Photo: Kochia. © 2020 Delena Norris-Tull
Dick Sackett, Laramie County, Wyoming, interview 2013
[Video interview conducted by Becky McMillen, transcribed by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull. Reviewed & approved by Dick, March 18, 2020.]
[Mr. Sackett retired in May 2013. He was the Laramie County Weed and Pest Supervisor.]
"I was the Laramie County Weed and Pest Supervisor for almost five years. Before that, I was the Crook County Supervisor for 10 years. Crook County is in Northeast Wyoming, in Sundance.
The Laramie County office is in Pine Bluffs. Some of the problems we had in Laramie County were leafy spurge, toadflax, various other weeds. Canada thistle is always a big problem. We have a large city there, Cheyenne. The city takes care of the weeds within their district. We take care of the rest of the County. The western edge of the County is mostly rangeland. The eastern edge, around Pine Bluffs, is mostly farmland, wheat, corn, and sunflowers, with wheat being the major product. The land is circle irrigated and some dry land.
When I was the Supervisor in Crook County, most of the land up there is ranch, and it has the same kind of weed problems. Leafy spurge is probably the big one, and there’s a scattering of Canada thistle and everything else.
Laramie County has very little BLM land. It has a fair amount of Forest Service land, but all on the western edge. Crook County has both.
Laramie County has two railroads, the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The Union Pacific has been pretty easy to work with. We really didn’t do a whole lot with Burlington Northern."
[Becky asked: Did you contract with those entities?]
"No. The only entity we contract with was for the highway spraying. Laramie County has two interstates, 80 and 25. Crook County has I-80. We contracted out to a private contractor to do the spraying along the interstates."
[Becky asked: What changes have you seen over the years, in the law, or in the amount of weeds?]
"They had a big change in the law two or three years ago, to clean things up a little bit.
As far as the weeds, in the dry years, it wasn’t a big problem. In the wet years, Laramie County this year had a big influx of Dalmatian toadflax, which grew up everywhere. All the seeds that had been laying there through the dry years, all germinated."
[Becky asked about bugloss.]
"Viper’s bugloss, blueweed, we spent a lot of dollars on that along the railroad.
We also have some crews that work on leafy spurge, up in the Northeast corner of the County, for the most part. Then we have crews that do the County roads.
We have a lot of areas that do organic farming. So along those areas, we have to be a little special about how we control weeds. Most of those landowners say they’ll take care of their own weeds. Some do, some don’t.
We border Colorado, and Pine Bluffs is on the Nebraska border."
[Becky asked: Are there special challenges by being on the border with other States?]
"Yes. We have a lot of people from other states who want to purchase chemicals from us. Our problem is deciding who gets to cost-share and who doesn’t. We’ve been selling the chemicals to people in other States, but it’s at full cost, rather than at the rate we charge the locals that we cost-share with."
[Becky asked: What did you learn to begin with, that was surprising?]
"That there were so many chemicals out there. I have a degree in entomology. This is the first time in my career that I’ve used my degree, other than during my college career.
I was really interested in biocontrol. We had a really good program up in Crook County, using insects on leafy spurge. It worked really good.
We got biocontrol started in the Cheyenne area. It helped, but the soils are different, and the insects didn’t take off like they did in Crook County. Aphthona nigriscutis and Aphthona lacertosa, the brown and the black beetles, worked really good in Crook County. We had places where we put them in, and within five years, they were hard to find.
We had an airplane we used to distribute the beetles in the remote locations that you couldn’t drive to. We put the insects in cups of about 5000 each, and then we’d load up the back of this little airplane, and we had someone drop them out the window, and we’d GPS their coordinates as we dropped them, up-and-down the Belle Fourche River. In Crook County, we hired a couple of kids from high school.
In Laramie County, we hired up to a dozen, to man the weed spraying in the summer. But we’d lose them in August when school started, either high school or college, but there was still spraying needed in the fall. You get done what you can. One of our summer helpers is now working full-time in Weston County."
[Becky asked: What drew you to work with Weed and Pest?]
