Kansas town destroys wildlife refuge, arrests man who tried to protect it | Opinion
.JPG "Daniel Wallach stands in front of what had been a field of wildflowers at Birdhouse Farm, until the city of Stafford mowed them down three weeks ago.")
A sign at the edge of town reads “Stafford: Gateway to the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.”
Ironic, isn’t it, that the city government has just destroyed a budding wildlife refuge within its own borders and arrested a young man for trying to protect it.
The place is called Birdhouse Farm and it’s an effort by owner Daniel Wallach to establish a six-acre prairie nature experience, experimental farm and bed-and-breakfast for bird watchers who come to visit the Quivira sanctuary, about 10 miles northeast of Stafford as the sandhill crane flies.
But what was a thriving field of wildflowers and other native plant life a month ago is now a barren swath of stubble and 3-inch sticks poking out of the ground like a bed of nails.
In the name of weed control, the city came onto the property about three weeks ago when no one was there and mowed down dozens of young trees and berry bushes, along with wildflower plants bearing thousands of seeds that Wallach and his assistants had been planning to harvest and sell.
One of those assistants, Tanner Wycoff, is currently facing aggravated assault charges for trying to defend the property.
The second time someone came on the property and started mowing over experimental gardens, along with sawhorses and lumber, Wycoff chased him off waving a brush knife.
There was no indication the mystery mower man had been hired by the city — and two weeks before, the police chief had promised Wallach there would be no more city-ordered mowing on the property until after a council hearing scheduled for Monday.
But 15 minutes after the confrontation, police arrived and took Wycoff to jail for several hours until his mother and his father, who’s a Stafford County commissioner, could put up $20,000 cash bail.
All this, supposedly over some common weeds in a town that’s full of them? It doesn’t make sense.
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Wallach said the city told him the reason for the carnage done to his property was to control burr ragweed, which is classified as a noxious weed.
Wallach concedes there were small patches of it here and there, which he and Wycoff been working to get rid of since the city sent its first warning letter in May.
But the city mowing down everything was like using dynamite to kill a mouse. And it actually made the problem worse by scattering burr ragweed seeds all over the place, Wallach said.
Since Wallach purchased the property in 2021 — the mayor lives just to the north and also made a bid for the land and 100-year-old house — dealing with the city has been a Kafka-esque nightmare.
First, it was chickens. Wallach had a flock of 10 hens and a rooster until the city informed him that local ordinance limits chickens to six hens to a property, no roosters. He has six acres and asked if he could get a variance, but no dice.
Then the city double-charged him on a utility bill; the city denied responsibility and it took two weeks to get a refund.
City officials are mostly silent about the destruction they wrought in the latest battle of Birdhouse Farm.
The mayor didn’t return a phone message. The city administrator punted questions to the city attorney. He said the city was enforcing its mowing ordinance, but had no comment beyond that.
As justifications go, it’s about as flimsy as they come. You don’t have to look hard to find noxious weeds all over Stafford.
So why were Wallach and his property singled out?
He blames politics.
For the last several years, there’s been an ongoing water war between the Quivira refuge, which depends on having adequate water in its ponds and marshes to support the bird population, and farmers who want the same water for their crops.
Quivira’s water rights take precedence, and there are many in Stafford who resent that, along with anyone perceived as being pro-bird, which Wallach inarguably is.
Also, it’s a very conservative town, so there’s a generic resistance to anything that smacks of environmentalism, Wallach said.
“It never ceases to amaze me how the environment got stuck as a political pawn,” Wallach said. “Now more than ever, people who care about the environment are viewed as left-wing ideologues. And it’s just nonsense.”
Wallach’s not some over-idealistic environmental dilletante and neither is Wycoff. They’re business people trying to leverage Kansas prairie land into something profitable.
Their ongoing experiments include research on beneficial insects that are vital to the ecosystem, which can also be processed as protein supplements for pet food; and native edible mushrooms, which Birdhouse Farm grows and taught a class on.
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Wycoff had three years of college biology in Colorado before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and he came home. He’s been working with Wallach in exchange for a percentage ownership of Birdhouse Farm when the business gets off the ground.
Wallach is the former eight-year executive director of a nonprofit organization that worked with the Department of Energy to rebuild Greensburg as a model community for environmental efficiency, after a tornado leveled the town in 2007.
Now, Greensburg is 100% wind and solar powered, offers free electric-car charging for tourists crossing the state, and has the highest percentage of buildings in America with LEED certification — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Greensburg still faces the challenges common to all small Kansas towns, but it has foresight and it has hope.
Stafford, meanwhile, feels like a town on death watch.
The population has declined more than 30% in the last 30 years, from 1,300 to 900 and change; the Main Street business district has about as many vacant spaces as occupied ones, and the dirt roads on the outskirts are less teeth-rattling to drive on than the paved streets downtown.
Wallach said Stafford is “on the way to becoming a ghost town,” and he’s hoping to help reverse that.
“One of my focuses from the beginning has been to engage young people from the area, because the few who are left, the only way you’re going to get them to stay is if you have a vision that gives them hope, a vision that they feel they can be a part of,” he said.
Given the shape that Stafford’s in, one would think the city would try to help a small business that’s attempting to bring a little nature tourism and commerce to town, rather than trying to wipe it out.
One would think that, wouldn’t one?
This story was originally published August 11, 2023 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Kansas town destroys wildlife refuge, arrests man who tried to protect it | Opinion."
