ARIZONA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Fifty-sixth Legislature

First Regular Session

House: NREW DP 9-1-0-0

HCM2006: urging eradication; salt cedars; waterways

Sponsor: Representative Griffin, LD 19

House Engrossed

Overview

Requests that Congress appropriate monies to eradicate salt cedars from Arizona waterways and develop solutions to control the proliferation of salt cedars with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

History

The salt cedar or tamarisk is a shrub/tree native to Eurasia. It was introduced in the United States as an ornamental plant in the early 1800s. By the 1920s, salt cedars had escaped cultivation and become an ecological threat because their seeds easily travel by wind and water and germinate quickly. The U.S. Geological Survey recognizes the salt cedar as an introduced species with a widespread invasive status in the U.S. Register of Introduced and Invasive Species. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Invasive Species Center also has identified the salt cedar as a terrestrial invasive species.

The salt cedar is 5-20 feet tall and is a habitat generalist that can grow in conditions of high salinity, submergence or drought. A single plant may consume up to 200 gallons of water per day depending on the available water supply, preventing native plants from receiving adequate water. The lack of protein in salt cedars makes them unfit for consumption by wildlife, and their leaves and stems discharge salt into the ground, which can affect the wellbeing of surrounding plants. Nonetheless, salt cedars can be used as nesting sites for birds and provide pollen to honeybees.

There have been several recent efforts to manage and eradicate salt cedars. In 2006, Congress passed the Salt Cedar and Russian Olive Control Demonstration Act, which appropriated $80,000,000 to the Secretary of the Interior to assess and develop management strategies for salt cedars in western states until 2010 (Public Law 109-320). Arizona's Nonnative Vegetation Species Eradication fund was established in 2019 to finance projects to eradicate salt cedars (Laws 2019, Chapter 269). It has received an annual appropriation of $1,000,000 from the state General Fund starting in FY 2020 which will continue through FY 2029 (Laws 2019, Chapter 263). Additionally, the FY 2023 budget appropriated $5,000,000 to eradicate salt cedars along a stretch of the Gila River (Laws 2022, Chapter 313).

Provisions

1. States that the Arizona Legislature urges Congress to appropriate monies to eradicate salt cedars from Arizona waterways and requests the development of solutions by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to control the proliferation of salt cedars.

2. Directs the Arizona Secretary of State to transmit the memorial to the President of the United States, the President of the U.S. Senate, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and each member of Congress from Arizona.

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6. HCM 2006

7. Initials PAB Page 0 House Engrossed

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