The board chair of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District says a funding stream for invasive plant control from the province desperately needs to be continued.

Ken Gillis says the Ministry of Transport had contributed up to $250,000 in each of the past three years to treat invasive plants along highways, but that funding stream is set to expire in the spring.

“I know this year, the highways portion that we got, we were directed pretty much to concentrate on the Coquihalla, and God knows the Coquihalla needed treatment badly enough. But most other highways or roads throughout the region have been neglected so that we could focus on the Coquihalla,” he says.

Gillis says the funding provided in the past three years ideally needs to be at least quadrupled, as there are 5,600 kilometres of highways within the TNRD.

“I was told just the other day, the cost of treatment on the Coquihalla because of the traffic control that’s required, is $4,500 dollars per kilometre. That should pretty well tell you how far $200,000 bucks would go,” he says.

“The expansion of weeds has just been rampant, and it’s really quite frightening. This is a pretty big problem that most people don’t realize is there, and it’s really quite desperate. We’ll lose our grasslands if we don’t get busy and start controlling these invaders.”