Utah's northern marshes — Invasive plant choking Great Salt Lake shores

OGDEN BAY — Flooding along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in the 1980s wiped the wetland canvas clean. Phragmites then appeared to help repaint the wetland picture in flowing acres of waving green stems and golden-brown plumes.

The problem is, phragmites wasn't an invited guest. It's an alien species that had invaded Utah's northern marshes.

A campaign to try and remove the reedlike plants was started last week. Large areas around Ogden and Farmington bays were chemically treated.

Now, said Tom Aldrich, waterfowl manager for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, "We wait and see. We'll never be rid of it. We can only hope we can get it to a point where we can economically control it."

Phragmites australis, or common reed, is an ornamental plant that on appearances would seem to fit well into the family of wetland plant life. It has wide leaves, a tall stem, upward of 14 feet, and a beautiful plume of tiny flowers on the tip of the stem. Its thick pods give a carpetlike look to vast areas of marshy lands.

In reality, said Aldrich, "Phragmites has very low wildlife value. It has no food value and offers no cover for waterfowl. It invades an area and pushes out the more valuable plants, such as alkali bulrush.

"What makes it more menacing is it is very difficult to remove. I haven't plotted out areas yet, but it has taken over tens of thousands of acres of marsh."

There is some debate over how phragmites, pronounced frag-mite-ees, came to North America. Some suggest it is native, while others say it was introduced. As mentioned, it is an ornamental plant that can be purchased from a local gardening store.

Here in Utah, it was found in small pockets until the flooding of the Great Salt Lake back in the 1980s. The rising waters of the lake covered and killed much of the wetland vegetation. When the waters receded, "vegetation was gone from just about every marsh around the lake," continued Aldrich. "In this situation, the plants that have the advantage of the salt-tolerant, very aggressive species, like phragmites.

"It grows so tall and so thick, there's no understory below. No other plants can grow. Now we have these huge monotypic stands of phragmites. It has really taken over the marshes."

And, as he noted, it's extremely difficult to remove.

The plant is wind pollinated and self-incompatible. Seeds develop in the fall and winter, but it is mainly spread by rhizomes or underground roots. A single seed, through rhizomes, can develop into huge stands of phragmites with more than 200 plants.