"It’s in my line of education. We live on a ranch by Sundance, so the land is important, and taking care of it. On our ranch, we do a lot of weed spraying. We’ve had a lot of catch-up to do since I retired. Since we moved down to Pine Bluffs five years ago, not a lot has been done."
[Becky asked: What’s the most significant changes you’ve seen since you started 15 years ago?]
"The introduction of new chemicals. Tordon was it for a long time. Now, there’s Plateau to treat leafy spurge, and Milestone. Hopefully, soon we’ll have Perspective to treat rangeland. They’ve been saying that chemical is coming for the last three or four years. You can use less of the new chemicals, which makes it more environmentally safe."
[Becky asked: What do you see will be the biggest challenge in your area, in the next few years?]
"Toadflax is going to be the biggest weed problem, probably.
Government regulations are a challenge. Maybe some of the chemicals we use now won’t be available. It takes a long time to get new chemicals through the regulations. Biocontrol insects: It’s hard to get the insects that really work anymore. The regulations slow things down, but they don’t really solve the problem."
[Becky asked: Are there any special programs you wish you’d started earlier in your career?]
"I don’t think so. The programs that we have are running good, and we can keep them going."
[Becky asked: Is there a particular program that you feel has been the most effective?]
"I like the biocontrol programs. They don’t get rid of the weeds. They just make them manageable. And not in all places will the biocontrol work, so in those places, you still have to use chemicals. Biocontrol is the last step, when things are out of hand, such that you have no choices.
EDRR, finding the weeds early, rapid response, is the main goal. That works best.
In Crook County, hound’s-tongue was a problem. We found it a lot in the campgrounds. The stickers would get transported on campers’ clothes or on their dogs."
[Becky asked: What are the steepest challenges you’ve faced?]
"In Laramie County, it’s some of these 40-acre people." [Refer to the interview with Robert Parsons, for details on the challenges of working with landowners with small acreages.]
"In Crook County, it’s the terrain. It’s hard to get around, so there are lots of places for weeds to hang out."
Links to the Wyoming County Interviews:
Dick Sackett, Laramie County, Wyoming, interview 2013
[Video interview conducted by Becky McMillen, transcribed by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull. Reviewed & approved by Dick, March 18, 2020.]
[Mr. Sackett retired in May 2013. He was the Laramie County Weed and Pest Supervisor.]
"I was the Laramie County Weed and Pest Supervisor for almost five years. Before that, I was the Crook County Supervisor for 10 years. Crook County is in Northeast Wyoming, in Sundance.
The Laramie County office is in Pine Bluffs. Some of the problems we had in Laramie County were leafy spurge, toadflax, various other weeds. Canada thistle is always a big problem. We have a large city there, Cheyenne. The city takes care of the weeds within their district. We take care of the rest of the County. The western edge of the County is mostly rangeland. The eastern edge, around Pine Bluffs, is mostly farmland, wheat, corn, and sunflowers, with wheat being the major product. The land is circle irrigated and some dry land.
When I was the Supervisor in Crook County, most of the land up there is ranch, and it has the same kind of weed problems. Leafy spurge is probably the big one, and there’s a scattering of Canada thistle and everything else.
Laramie County has very little BLM land. It has a fair amount of Forest Service land, but all on the western edge. Crook County has both.
Laramie County has two railroads, the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The Union Pacific has been pretty easy to work with. We really didn’t do a whole lot with Burlington Northern."
[Becky asked: Did you contract with those entities?]
"No. The only entity we contract with was for the highway spraying. Laramie County has two interstates, 80 and 25. Crook County has I-80. We contracted out to a private contractor to do the spraying along the interstates."
[Becky asked: What changes have you seen over the years, in the law, or in the amount of weeds?]
"They had a big change in the law two or three years ago, to clean things up a little bit.
As far as the weeds, in the dry years, it wasn’t a big problem. In the wet years, Laramie County this year had a big influx of Dalmatian toadflax, which grew up everywhere. All the seeds that had been laying there through the dry years, all germinated."
