At Clement Waters Retreat at Gregory Ridge, we heal and protect the forest for everyone who relies on it. When tackling aggressive invasive species like bush honeysuckle and Callery (Bradford) pear, many land managers rely heavily on systemic chemical herbicides.

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While avoiding these chemicals requires significantly more physical labor and years of diligent follow-up work from our team, our project maintains a strict zero-herbicide policy.

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We choose a 100% manual extraction approach, using methods like root docking and continuous mechanical cutting, for three critical reasons:

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1. Protecting Our Foragers and Community

This forest is a living, shared resource. Members of our community regularly forage in these woods for wild mushrooms, berries, and edible undergrowth plants. Applying long-lasting systemic chemicals to the soil or stumps introduces an unacceptable risk of environmental exposure to the people we are working to serve. We refuse to compromise the safety of our neighbors or the purity of the wild food harvested here.

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2. Defending Our Vulnerable Karst Topography and Creek

Our restoration site sits on a downward slope leading directly into a riparian creek corridor. Furthermore, our region is defined by unique karst topography—an underground landscape of porous limestone, sinkholes, and subterranean streams.
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the recommended invasive herbicides warned against use in riparian zones before federal regulations were changed in ways that have given chemical companies looser notification options over the past ten years.

Chemicals applied on this forest site do not stay put. They have been found to be released by the latent root systems of killed plants. Application mistakes can lead to toxins leaching rapidly into groundwater systems where they cannot break down via sunlight. Once underground, these persistent compounds travel through hidden cave networks and emerge unexpectedly downstream, threatening aquatic life and public water systems.

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3. Ensuring Volunteer Safety and Long-Term Health

Our work is powered entirely by the incredible energy of community volunteers. Even with precise application methods like hand-painting stump cambium layers, human error is inevitable in rugged terrain. Many modern forestry chemicals carry strict label warnings regarding groundwater contamination and reproductive health risks that can span generations. We believe that protecting the health of the hands doing the work is just as important as protecting the trees.

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What This Means for Our Future

Choosing manual extraction means our battle against invasive species is a marathon, not a sprint. Without chemicals, treated stumps will aggressively try to resprout. Our volunteers must return to the same sites every few weeks to cut back new growth, slowly starving the invasive root systems over multiple seasons.

It is hard, physical work—but it is the only way to ensure that when we finally plant our new native trees, they are sinking their roots into soil and water that is completely clean, safe, and truly restored.