GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — A problem growing in a Green Bay park is becoming part of its solution. On Make a Difference Day, neighbors are turning something harmful into something helpful by repurposing an invasive species into nutrients for native plants.
Conservation Corps Coordinator Maria Otto says common and glossy buckthorn has invaded many Wisconsin parks.
"It doesn't allow for native trees or shrubs or other flowers, other seeds to germinate or grow," Otto explained.
When cut down and burned through a special process, though, the harmful species transforms into a soil amendment called biochar.
"It creates, really, charcoal pieces from the buckthorn," said Otto, "and that charcoal acts as a sponge for water and nutrients."
Volunteers filled John Muir Park Saturday to clear buckthorn from the site of a future nature trail.
"I didn't know it was an invasive species, and supposedly we have it all in our yard," said Heather Butkiewicz, a volunteer from the Milwaukee area.
Butkiewicz and her husband volunteered because they want public parks to remain healthy and accessible.
"I think that's something that makes Wisconsin really unique is that we have a lot of great parks systems," Butkiewicz stated.
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Keeping buckthorn out of those parks requires year-round work. Without that kind of continual effort, the shrub would take over.
"We would lose a lot of the species that we have," Otto noted.
That's why Conservation Corps members like Otto say every helping hand in buckthorn's removal makes a positive difference.
"Every single person that comes out to volunteer is really just taking us one step closer to that final goal," said Otto.
Biochar made from invasive buckthorn helped with the planting of more than 100 trees in the city this year alone. To date, the Green Bay Conservation Corps has cleared 300 acres of buckthorn with the help of volunteers.
