Ponoka County is preparing for the Weed Control Act that will be coming to the County once again and are gearing up to eliminate weeds and keeping them from spreading to fields.
The Act is a provincial legislation that will start on May 1 and continue through to August or September.
The County of Ponoka is bound by the WCA and Shayne Steffen manager of agricultural service, along with three active inspectors and an assistant field manager will be helping enforce this act to protect the county.
“It’s a provincial legislation that protects agriculture from the explosion of weeds,” said Steffen. “Every municipality is bound to hire inspectors.”
The County will be looking at noxious and restricted weeds.
“Noxious and restricted weeds are killed,” said Steffen. “There are not too many restricted weeds and if we find them they will be eradicated.”
The County will be implementing the WCA and will also take to the sides of the roads. The County will be spraying 2,200 miles of land which includes the ditches on both sides of the road.
The County will be starting in May and will be looking at the weeds that flower. The inspectors will also be going back to any other spots that have been a problem in the past to make sure it is not still a bad spot.
The WCA is a significant project for Ponoka County and they will do their best to cover as much as possible.
“In the county we do enforce our agriculture lands,” said Steffen, “It’s a fairly large task, there’s about 770,000 acres of land in Ponoka County and we can’t really get to everyone in one year,” said Steffen. “We’ll work with people as much as we can.”
The County will also be renting out a skidmount sprayer and small backpack sprayers which can be picked up at the County of Ponoka office.
For more information contact Ponoka County at (403) 783-3333.