The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge will now comply with the public input portion of the National Environmental Policy Act in current and future herbicide use proposals as the result of an ongoing civil case filed by Alaska environmental groups, refuge manager Gary Wheeler said Monday.

“We (will) continue to do our pesticide use proposals within the agency, but we would also be writing a public document that could be reviewed and commented upon within the public,” Wheeler said. “We take their comments into consideration as to how and where chemicals might be used on the refuge.”

The case, filed in December 2008 by Alaska Survival (of Talkeetna) and the Alaska Community Action on Toxics (of Anchorage) in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage, argued against the use of herbicides on invasive plants like orange hawkweed in the city of Kodiak, the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge and the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.

Wheeler said the agency will continue to apply herbicides to kill orange hawkweed on Camp Island because the non-native plant is outcompeting native vegetation, affecting them and animals, notably bears and deer.

“We had an entire meadow taken over by orange hawkweed. In doing so, it reduces or eliminates the value of those areas in terms of providing food for wildlife resources,” Wheeler said. “Our viewpoint would be that if we were unable to control the invasive plants, it would be worse for the environment than limited applications of an herbicide to eliminate these invasive species.”

Wheeler said without the herbicide application, “The value of the habitat would be degraded. As a result, we would not be able to support nearly the wildlife that we have on the refuge right now. It would be a sad day for the wildlife as well as a sad day for those who enjoy hunting or wildlife viewing on the refuge.”

In a press release by Alaska Survival, the organization argued that “no studies of the persistence and effects of these (herbicide) chemicals have been conducted in a northern environment similar to Alaska’s and therefore the effects of their use in Alaska is unknown.”

“We don’t know what the effects on the Alaskan environment would be from these chemicals, how long they may last or how they may react in the sub-arctic,” said Alaska Survival’s Judy Price in a statement.

Alaska Survival was started by Price and her husband, longtime Talkeetna homesteader Paul Bratton, who also occasionally practices law, in the 1970s to stop the Alaska Railroad from spraying herbicides on the tracks near their home, according to a 2006 Anchorage Daily News article.

The Alaska Community Action on Toxics, a statewide organization formed in 1997, seeks “to assure justice by advocating for environmental and community health. We believe that everyone has the right to clean air, clean water, and toxic-free food,” according to its Web site.

The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge has been applying herbicides to combat orange hawkweed on Camp Island since 2003. Prior to that, Wheeler said an internal investigation sent to Anchorage and the national office in Washington, D.C., was conducted to see the herbicides would be the best control method.

Their conclusion was that application of herbicides would have negligible impacts on environment.

Blythe Brown, the local invasive species coordinator for Kodiak Soil and Conservation District, was a volunteer in the initial research. Her husband, Bill Pyle, works for the refuge. Brown is also a former biologist with the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in southeast Oregon.

“I know the refuge, and me included, did a lot of research,” she said. “We went through a lot of reviews and technical information … I believe the refuge did their homework and decided on the right course of action.”

Orange hawkweed, which has a northern European origin, was probably first introduced to Kodiak in the 1960s by gardeners who shared it, Brown said. It grows nicely in Kodiak’s summers and requires no care at all but spreads easily and aggressively. She said it is found in all parts of the borough.

including Port Lions, Ouzinkie, Old Harbor.