MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Biologist builds consensus to fight waterweed
Pulling 15 agencies together, Sears forged plan to beat back waterweed clogging laguna, harboring mosquitoes

Article published Jan 17, 2005

By CAROL BENFELL, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT



A fast-growing, mosquito-loving, yellow-flowered waterweed that is clogging vast stretches of the Laguna de Santa Rosa may finally have met its match.

The weed, Ludwigia, has become a public health concern as well as an environmental woe because it shelters mosquitoes that carry West Nile, a virus that can sicken and kill people, animals and birds.

Its nemesis is Anna Sears, 40, research director of the nonprofit Laguna Foundation, who pulled together some 15 federal, state and local agencies on a plan to beat back the Ludwigia until it is no longer a threat.

"I think Dr. Sears has been a pivotal person in getting all the different agencies on the same page and pulling them in the same direction," said west county Supervisor Mike Reilly, whose district includes the laguna. "Hopefully, with her efforts, we will be attacking the problem on the ground this summer."

Sears, a self-acknowledged late bloomer, opted out of higher education when she graduated from high school and worked as a carpenter.

But at 28, married and with two children, she was ready to make up for lost time, she said.

Sears studied plant biology at Santa Rosa Junior College, then transferred to obtain a bachelor's degree from Sonoma State University. Armed with a National Science Foundation fellowship, she went on to earn her postgraduate degree in population biology from UC Davis in January 2004.

Three months later, she accepted the research director's job at the Laguna Foundation and confronted a yellow-petaled time bomb.

The 15-agency Ludwigia task force had been meeting for more than a year, working against the day that West Nile virus would arrive in Sonoma County.

The agencies knew that mosquito populations were skyrocketing amidst the dense Ludwigia mats, increasing the risk of the disease.

But no course of action had emerged in the face of unknown costs, threats of environmental lawsuits and an arduous permit process.

"A lot of people were involved and concerned about it," Sears said. "There just wasn't someone to take the leadership role."

In August, the first Sonoma County birds died of West Nile virus.

In September, Reilly told the task force he wanted a plan. Now.

Sears took it on. In the following months, she spent hundreds of hours sending e-mails and meeting one on one with agency heads and university researchers seeking the best method and the best timing for an attack on the plant pest.

"Everyone was eager to share information, and this allowed them to do it in a low-key way," Sears said.

As Sears' e-mails flew, and as agencies joined the ever-growing loop of information, a consensus began to build.

On Oct. 20, in the shortest meeting the task force had ever held, the agencies agreed to short-term hand applications of herbicides, physical removal of plant mass, monitoring and long-term restoration of the laguna ecosystem to make it less hospitable to the weed.

Grants are now being sought for the estimated $1.4 million cost of the five-year plan.

Sears says the credit should go to Sonoma County's can-do attitude and its spirit of working collaboratively.

"In a lot of places in the country, people are really struggling," Sears said. "This community was able to come together to develop some really positive solutions."