Weeds are retreating, but worries remain

NAHCOTTA, Wash. -- Three hours from Portland, five from Seattle, Willapa Bay is so quiet you can stand a city block away from an oyster farmer and hear his rubber boots squelch in the mud.

The huge bay, about the area of Portland, is a key stopping point on the Pacific flyway, providing a feeding ground for thousands of migrating birds. Its oysters account for at least a fifth of the U.S. harvest.

It's also home to what is perhaps the most successful West Coast effort against a seemingly invincible invasive plant -- and, not unrelated, to one of the largest government applications of an aquatic herbicide.

Quietly, the bay has become a testing ground for two top environmental challenges: pesticides and noxious weeds.

The eradication project's supporters include The Nature Conservancy, which owns a 7,000-acre forest next to the bay, nearly all the bay's oyster farmers and government scientists who've spent decades trying to kill the creeping cordgrass Spartina alterniflora.
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