By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The Hays Parks Department has been fielding a lot of phone calls recently from residents asking why the city isn’t mowing waterways in town.
The Parks Department has changed its maintenance practices for water drainage ditches–areas including Chetolah Draw, Skyline Draw, Anthony Draw, Canal Draw and Lincoln Draw–according to Jeff Boyle, Director of Parks.
The change is related to the new municipal separate stormwater system permit recently issued by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Hays is required to improve the quality of water leaving the city through stormwater runoff.
The city lies within the Big Creek watershed, which is considered ‘impaired’ due to elevated levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, sediment and bacteria.
“The city of Hays is a significant contributor to the impairment as noted in stormwater runoff samples,” Boyle said.
One of the most cost-effective methods in reducing these impairments is the use of densely vegetated drainage channels–a program known as ‘no-mow.’
The city is mowing these drainage areas only as necessary to control annual weedy vegetation.
“The goal of this type of maintenance is to provide native vegetation growth, reduce erosion and help clean the water leaving the city of Hays,” Boyle pointed out.
The process takes time to become a more natural, environmental approach to the drainage areas.
“The tall vegetation slows the water down, allowing the sediment and the ‘undesirables’ to settle out and be taken care of by Mother Nature in the ditches,” he explained.
Some areas have been really overgrown, thanks to the “unexpected 6.5 inches of rain in May–in a typical year, the vegetation wouldn’t be quite as tall and dense as it is right now–but for the most part, the program is working. We will be doing a little bit of touch-up here and there promoting those native grasses.
“As we move forward, ecological succession will take over and we’ll get these native plants that we want–the desirable type weeds and grasses–and they’ll be beautiful areas,” Boyle said.
In some parks, ‘no-mow’ is also being done in areas where there little to no activity by people, as well as on slopes.
“No-mow doesn’t mean we will never mow an area. It will be mowed on occasion,” Boyle stressed.
“The proper way to do most areas is a fall mowing. That way the native naturalized species have had the opportunity to produce seed, the grass can be mowed off and the seed will drop into place, adding to a more dense native grass population. That is the intent of the no-mow program,” he added.