Back in the late 80’s my Dad and I were driving out to the City of San Bernardino. My sister had joined the Army and she was briefly stationed out near there. I don’t really remember much from the trip, but two moments stick out in my memory:
1. Waking up in the backseat baking in the hot sun and feeling impossibly thirsty
2. Spotting my first honest-to-god tumbleweed.
I remember seeing it out the car window, watching it roll and bounce down the highway. I couldn’t believe it. I thought those things only existed in cartoons and westerns.
Now that I live in the hi-desert, I see them all the time. One night driving home Highway 62, I swear I saw a tumbleweed wait for the light at Paloma to change before rolling across. It even stayed inside it’s lane.
Icon of the west, invader from the east
If you are unlucky, you’ve had tumbleweeds growing around you or your neighbor’s property. Salsola tragus is also known as Prickly Russian thistle, and even better known as tumbleweed — an invasive thorny bush that is thought to have arrived in South Dakota in the late 1870’s when farmers were planting Russian flaxseed.
The bushy plant is briefly green and edible to some animals before it quickly dries out and dies, detaching itself from the root and hitching a ride on any passing wind to spread thousands of spiky painful seeds along its route. And like many in America in the 1800’s, the tumbleweeds headed west to California where they have taken over many native landscapes.
Norman and the neighborhood tumbleweeds
Every spring when the winds pick up, Norman comes home to his place in Yucca Valley to a pile of problems in and around his yard. If you drive north on Balsa Avenue past the Stator Bros. and keep an eye to your left, you’ll see the source of Norman’s grief. A 48 acre property just on the other side of the road that looks like a nature preserve for invasive plants. All the famous ones are here: Sahara mustards, London rocket, red brohm, and hundreds of tumbleweeds.
Every year when the winds begin to pick up, those tumbleweeds break loose in the wind and head across the street and stack up on Norman’s house and his neighbors fences, yards and roofs.
Norman isn’t a stranger to tumbleweeds. He’s lived in this house since 2013, and before that Apple Valley where he says tumbleweeds would blow through but never in this amount.
On the day I visited Norman’s neighborhood, it was one of the first days before the big wind storm kicked up last week. We drove around the neighborhood and he showed me fences and other things that people have put in to try and stop the annual tumbleweed migration from the 48-acre empty lot, which butts up against the Yucca Valley Airport.
He says it can take a couple of hours to clean up the mess of tumbleweeds after a wind storm. Burning all of the tumbleweeds still leaves seeds by the thousands which is a common problem with invasive weed eradication. The very act of eliminating them causes more each year, and since 2013 Norman has had to deal with the disposal of his neighbor’s invasive plants.
Invasive species invades everywhere
Norman has an impressive garden in his backyard, and he walked me through some raised beds where he had planted kale, cilantro, parsley and collard greens.
That garden was enclosed in a fence inside his backyard, because tumbleweeds make their way back there, too. He showed me photos of how tumbleweeds will stack up on the fences almost like a ramp, launching the spiky nuisance into the air and landing everywhere. A fig tree right outside Norman’s kitchen window looked like it was decorated with tumbleweeds.
I first heard about Norman’s issue during public comments at the January 20th Yucca Valley Town Council meeting where he asked the Town Council to come take a look at the property. He says that Councilmember Jeff Drozd has stopped by to take a look, and Norman made a follow-up comment at the last Town Council meeting as well.
Property owner unknown
The empty piece of land that is the source of all the weed-related frustration is zoned industrial and is currently up for sale. A “For Sale” real estate sign went up on the property recently but the company never returned my calls. Norman says that after years of dealing with the issue and outreach to the investor who owns the property, he isn’t very optimistic that someone will maintain the land while it remains up for sale.
Norman is continuing to talk to the City but he said he’s reached out to Code Compliance multiple times without any luck.
Public Nuisances
Yucca Valley’s Town Code has a section in it that seems to address the very issue Norman and his neighbors face each year. Under Chapter 6 titled “The Abatement of Public Nuisance,” the Town Code declares:
“It is unlawful and is hereby declared a nuisance for any person owning, leasing, renting, occupying, charged with the management of or having charge or possession of any property in the town to maintain or fail to maintain the property in such a manner that any of the following conditions are present:
A. Garbage, graffiti, infectious and related wastes and odors, junk, polluted water, rubbish or unsightly property.
B. Improper or illegal deposit of rubbish, garbage, junk or weeds, and infectious and related wastes and odors, including the deposit in or onto the surface of the ground or in, on or around any structure or into a lake, river, stream or flood control channel.”
The fire hazards that tumbleweeds create also falls under San Bernardino County’s Fire Hazard Abatement (FHA) Program, where the County will do a survey of a property and issue warning and fines if a property isn’t cleaned up.
Until the Town, County or property owner responds to the issue it’s up to Norman and his neighbors to keep the tumbling tumbleweeds at bay – a job that only costs them time, money and frustration.
