The dry brush and rolling tumbleweeds across the dusty unincorporated plains in Pueblo County are creating an extreme fire risk and major safety concerns for its residents.
After receiving a slew of complaints about the dry weeds and brush, the Pueblo County commissioners are considering requiring the removal of weeds and brush in those areas of the county.
The commissioners heard the first reading of the six-page ordinance during their regular Monday meeting. The ordinance will be published in The Pueblo Chieftain this week and the commissioners will address any feedback they receive on the issue before voting for it
“When you have that intermix between open range kind of areas and then the residences, there’s always challenges of some kind. In a desert environment like ours that oftentimes is weeds,” Commission Chairman Terry Hart said.
Hart said a wet year in 2017 grew a lot of weeds and now drought conditions have caused them all to dry up like crazy.
“We need to have the ability to deal with these things, but do it in a delicate way because we are talking about areas that also are heavily agricultural. We don’t want to unnecessarily impact agriculture, but at the same time we do need to protect the safety of everyone else involved,” Hart said.
The ordinance, for now, applies to residential lots, parcels or tracts of land less than 2.5 acres in unincorporated areas of the county. This includes alleys behind and from the sidewalk area in front of properties. The ordinance will not apply to agricultural land.
Plants that ordinarily grow without cultivation, not grown for the purpose of landscaping or food production and plants that are 9 inches or more need to be removed under the ordinance.
Dale Dilulo, who lives on County Farm Road, said the ordinance, as written now, would not address issues he has with a nearby property that exceeds 2.5 acres.
He complained that under the ordinance, he is required to control his weeds, but the owners of a 10-acre property next to him — whom he says do not take care of the land — would not be required to remove weeds.
“Every time the wind blows, the property fills the entire neighborhood with 10 acres of tumbleweeds. … I shouldn’t have to clean up 10 acres every time the wind blows just because they don’t want to pay to keep the weeds down,” Dilulo said.
“It’s not the farmland owners that I am complaining about. It’s the people that buy farmland and they quit farming it and just grow weeds and they don’t live there so they don’t care what happens to it. Everybody that is close to that field now suffers because they are too cheap to take care of their land. If you want to buy a farm you have to take care of it. Otherwise don’t buy it,” Dilulo said. Commissioner Garrison Ortiz, who took a tour of the property, said the commissioners are receptive to Dilulo’s concerns.
Hart said the county will deal with requirements to remove weeds on a complaint basis.
Hart said recent fires across the state and in Pueblo County show how important it is for the county to do its best to avoid those types of fires.
“We are trying to go through it delicately and making sure that we are talking specifically about the type of weeds that are a problem,” Hart said. “It’s going to take a lot of discussions and debate about how to fine-tune this (ordinance).”
Credit: www.chieftain.com