[Becky asked about bugloss.]
"Viper’s bugloss, blueweed, we spent a lot of dollars on that along the railroad.
We also have some crews that work on leafy spurge, up in the Northeast corner of the County, for the most part. Then we have crews that do the County roads.
We have a lot of areas that do organic farming. So along those areas, we have to be a little special about how we control weeds. Most of those landowners say they’ll take care of their own weeds. Some do, some don’t.
We border Colorado, and Pine Bluffs is on the Nebraska border."
[Becky asked: Are there special challenges by being on the border with other States?]
"Yes. We have a lot of people from other states who want to purchase chemicals from us. Our problem is deciding who gets to cost-share and who doesn’t. We’ve been selling the chemicals to people in other States, but it’s at full cost, rather than at the rate we charge the locals that we cost-share with."
[Becky asked: What did you learn to begin with, that was surprising?]
"That there were so many chemicals out there. I have a degree in entomology. This is the first time in my career that I’ve used my degree, other than during my college career.
I was really interested in biocontrol. We had a really good program up in Crook County, using insects on leafy spurge. It worked really good.
We got biocontrol started in the Cheyenne area. It helped, but the soils are different, and the insects didn’t take off like they did in Crook County. Aphthona nigriscutis and Aphthona lacertosa, the brown and the black beetles, worked really good in Crook County. We had places where we put them in, and within five years, they were hard to find.
We had an airplane we used to distribute the beetles in the remote locations that you couldn’t drive to. We put the insects in cups of about 5000 each, and then we’d load up the back of this little airplane, and we had someone drop them out the window, and we’d GPS their coordinates as we dropped them, up-and-down the Belle Fourche River. In Crook County, we hired a couple of kids from high school.
In Laramie County, we hired up to a dozen, to man the weed spraying in the summer. But we’d lose them in August when school started, either high school or college, but there was still spraying needed in the fall. You get done what you can. One of our summer helpers is now working full-time in Weston County."
[Becky asked: What drew you to work with Weed and Pest?]
"It’s in my line of education. We live on a ranch by Sundance, so the land is important, and taking care of it. On our ranch, we do a lot of weed spraying. We’ve had a lot of catch-up to do since I retired. Since we moved down to Pine Bluffs five years ago, not a lot has been done."
[Becky asked: What’s the most significant changes you’ve seen since you started 15 years ago?]
"The introduction of new chemicals. Tordon was it for a long time. Now, there’s Plateau to treat leafy spurge, and Milestone. Hopefully, soon we’ll have Perspective to treat rangeland. They’ve been saying that chemical is coming for the last three or four years. You can use less of the new chemicals, which makes it more environmentally safe."
[Becky asked: What do you see will be the biggest challenge in your area, in the next few years?]
"Toadflax is going to be the biggest weed problem, probably.
Government regulations are a challenge. Maybe some of the chemicals we use now won’t be available. It takes a long time to get new chemicals through the regulations. Biocontrol insects: It’s hard to get the insects that really work anymore. The regulations slow things down, but they don’t really solve the problem."
[Becky asked: Are there any special programs you wish you’d started earlier in your career?]
"I don’t think so. The programs that we have are running good, and we can keep them going."
[Becky asked: Is there a particular program that you feel has been the most effective?]
"I like the biocontrol programs. They don’t get rid of the weeds. They just make them manageable. And not in all places will the biocontrol work, so in those places, you still have to use chemicals. Biocontrol is the last step, when things are out of hand, such that you have no choices.
EDRR, finding the weeds early, rapid response, is the main goal. That works best.
In Crook County, hound’s-tongue was a problem. We found it a lot in the campgrounds. The stickers would get transported on campers’ clothes or on their dogs."
[Becky asked: What are the steepest challenges you’ve faced?]
"In Laramie County, it’s some of these 40-acre people." [Refer to the interview with Robert Parsons, for details on the challenges of working with landowners with small acreages.]
"In Crook County, it’s the terrain. It’s hard to get around, so there are lots of places for weeds to hang out."
Links to the Wyoming County Interviews: