The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Ontario Stop Invasive Phragmites' Chokehold on Wetlands?

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Jeyan Jeganathan visits wetland ecologist Janice Gilbert on the frontline lines of the battle against invasive phragmites. Considered one of Ontario's worst invasive species, Phragmites australis, also known as the European common reed, has exploded into an ecological nightmare since arriving on Canada's eastern shores two centuries ago. Up until now, the battle has been fought by municipalities and community groups working in isolation, but thanks to new funding for a province-wide strategy, there is hope that Ontario's wetlands can recover. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Invasive Phragmites, considered one of Ontario's worst invasive species. Unlike their native counterpart, they're aggressive, spreading quickly and densely as many as 200 stems per square metre. Reaching heights of up to 5 metres or 15 feet, this perennial grass has been choking out wetlands across the province for decades. We're in Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. The shorelines here look more like a scene out of John Houston's 1951 film, The African Queen, than a community in southwestern Ontario. Can't tell us in the water, the water from the land for that matter.

We're meeting up with wetland ecologist Janice Gilbert. She is one of the driving forces behind invasive Phragmites management in Ontario. Gilbert is the executive director of the Invasive Phragmites Control Centre and has dedicated the past two decades to researching, monitoring and ridding wetland habitats of this invasive plant. You see this tall feathered plant in the roadside ditches? That's Phragmites. A lot of communities now, where there's been a lot of construction around stormwater ponds in urban areas, on the

shorelines of lakes like where we are here. It's pretty prevalent in southern Ontario. Gilbert and her team are focusing on an infested section of Lake Huron's shoreline. She and her crew use an amphibious vehicle to navigate the shallow but rocky waters. It's hard work under the blistering summer sun, but the biggest challenge seems to be trying

to find her team amongst the thick walls of Phragmites. That's so weird. I should be able to see them. Okay, we're going. Today, the team is spraying a herbicide designed for wetland use. The herbicide, called Habitat Aqua, is diluted with water to create a 3% solution. This herbicide was approved by Health Canada in 2021 and is one of many strategies used to kill these invasive plants in Ontario. So basically you start out on the far edge and you do a line and then you can spray five meters on

either side and then you offset and you see your next transit coming back parallel along that squiggly line. You know you're careful as possible spraying around the fragmice you're not targeting the native plants. There's collateral damage, absolutely, but the thing is we do know the native plants recover. Once you get rid of the fragmites, it's amazing the response. There's a good seed bank and the native plants, just like they've been released.

After a few months, the dead and dry stalks are then removed through a controlled burn, or by hand and scheduled when birds or other wildlife are not nesting. Another technique Janice and her team frequently use with great success is the cut to drown method. Basically you cut all the stalks, then the plant has to get a shoot up through the water column, break the surface, get the oxygen flowing again. That replenishes the oxygen supply. If that plant can't get up and break the water surface, then the plant's drowned. That's how it works. The deeper the water, the better, of course. The invasive grass is known as the European Common Reed, but generally referred to as

Phragmites or Phrag. It was spotted along Canada's eastern seaboard in the 1800s and has crept its way up the St. Lawrence and through the Great Lakes. I have heard a lot of people say it's a really pretty grass and I guess I could see that if I didn't know how destructive it was. But if you have to spend any amount of time in Phragmites it quickly does not become pretty. It becomes pretty difficult, ugly, hard plant to navigate. These towering plants are known to release toxins from its roots into the soil, impeding the growth of native plants. It's also been disastrous for local wildlife.

We know that it's really hard on turtles. We found dead turtles in high density phragmites. They crawl in and they can't find their way out and they run out of food source and energy and eventually they die in there. For birds, they use the edge of the phragmites for structure, but once you get into the interior of these large dense cells, there's minimal habitat value for a lot of the wildlife.

A quick trip around the vegetation and it's quite clear how much of a stranglehold of Phragmites has on the wildlife here. This is a dead zone. Birds are far and few between, no buzzing or chirping from insects, just a wall of deafening silence. And what we see above ground is only half the story. Once established, Phragmites roots can spread deep into the ground. So this is what's called a rhizome. That's what would be all below the ground, all underneath this thick Phragmites and dance thick, thick, tight, tight, tight, going down several meters till it hits bedrock and it can't go any further. You can see the diameter of it, how much oxygen it can hold. You see the reeds coming off of it.

