The Town wants to reassure concerned residents that their herbicide spraying methods are as controlled as possible.

When the town planned to spray the yellow toadflax on the hillside from Crystal Ridge Drive to the Rec Center track last week, some locals voiced their worry of the practice and the possibility of killing native plants in the natural area.

Town of Okotoks parks manager, Christa Michailuck, says the spraying is very selective and helps all native plants in the long run.

"Toadflax is a broad leaf plant, the herbicide will kill toadflax and other broad leaf plants but we do keep the herbicide focused on the patch of toad flax...we do not broadcast spray the whole hillside. So there might be some other broad leaf plants in the patch that will be sacrificed but it's important to control that plant because it is so aggressive it would take over that whole area."

The parks manager adds if the town allowed the toadflax to continue growing it would eventually displace all the native plants in the area.

The parks department has other methods of handling weeds and unwanted plants but in this case, Michailuck says, the removal with herbicide is the only option.

"Toad flax is particularly aggressive and particularly resistant to control through mechanical means. If you pull it it tends to shoot up beside it and keep growing so it's quite a challenging plant and it's a noxious weed and required by law to be controlled."

Michailuck wants to remind residents that the hillside isn't exposed to all the factors it normally would be due to it's location.

"It's important to note that when we are in an urban environment like we are that these hillsides aren't exposed to the same frequency of forest fires that they would naturally receive...Generally speaking when you have a lot of shrubs happening in an area that would normally be grassland it's a sign of over grazing or lack of forest fires so these spraying of little patches of toadflax, there might be some buckbrush or saskatoon that might get sacrificed but it isn't going to degrade this ecosystem from what it should be."

The town has also recently sprayed near the Kinsmen Community Garden, as they were asked to by Healthy Okotoks Coalition to prepare for the expansion.

Glyphosate (Round up) was used to kill the bromegrass so the new gardeners won't have to fight it while trying to plant in their new plots.

The parks department tries to utilize a number of practices for weed management and they encourage locals that are interested in arranging groups for weed pulls to contact them at the horticulture hotline.

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