THE PLANT THAT WON'T DIE ARUNDO CROWDING CREEKS, WETLANDS.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

A tropical plant that can grow 2 inches a day is taking over the creeks and waterways of Southern California, confounding experts who have tried poisoning it and chopping it down - only to see it sprout again in just weeks.

With its thick canes, Arundo donax can clog flood channels, change the temperature of streams and crowd out native flora and fauna. Thick bunches of the bamboo-like reed can suck up six times more water than native plants and the mere mention of the weed elicits frustrated groans from ecologists and environmentalists.

``It's our No. 1 most-hated weed,'' said Ray Smith, chief of the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner's Weed Hazard and Pest Bureau. ``An area that may have had dozens of native species is now reduced to just arundo.''

Wiping out arundo is a difficult, time-consuming and expensive task - one that hasn't always been well-coordinated and well-funded.

Angeles National Forest ecologists have $300,000 to take down arundo on a 10-acre stretch of Big Tujunga Canyon. They are in the first year of the five-year project.

Project manager Harry Scott initially planned to eradicate arundo from this vital river that feeds the Tujunga Wash and eventually the Los Angeles River, where rare patches of unpaved waterway are inundated with the tropical cane plant.

However, six months after Forest Service crews hacked thick thatches with chain saws and dumped herbicide on the stumps to stunt new growth, three-foot shoots have sprouted.

``I thought eradication was realistic. I wasn't aware how resilient this stuff is,'' Scott said during a recent tour of Big Tujunga Canyon.

Arundo was planted in Los Angeles in the 1800s by Spaniards, who used the sturdy weed as roof thatch. The weed is now found across the nation in marshy, riparian landscapes and occasionally planted for erosion control.

In the past decade, however, arundo has become the most despised weed in coastal Southern California, in part because local governments and environmentalists have a new-found passion for protecting the remaining watersheds, creeks and rivers, which are often overrun with weeds, Smith said.

Arundo will be added to the state's list of noxious weeds later this summer, a move that acknowledges the problem but won't make much difference in the fight to remove it, Smith said. Much of the eradication projects have come from local groups.

In Santa Clarita, the Proposition 13 water bond allots $1.5 million to remove arundo along the Santa Clara River. In Orange County, local governments have spent more than $20 million to destroy the weed on the Santa Ana River watershed.

In the Sepulveda Basin, the Army Corps of Engineers spent $100,000 to bulldoze the weed from 10 acres along the Los Angeles River.

In Big Tujunga Canyon, where the Forest Service is working, stands of arundo reach 30 feet tall and have taken over the narrow river. The weed crowds out the native trees and plants where threatened and endangered birds, such as the least Bell's vireo and southwestern willow flycatcher would make their nests. The thirsty weed drains the river, taking water away from the fragile populations of Santa Ana suckers and Southwestern arroyo toads.

``It's made certain areas unusable,'' Scott said. ``It out-competes the native flora and the insects and birds that depend on that flora have to go someplace else.''

The Forest Service will continue cutting arundo in the fall and must keep an eye on regrowth for five more years. A weed like arundo doesn't go down easily.

The handy plant used by early Spanish settlers now threatens some of the region's most precious land, Scott said. So he was appalled when people in Florida recently talked to him about planting arundo to grow, cut and burn in biomass electricity plants. His reply?

``What makes sense in one period doesn't always make sense in the long run.''

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Harry Scott, above, of the U.S. Forest Service examines a large stand of arundo, below, in the Big Tujunga River in the Angeles National Forest.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer