Photo: Kochia. © 2020 Delena Norris-Tull
Peter Illoway, Wyoming, interview 2013.
[Video interview conducted by Becky McMillen, transcribed by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull. Reviewed & approved by Peter, March 18, 2020.]
[Peter Illoway was formerly the Wyoming Agronomist, the Wyoming Weed and Pest Control Inspector, and was a Wyoming Legislator.]
"I was the statewide Wyoming Agronomist and the Weed and Pest Control Inspector in the 1960s. After that I went to work for private industry. In 1998, I ran for State Legislature. I retired a year ago from the Legislature after 14 years. I’m now a lobbyist and consultant.
I had some agronomy courses in college. I worked for the USDA for three or four years right after graduation. The USDA wanted to transfer me to Timbuktu. So I went to work for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture as the State Agronomist. Which was a broad title. My job for several years was to work with all the Weed and Pest Districts. Then the Department of Agriculture changed the title to Weed and Pest Control Inspector. I worked for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture until 1972 or 1973.
The State Agronomist supervised the Weed and Pest Districts. I think there were 13 Districts at that time. [This was before the 1973 Wyoming Weed and Pest Control Act formed Districts in all Counties].
The main job was to carry out weed spraying along State Highways and Interstate 80. And we worked with the Weed and Pest Control Inspectors. And then as the Department changed the job title, they could use me to do inspections at various grain elevators, etc. Then my duties became broader.
When I started, in about 1966, highway weed spraying was very important. At that time WYDOT was called the Wyoming Highway Department, and they were very interested in having the Wyoming Department of Agriculture take over highway weed spraying.
We had three trucks that were built to do weed spraying. We hired young folks to do the spraying. When we could, we used Tordon 22K and Tordon 212 on Canada thistle, Russian knapweed, and leafy spurge. I had to approve what we spent and where we spent it. The Highway Department would transfer funds to the Department of Agriculture. I thought it was a very successful program. Spike (Everett Spackman) was my Direct Supervisor. He was an entomologist. He liked the bugs. I tried to work with the weeds.
He took me a lot of places, and gave me a lot of encouragement. He was excellent in trying to teach me how do identify the weeds. We got along very well. I worked with the university folks, Harold Alley, Gary Lee, and Alvin Gale. We had some interesting times together and worked well. I think musk thistle was the first weed I discovered, in Torrington, along an irrigation canal. Harold had never seen it. It was a robust thistle. We thought we’d get on top of it. Well, you don’t just get on top of weeds. It takes a long time.
Somewhere in the Department there are some reports from back in the 1940s, where people said that it won’t take us very long. We won’t need very long to control the Canada thistle or leafy spurge. And here, we’re still fighting them. You just don’t do things fast. It takes a long time. And I give a lot of credit to my successors, who got all the County Weed and Pest Districts going. That’s the only way you’re going to control some of these weeds, by using all the Counties.
I tried to work with the Federal Government. I think George Hittle was one of the first to really get involved in working with the Federal Government, the BLM and the USFS. Just because the weeds are in an area, doesn’t mean the horses or elk haven’t transported weeds up into the National Forests and other Federal lands. You have to get the Federal Agencies involved.
It’s frustrating because you’d like to do more, but money is tight.
I think one of the first places Everett Spackman took me was to meet probably the father of weed and pest control in Wyoming and that was Alvah Elledge. He and his wife lived south of Cody.
Back then the Districts weren’t the entire County, just the irrigated sections. Back then, it was very difficult to get people signed up to form Weed and Pest Districts because they were going to be assessed. I think it was a 1 to 3% tax for weed and pest control. It was particularly challenging to get buy-in from ranchers with large acreages, because of the cost of the assessments.
Back in the 1960s, I can remember one County Agent. I can remember talking to him about leafy spurge. He said, we don’t need a Weed and Pest District here, we just need to fence sheep to leafy spurge, and they’ll eat the leafy spurge and control it. [This ignores the fact that sheep also transport the seeds]. When you had a County Agent who believed that, you knew you’d never convince the landowners, especially the ranchers, in that area. They still have a problem with leafy spurge in that County.
You can see where some County Agents found the right people, and they had good success in forming a Weed and Pest District. There were some wonderful people I worked with that understood why weed and pest control was important. In some other Counties, they ignored the problem. But as soon as a problem broke out, they called the State for help. You had to have people working at the County level to get things done."
[Becky McMillen said that in 1961, there were 21 designated weeds on the State list. She asked Peter about the current status of those weeds.]
