Gloria Cristelli, representing Southeastern Vermont Watershed Alliance, will present a workshop on Japanese knotweed on Saturday, June 12th at 10 a.m. Newfane and beyond is being overtaken by this highly invasive plant.

Gloria will present essential facts and show how this plant can destroy roads (look along the roadways), foundations to buildings, leach fields (look at Newfane's Town Office), and lower the price of your homes.

We'll take a short walking tour from the library to see knotweed, and you'll see a couple of approaches to curbing its growth.

It's essential to the well being of our community to knock knotweed back. Large sections of our riverbanks are eroding away because of this invasion. (Look behind WW Building, ) Our water quality and your water recreation will be affected unless we each "Adopt a Patch" and knock it back!

Japanese knotweed might be pretty when it flowers, it might provide pollen for bees, it can be cooked, pickled, and made into fertilizer, but it is so invasive that these positive aspects of knotweed cannot in any sense outweigh its destructive nature. It doesn't belong in our environment.