What is the urgency in dealing with tamarisk (why now)?
Unfortunately, tamarisk has displaced native vegetation on approximately 1.6 million acres of land in the Western United States and continues to spread. It is also a phreatophyte (or a plant that mines the water table). Studies have shown that a mature tamarisk can uptake nearly 200 gallons of water a day. Although native trees in wet riparian areas can use more or less the same amount of water, they do not grow in as densely as the tamarisk. Due to this, the West is probably losing from 2- 4.5 million acre-feet of water per year because of tamarisk. This is enough water to supply more than 20 million people with water for one year or to irrigate over 1,000,000 acres of land.