"Many of those weeds [from the 1961 list] are still a problem. At that time, some were only in adjacent States, and some of them became a problem in Wyoming later. Communications across state lines were difficult back then. The worst problem was trying to get the Federal Government to help control weeds. You couldn’t work with the Federal Agencies until you had County Weed and Pest Districts across the whole state. It took longer for ranchers, than for farmers, to recognize weeds as a problem. So before the 1973 Weed Act, the Weed and Pest Districts were on irrigated farmland, not ranches."
[Becky asked about control of weeds along railway right-of-ways].
"The railways mainly controlled the weeds with diesel fuel. It was cheap back then. They were concerned with any plant growth along the railways. They were not so concerned about weeds and they were not concerned with the entire right-of-way.
We used to Tordon 22K, then Tordon 212, 2,4,5-T, Atrazine, then AAtrex. We were able to buy Dow products in large quantities. We controlled Russian knapweed well with Tordon.
The Weed and Pest Conference I remember the most was in Thermopolis. There were 98 to 100 people there. There were some of the finest people I ever met that worked in the Weed and Pest Districts, and the Weed and Pest Inspectors, and the University. They worked their butts off to try to make the program work. The Wyoming Board of Agriculture was generally supportive, but less so when you had more ranchers on the Board, rather than farmers.
I was expected to attend as many Weed and Pest District meetings as I could. I tried to educate the District Board Members, and I learned a lot from them. It took a lot of coordination to get the 1973 Weed Act through.
We were careful when spraying around water, but we used to spray leafy spurge near water. But you can’t use chemical product near water now. So leafy spurge is a problem again along Crow Creek in Cheyenne. We used to bring sheep or goats in to control it, but the funding is gone for that program. Some chemicals you can’t buy anymore, probably because we weren’t as careful back then as we should’ve been. Only a couple of chemicals take care of Russian thistle and leafy spurge, but we can’t use them anymore due to environmental concerns. Tordon 22K and 212 did a lot of good but were probably overused. Insect biocontrols were just being thought of when I was State Agronomist."
[Becky asked about control of Russian olive.]
"Back then, Russian olive was planted all over the state. It was planted in shelter belts. Then all of a sudden, it was called a noxious weed. Harold Alley did a lot of work on controlling sagebrush [Note: sagebrush is a native plant].
At that time, there were more chemical companies. Many have either been bought up or merged.
I enjoyed my time with the Wyoming Department of Agriculture."
Links to the Wyoming County interviews:
Peter Illoway, Wyoming, interview 2013.
[Video interview conducted by Becky McMillen, transcribed by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull. Reviewed & approved by Peter, March 18, 2020.]
[Peter Illoway was formerly the Wyoming Agronomist, the Wyoming Weed and Pest Control Inspector, and was a Wyoming Legislator.]
"I was the statewide Wyoming Agronomist and the Weed and Pest Control Inspector in the 1960s. After that I went to work for private industry. In 1998, I ran for State Legislature. I retired a year ago from the Legislature after 14 years. I’m now a lobbyist and consultant.
I had some agronomy courses in college. I worked for the USDA for three or four years right after graduation. The USDA wanted to transfer me to Timbuktu. So I went to work for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture as the State Agronomist. Which was a broad title. My job for several years was to work with all the Weed and Pest Districts. Then the Department of Agriculture changed the title to Weed and Pest Control Inspector. I worked for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture until 1972 or 1973.
The State Agronomist supervised the Weed and Pest Districts. I think there were 13 Districts at that time. [This was before the 1973 Wyoming Weed and Pest Control Act formed Districts in all Counties].
The main job was to carry out weed spraying along State Highways and Interstate 80. And we worked with the Weed and Pest Control Inspectors. And then as the Department changed the job title, they could use me to do inspections at various grain elevators, etc. Then my duties became broader.
When I started, in about 1966, highway weed spraying was very important. At that time WYDOT was called the Wyoming Highway Department, and they were very interested in having the Wyoming Department of Agriculture take over highway weed spraying.
We had three trucks that were built to do weed spraying. We hired young folks to do the spraying. When we could, we used Tordon 22K and Tordon 212 on Canada thistle, Russian knapweed, and leafy spurge. I had to approve what we spent and where we spent it. The Highway Department would transfer funds to the Department of Agriculture. I thought it was a very successful program. Spike (Everett Spackman) was my Direct Supervisor. He was an entomologist. He liked the bugs. I tried to work with the weeds.
He took me a lot of places, and gave me a lot of encouragement. He was excellent in trying to teach me how do identify the weeds. We got along very well. I worked with the university folks, Harold Alley, Gary Lee, and Alvin Gale. We had some interesting times together and worked well. I think musk thistle was the first weed I discovered, in Torrington, along an irrigation canal. Harold had never seen it. It was a robust thistle. We thought we’d get on top of it. Well, you don’t just get on top of weeds. It takes a long time.
