The Russian olive tree doesn’t mess around.
It grows aggressively, choking out native plants. It weaves a dense web of branches armed with sharp thorns — inhospitable territory for wildlife and humans alike. And it produces more than enough seeds to invite all its friends.
“So, when you started with one tree, all of a sudden you have 100 trees. Then all of a sudden you have 1,000 trees, and then you have 10,000 trees,” said Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Botanist Christine Prins.
“Then after a while, that's the only tree you have.”
That happened along southern Utah’s Escalante River throughout the 20th century. The destructive invader took hold and eventually overran parts of the Colorado River tributary.
Bill Wolverton saw it first-hand.
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Now retired, he became a National Park Service ranger here in 1988, drawn by the Escalante’s captivating labyrinth of red rock canyons. But the landscape he loved was under attack.
“It was completely engulfing the trail,” he said as he motioned toward a section of riverbank the trees had overwhelmed. “It was just a tunnel — literally a closed canopy of trees reaching out from both banks and intertwined branches overhead.”
Bill Wolverton revisits a stretch of the Escalante River where he removed numerous large Russian olive trees years ago, Aug. 21, 2024. With the invasive trees gone, native plants like rabbitbrush and willow have begun to return. (David Condos/KUER)
When Russian olives take over, they can wreak havoc on native ecosystems, disrupting the natural plant diversity that provides habitat and food for animals. On riverbanks, they can drink up precious water and even alter a stream’s natural patterns of erosion and flooding. That’s a big deal in an arid desert landscape, where few year-round water sources flow.
So, Wolverton did something about it. He grabbed a hand saw and some herbicide and began to kill the trees, one by one.
“I couldn't stand the thought of seeing this river completely overwhelmed by such a horrible weed,” he said as he stood over a dead stump he cut years ago. “I just had to get rid of it for the sake of a really special place.”
It was grueling work. Reaching the trees — some of which stood taller than a three-story building — required hauling tools by foot across miles of rough terrain. Wolverton, a relatively small, wiry guy, then had to hack through tangles of thorny branches before he could get to the trunks. He estimates he cut down thousands of trees this way, although he did eventually get a chainsaw.
The hard work paid off, though. Nearly 25 years after he began, Wolverton said Russian olives are pretty much eliminated along the river’s 85-mile path between the town of Escalante and Coyote Gulch just north of Lake Powell.
He’s deeply satisfied by the accomplishment. But he warns this is no time for Utah to get complacent.
“That's a concern,” he said. “Somewhere down the road, people may just kind of forget Russian olive and what a nightmare it was.”
A group of conservation workers arrive at the Escalante River to monitor results from the Russian olive restoration effort, Aug. 21, 2024. (David Condos/KUER)
Today, conservationists at Grand Staircase Escalante Partners carry on Wolverton’s crusade. The group oversees ongoing monitoring and mitigation projects at dozens of spots near the river.
A major grant supporting their efforts, however, has been halted as part of the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze. This work is how scientists learn if the Russian olive is making a comeback. Think of it as an annual doctor check-up after a tumor is removed.
On a riverbank within the national monument — one of the last sections where the large invasive trees were removed in 2019 — they see proof of progress. The Russian olive used to make up seemingly all of the woody plant coverage here. As of 2022, the Escalante Partners’ figures show native species like cottonwood and willow are now 93% of it.
The results represent a major success story that could give hope to other parts of the West fighting their own Russian olive battles, said Conservation Programs Manager Kevin Berend. As long as the work continues, that is.
“If the crew is not here to continue cutting, then it will just revert back because there is a seed source that keeps coming down,” he said. “We just need to keep doing the work to allow the native species to come back.”
Alex Engel of Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, bottom right, looks skyward to gauge which woody plants are growing in the tree cover, Aug. 21, 2024. (David Condos/KUER)
Botanist Christine Prins holds up a sample of grass as she trains conservation workers to identify plants, Aug. 21, 2024. Cataloging the vegetation in places where Russian olive trees have been removed allows scientists to know if restoration efforts are working. (David Condos/KUER)
To add insult to injury, the characteristics that helped Russian olive trees conquer the Escalante are the reason they were originally brought to Utah. Starting more than a century ago, communities across the West planted them because they grow quickly and thrive in harsh, dry environments. Until recently, the federal government recommended them as a way to prevent erosion and shield structures from the wind.
“It has a lot of features that might be desirable, but it also has a lot of features that make it unsuitable for everything else,” said Christine Prins, the monument’s botanist. “It doesn't play nice with others.”
Because of its inability to get along with the native ecosystem, the Russian olive has been added to Utah’s noxious weed list, which prohibits planting. Other groups across the state are trying to remove it from the Virgin River to Utah Lake, too. But many of the trees continue to grow, and their seeds can be carried by birds or river currents back to where they have been eliminated.
In the town of Escalante, where former ranger Wolverton lives, he doesn’t need to go far to confront his old nemesis. Plenty of Russian olives still flourish on private land along the river, where people working on restoration haven’t had permission to reach.
He walked up to a tree roughly twice his height next to a bridge and lifted a branch loaded with seeds that resembled small green olives. Tell-tale silvery leaves from several more trees dot the river’s edge below.
“This is the ultimate horror story,” he said. “This is what parts of the Escalante River were getting to look like downstream.”
Wolverton is counting on the next generation to make sure the rest of the river doesn’t look like this ever again.
Bill Wolverton holds a cluster of Russian olive seeds growing on private land near the town of Escalante, Aug. 21, 2024. As long as some of the trees remain here, the restoration work he’s done downstream could be at risk. (David Condos/KUER)
Because of the federal grant that was halted, however, Berend said Grand Staircase Escalante Partners won’t be able to do some of their planned spring fieldwork. If the administration’s funding freeze expands to impact other grant money the group relies on, it could mean a major step backward after decades of hard-won gains.
“Let's say we don't have funding to actually work on the projects for a couple years in a row,” he said. “Then just every year that goes by, it exponentially increases the amount of work that we have to do because they just keep growing and growing.”
That’s why continued check-ups are vital to the Escalante’s future, he said.
The Russian olive came from Europe and Asia, so the competitors and pests that would normally keep it in check aren’t here. Instead, people like Berend, Prins and Wolverton who take action are the river’s only line of defense.
This story was produced as part of the Colorado River Collaborative. KSL TV photographer Mark Wetzel contributed to this story.
