelt and we are the only ones who can do something with it. How about it? Will you?

Most residents of the Allandale neighborhood who have driven down Shoal Creek between Koenig and 45th Street are aware of how heavily infested with ball moss the trees in the greenbelt in that area have become. It became especially clear how bad things were this past winter when the leaves were off the trees.

This spring a committee was formed to try and address the problem. We worked in partnership with the Parks and Recreation Department staff. While the greenbelt is under the umbrella of the department, there is essentially no budget available for tree work in greenbelts. Its top responsibility is to keep tree limbs and foliage from streets and pedestrian pathways that cause safety hazards. That takes up over 90 % of the tree budget. The Parks Department was willing to give us one day of work on deadheading trees (cutting out the dead wood where much of the ball moss is) in return for a promise that the community would do its share of solving the problem. That day happened on August 4th when Jay Culver, Urban

Forester for the department, brought his whole crew of seven arborists and Max Moore (director in charge of general cleanup in the greenbelt) sent two of his men as well. They accomplished a great amount of work for one day clearing 50 trees. The total number of trees that needed deadheading was approximately 190.

After trying unsuccessfully to get funding from Keep Austin Beautiful and the Austin Parks Foundation, the committee presented preliminary findings to the Board of the Allandale Neighborhood Association with the hope that the Association would fund all or part of the ball moss cleanup. The board wants public input from residents at the

Allandale Association General Meeting on September 27th to see if people feel this is how they would like to spend Association money. It was also requested that someone give an overview of all problems associated with our greenbelt. Following is a list of what has been accomplished toward that aim to date:

1. I have a friend who told me he eliminated the ball moss on his five acres of trees using 2 tablespoons of potassium bicarbonate to a gallon of water and adding a drop of a surfectant to get it to stick. The problem is the city couldn't spray this because it is not approved for use on ball moss by the Environmental Protection Agency. I have gotten an agreement from Todd Watson (ball moss expert and researcher at! A&M) that he will do a study to test this approach if we come up with the funding. The president of Bioworks (a company that produces Milstop which is basically the above mentioned formula) will donate the Milstop for the study and will also hire the consultant to go to the EPA with the study to get them to add Ball Moss to the list of already approved uses. He thinks this could be done within six months of having the study results. Todd has a sample of the Milstop and will do a small preliminary test this fall, which will tell us if the test is viable. If it works, then the actual study will cost somewhere between $500 and $5000 dollars.  If all goes well and the EPA approves this, it will allow for a very cost effective way to treat ball moss in public lands in the future. Warren Straus, Director of Parks and Recreation told me that if this happens and the watershed protection folks agree that it is safe to spray, he will add it to his budget in the future for all city parks.

If the study is a go, then we will have to come up with the money. In this case, since it will help all the neighborhood parks, we can ask the other neighborhood associations to help us fund the project.

2. Syd Mourning of Good Morning Tree Company has given us a bid to do the rest of the deadheading in the park. He also included getting all the trees along the street perfectly clear of ball moss, and maybe most of the rest of the trees as well. He will do this in four days for a total cost of $4400. This is a fabulous price.

3. An arborist from TreeFolks, a non-profit organization that helps to grow the urban forest, will walk the greenbelt with me on August 16th to give us his assessment of what other problems the trees may be having. For example, we are already aware that some of the root flares on some trees are covered with dirt, thus creating a serious challenge to their survival. Information will be shared at the September 27th meeting.

4. Mike Lyday (ecologist and specialist in waterways protection) with the Watershed Protection Department will come and walk the greenbelt on August 14th to give us ideas of how we could help protect the greenbelt from further erosion and flood damage. This would come in the form of certain plants and grasses. Information will be available at the September 27th meeting.

Again, please come to the meeting and support the committee on getting our greenbelt looking and feeling more beautiful. It is up to those who come to let the board know if this is something worth doing. Without our efforts, things will just continue to deteriorate.

Comments

[John P. Lindsey]

Hello, my name is John Lindsey and I live at 4903 Finley Dr. I am an Ecologist and current enrolled in the Texas State Wildlife Ecology Graduate Program. After reading the newsletter about the proposed clean-up of ballmoss along Shoal Creek, I would like to submit some thoughts. As you know, ballmoss is not a moss, but an epiphyte like bromiliads that derives its groceries from the atmosphere. The plant does best in shaded, high humidity environments. The interior canopy of live oaks provide the perfect environment for this plant. The live oak branches only support the plant. This plant is an important nitrogen fixer and serves a functional role in the ecosystem. The dead limbs upon which it resides are not killed by the plant, but are the result of natural pruning by the oaks due to lack of sunlight. Live oaks and ballmoss have co-evolved for thousands of years and the oaks suffer little due to the mosses presence. Unsightly yes, but harmful they are not. In fact, many species of birds forage on the insects within the ballmoss. (Chickadees and Titmice) I feel that the money spent clearing the oaks of a naturally occuring and harmless epiphyte is money wasted. I would rather see the money spent on trash clean-up and/or toxic runoff prevention. (Shoal Creek habors a variety of urban wildlife). I would enjoy volunteering my time to help clean up the garbage in and around Shoal Creek , but I cannot support this effort in ridding these trees of a plant that plays such a fuctional role for the natural residents of our urban forests.
Thank you for your time and effort in keeping our neighborhood so beautiful.
Sincerely,
John Lindsey