Somewhere in the Department there are some reports from back in the 1940s, where people said that it won’t take us very long. We won’t need very long to control the Canada thistle or leafy spurge. And here, we’re still fighting them. You just don’t do things fast. It takes a long time. And I give a lot of credit to my successors, who got all the County Weed and Pest Districts going. That’s the only way you’re going to control some of these weeds, by using all the Counties.
I tried to work with the Federal Government. I think George Hittle was one of the first to really get involved in working with the Federal Government, the BLM and the USFS. Just because the weeds are in an area, doesn’t mean the horses or elk haven’t transported weeds up into the National Forests and other Federal lands. You have to get the Federal Agencies involved.
It’s frustrating because you’d like to do more, but money is tight.
I think one of the first places Everett Spackman took me was to meet probably the father of weed and pest control in Wyoming and that was Alvah Elledge. He and his wife lived south of Cody.
Back then the Districts weren’t the entire County, just the irrigated sections. Back then, it was very difficult to get people signed up to form Weed and Pest Districts because they were going to be assessed. I think it was a 1 to 3% tax for weed and pest control. It was particularly challenging to get buy-in from ranchers with large acreages, because of the cost of the assessments.
Back in the 1960s, I can remember one County Agent. I can remember talking to him about leafy spurge. He said, we don’t need a Weed and Pest District here, we just need to fence sheep to leafy spurge, and they’ll eat the leafy spurge and control it. [This ignores the fact that sheep also transport the seeds]. When you had a County Agent who believed that, you knew you’d never convince the landowners, especially the ranchers, in that area. They still have a problem with leafy spurge in that County.
You can see where some County Agents found the right people, and they had good success in forming a Weed and Pest District. There were some wonderful people I worked with that understood why weed and pest control was important. In some other Counties, they ignored the problem. But as soon as a problem broke out, they called the State for help. You had to have people working at the County level to get things done."
[Becky McMillen said that in 1961, there were 21 designated weeds on the State list. She asked Peter about the current status of those weeds.]
"Many of those weeds [from the 1961 list] are still a problem. At that time, some were only in adjacent States, and some of them became a problem in Wyoming later. Communications across state lines were difficult back then. The worst problem was trying to get the Federal Government to help control weeds. You couldn’t work with the Federal Agencies until you had County Weed and Pest Districts across the whole state. It took longer for ranchers, than for farmers, to recognize weeds as a problem. So before the 1973 Weed Act, the Weed and Pest Districts were on irrigated farmland, not ranches."
[Becky asked about control of weeds along railway right-of-ways].
"The railways mainly controlled the weeds with diesel fuel. It was cheap back then. They were concerned with any plant growth along the railways. They were not so concerned about weeds and they were not concerned with the entire right-of-way.
We used to Tordon 22K, then Tordon 212, 2,4,5-T, Atrazine, then AAtrex. We were able to buy Dow products in large quantities. We controlled Russian knapweed well with Tordon.
The Weed and Pest Conference I remember the most was in Thermopolis. There were 98 to 100 people there. There were some of the finest people I ever met that worked in the Weed and Pest Districts, and the Weed and Pest Inspectors, and the University. They worked their butts off to try to make the program work. The Wyoming Board of Agriculture was generally supportive, but less so when you had more ranchers on the Board, rather than farmers.
I was expected to attend as many Weed and Pest District meetings as I could. I tried to educate the District Board Members, and I learned a lot from them. It took a lot of coordination to get the 1973 Weed Act through.
We were careful when spraying around water, but we used to spray leafy spurge near water. But you can’t use chemical product near water now. So leafy spurge is a problem again along Crow Creek in Cheyenne. We used to bring sheep or goats in to control it, but the funding is gone for that program. Some chemicals you can’t buy anymore, probably because we weren’t as careful back then as we should’ve been. Only a couple of chemicals take care of Russian thistle and leafy spurge, but we can’t use them anymore due to environmental concerns. Tordon 22K and 212 did a lot of good but were probably overused. Insect biocontrols were just being thought of when I was State Agronomist."
[Becky asked about control of Russian olive.]
"Back then, Russian olive was planted all over the state. It was planted in shelter belts. Then all of a sudden, it was called a noxious weed. Harold Alley did a lot of work on controlling sagebrush [Note: sagebrush is a native plant].
At that time, there were more chemical companies. Many have either been bought up or merged.
I enjoyed my time with the Wyoming Department of Agriculture."
Links to the Wyoming County interviews: