Joshua Zaffos

Last fall, I spent a bluebird day not far from Telluride, hauling felled trunks and branches away from the San Miguel River. The brush and debris were all invasive species, including the nefarious tamarisk, or salt cedar, which can suck up copious amounts of groundwater and load the surrounding soil with toxic levels of chemicals. The clearing effort wrapped up last fall, after three years of work, and its completion marks the first time a river’s banks have been liberated from tamarisk invasion. I wrote about the experience, the threat of tamarisk and how land managers are trying to solutions stick in the Spring 2009 issue of the Nature Conservancy Magazine.