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Tamarisk plants cover the site of the lost town of St. Thomas near Lake Mead Thursday, February 28, 2008. Because of a fast-growing taproot, tamarisk draws down the water table, preventing other plants' roots from reaching the soil moisture. View photo »
Nicholas Rice, an environmental biologist with the Environmental Monitoring and Management Division of the Southern Nevada Water Authority stands among the invasive tamarisk plants that grow in abundance along the Las Vegas Wash. Rice has helped to remove 200 acres of tamarisk from around the wash and revegetate the area with native species. View photo »
A blooming tamarisk plant, which grow in abundance along the Las Vegas Wash in Clark County Wetlands Park near Pabco Weir. As tamarisk plants have become increasingly more prevalent around the wash, there is less room for native species to grow. View photo »
A tamarisk plant, which grow in abundance along the Las Vegas Wash in Clark County Wetlands Park near Pabco Weir in Las Vegas. View photo »
A Desert Broom plant, which is native along the Las Vegas Wash. As tamarisk plants have become increasingly more prevalent around the wash, there is less room for native species to grow. View photo »
A tamarisk branch. Because of a fast-growing taproot, tamarisk draws down the water table, preventing other plants' roots from reaching the soil moisture. View photo »
The Las Vegas Wash flows just past the Pabco Weir in Clark County Wetlands Park in Las Vegas. View photo »
Nicholas Rice, an environmental biologist with the Environmental Monitoring and Management Division of the Southern Nevada Water Authority studies the leaves of a Sandbar Willow, right, and a Gooding Willow, two native species that grow along the Las Vegas Wash. View photo »
Adult Diorhabda elongata leafbeetle (about 5 mm long) on saltcedar flower buds. It is this beetle's selective appetite for tamarisk that makes it so well suited to the fight. Scientists hope the beetle will help control the invasive plant throughout the West. View photo »
Beetles on a tamarisk tree. View photo »
Processing collected diorhabda palisade beetles. View photo »
Saltcedar beetles being released onto tamarisk trees. View photo »
Scientists observe tamarisk defoliation along the Colorado River. View photo »
Sun, Mar 23, 2008 (2 a.m.)
A beetle’s selective appetite for tamarisk trees makes it well suited to fight the invasive plant throughout the West. Up and down the Colorado River the tamarisk now consumes as much as 325 billion gallons of water a year. That’s more water than is used the entire population of the Las Vegas Valley.
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