Invasive Phragmites have touched virtually every community in Ontario and it's particularly bad for communities along the Great Lakes. It's just kind of overtaken the waterways. Ten years ago it was still not as bad as it is. We were able to see the water, access the water. Now you have to go through the Fragmites to get there and you don't see the beauty of the lake. Not only have Fragmites blocked their views, but it's made some access points nearly impassable. The fishermen, they go out regularly, they provide meals for their family, meals for the community. Some of them provide fish to the elders.

People from all over come and purchase fish from our fishermen here, so some of them it's a way to sustain their life. It goes back to our heritage and our culture. We are hunters and fishers, we gather, and one of to our heritage and our culture. We are hunters and fishers, we gather and one of the, it's our lifestyle and when you see this plant taking over it takes over our lifestyle and of course we're not able to participate in the things that we enjoy and that have been a part of our culture for many years. Dana Lynn Williams is a member of the

Om Janong First Nation and the founder of First Nation Phragmites Control. The word is devastating. It's taking over. It's dense. It's unlike anything that you'll experience. Walking through it or even an animal having to go through it is just unbelievable. Williams is working alongside Gilbert to help educate First Nations communities about how to control Phragmites.

Williams and Gilbert have set up demonstration sites on three First Nations communities. Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, Om Janong First Nation, and Walpoole Island First Nation. This particular area that we're doing now will either come in and cut down or burn because you'll see the plants by probably February, March, you'll see that it's dead. Hopefully as they see what has taken place and it goes back to the government and financing if they'll help and kick in and assist us to do more work on the territory to get a lot of this territory looked after. Earlier this year, Ontario announced plans

to spend $16 million over the next three years fighting invasive species. Much of that money is being spent on a province-wide strategy to fend off Phragmites. We're heading towards Wood Drive, a coastal meadow marsh along the Lake Huron shoreline. That is the only area on the Lake Huron shoreline

adjacent to a Carolinian forest. So it's a very, very special environment. Nancy Vidler knows all too well the importance of having a well-coordinated plan when it comes to Phragmites control. She and a team of dedicated residents in Lampton Shores have been waging a war with Phragmites since 2009, when the Lampton Shores Phragmites Community Group was formed. Thanks to early intervention, they eliminated Phragmites from a beach in her community of Port Franks, and then to surrounding areas. Oh my gosh! Wonderful, Jan! This is great.

I remember vividly one day coming out here and the Phragmites was so high and so dense. It was nearly impossible to walk through it. And yeah, this is just amazing. The biggest success story is this wetland, just a stone's throw away from the Phragmites dead zone we saw in Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. Native plants have returned, recreating habitats for migratory birds, turtles and other wildlife.

Our whole rationale was we live in an area where recreation and tourism and agriculture are so important and if this had been left untreated, all three of those things would have been greatly impacted. So then we thought, okay okay we've got it under control in Port Franks, but what's happening up the river? We looked and and the surrounding areas, because as long as it was there then we would continue to have a problem. Reclaiming local wetlands is an ongoing labour of love for Vidler's group. They started this restoration project in 2014 with help from Gilbert's team, conservation authorities, all levels of government, civic and corporate donations, plus an army of volunteers who put in well over 10,000 hours.

When they first started a decade ago, herbicide use on wetlands was not an available option, which meant removing the Phragmites required getting right in the water and cutting the invasive plant by hand. Experts like Gilbert know there's no silver bullet that would eradicate invasive phragmites, but is hopeful that over time, with the help of a province-wide effort and continued support from community members like Williams and Vidler, Ontario's wetlands will breathe again. The plant doesn't move. So we can, we have ways of controlling it. And you mentioned that we've been dealing doing this for a number of years and we have, but it's just been piecemeal work with just a few small groups. I'm so excited now there's a provincial program being rolled out,

there's provincial strategy, there's funding. Because without consistent funding and without a good game plan and a lot of community input we're not going to win the battle but we are winning it where we have that in place we have lots of success stories and so that gives us a lot of hope. you