A little bit
of thistle and a little bit of that
Youth
Conservation Corps members Vanessa Lopez, left, and Savannah Brown work
Thursday with other youth to pull musk thistle from the fileds and roadside
ditches near the Gallup Sports Complex and fitness center. (Photo by Jeff
Jones/Independent)
By Pamela G. Dempsey
Staff Writer
The
musk thistle is a noxious weed that is non-native to the Southwest
and spreads rapidly, absorbing the available water and choking
out other plants. The plant is spread only through scattering seed,
and one plant can scatter as many as 20,000 seeds. (Photo by Jeff
Jones/Independent) |
GALLUP — They are prickly, purple, and a producer of
many seeds, but hundreds found their way to the bottom of plastic garbage
bags as the
city's Youth Conservation Corps tackled the Musk Thistle growth near
the Sports Complex on Thursday.
"These are bad because they kill all the natural vegetation," said
Derrick Montaro, 16. "They also take more water than natural vegetation."
The group of kids are part of a summer-long youth employment program overseen
by the city to work on projects such as trash pickup, yard work, and improve
hiking trails. The city's program, in effect now for three years, is geared
to help kids make a little extra money, stay out of trouble, and keep Gallup
more
attractive. The kids are employed from May until August.
"It helps the community and has Gallup looking better," said Marcus
Teseny, their supervisor.
The kids speculate that the garden of thistles near the Sports Complex most
likely came from seeds off of bales of hay.
"People want to see more stuff besides weeds," said Vanessa Lopez,
14, another corps member.
Savanah Brown, 17, whose been on the job a little more than a week, said
her mother made her join.
"But I'm learning a lot about vegetation and how to build things," Brown
said.
The Youth Conservation Corps marked the Pyramid trail in Red Rock Park last
year and the High-Desert trail in Gamerco.
Teseny said projects the corps complete help promote tourism in Gallup and
attempt to attract more visitors.
The children who make up the corps would "most likely" be in trouble
if they weren't working for the city, he said.
"We hope they don't spend their money on sex, drugs, or rap music," Teseny
said. |
Friday
July 2, 2004
Selected
Stories:
Liquor
laws broken every day at city golf course
Bluewater Lake has dead woman walking
Couple drops out of the sky into Cubero
A little bit of thistle and a little
bit of that
Fort
Defiance man wins 'Buy Navajo' challenge
Deaths |
