WSDA Gearing Up To Fight Spartina Again

The Washington State Department of Agriculture is preparing for another year of trying to eradicate an aggressive invasive cordgrass weed.  Starting June 1st, WSDA-led survey and eradication efforts for Spartina will occur in several areas around Grays Harbor, Hood Canal, Willapa Bay, the Puget Sound, the north and west sides of the Olympic Peninsula, the San Juan Islands and near the mouth of the Columbia River.  Department of Ag says this year, crews will focus on Spartina spreading into important restoration projects in the north Puget Sound.  

Since 1995, WSDA has served as the lead state agency for Spartina eradication, facilitating the cooperation of local, state, federal and tribal governments; universities; interested groups and private landowners.  This cooperative effort located and treated over 21,000 individual Spartina plants last year.  WSDA said their Spartina eradication effort has been highly effective, reducing infestations from a high of more than 9,000 total acres in 2003 to 6.7 total acres in 2024.  WSDA said the effort has successfully eradicated Spartina at 76 sites, however significant work remains to be done. The remaining 6.7 acres are spread over 126 sites — meaning 62% of Washington’s 202 infestations are not yet eradicated.

Stopping Cordgrass

“Our goal is to eradicate Washington’s remaining Spartina infestations, protecting important habitat for salmon, waterfowl and shellfish,” said Chad Phillips, WSDA’s Spartina Program Coordinator. “The Spartina eradication program protects our state’s most productive estuaries and shoreline habitats. This year, with our project partners, we will continue the challenging work of finding and removing the thousands of Spartina plants that remain in the Puget Sound and along Washington’s coast.”

Commonly known as cordgrass, Spartina can disrupt the ecosystems of native saltwater estuaries. It outcompetes native vegetation and converts ecologically healthy mudflats and estuaries into solid Spartina monocultures. As a result, important habitat for salmon, forage fish, invertebrates, shorebirds and waterfowl are lost, the threat of flooding increases and the state’s shellfish industry is negatively impacted.

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