Now I am well aware that griping about government waste doesn’t do a bit of good. Our elected leaders really don’t care about their wasteful ways. But when I hear stories of government agencies actually working against each other, I’m more than a little annoyed.

A group of volunteers are in Arizona are fighting against a non-native grass called buffelgrass, going on foot plant to plant and manually uprooting the invasive species. It seems that back in the 1960s it was decided that to control erosion and to provide a hearty crop for cattle they brought some buffelgrass from Africa and set it up to thrive in the American southwest.

Now this all seems well and good until a fire starts. Fires used to burn themselves out in only a matter of minutes in the sparse desert climate. The little vegetation that does grow in the wasteland grows so far from its nearest neighbor that fires had no fuel. Now that buffelgrass has been bought in, fires are spreading likewildfire?

So a group of volunteers have come together to and are walking through the desert and manually uprooting the plants, putting them in a sack, and carrying them out of the desert. They’ve been at it for around six years and have cleared around 10,000 acres and now that Arizona has declared it a noxious weed, they’re getting help from the state to eradicate the plants. Even the Park Service is chipping in money and resources.

Meanwhile, over at the department of agriculture they’re hard at work developing a heartier version of buffelgrass to better-feed cattle.

So while the Park Service is paying people to eradicate, the Department of Agriculture is working on putting a stronger version out there.

Insanity.