Kudzu-eating goats may help Decatur cemetery

Some unusual workers could help Decatur bleat a new path in its historic cemetery.

Kudzu-munching goats — a green-minded alternative to herbicides — may be part of a $1.7 million plan to spruce up the DeKalb County city’s 180-year-old graveyard.

“It’s something we need to consider,” deputy city manager Hugh Saxon said at Tuesday night’s city council meeting. “To me the interesting thing is, it looks like it could be both effective and environmental.”

A group of residents raised the idea of using goats to help clear a 10-acre wooded section now smothered in kudzu.

“Our emphasis is that it’s for the animals and not for the people,” said Lynn Saussy, a landscape architect who suggested the goats. “It just seems more environmentally friendly and sustainable.”

The idea is not new. Chattanooga has used grazing herds to fight its own battles against kudzu, the invasive plant introduced from Asia as an ornamental vine 132 years ago. Saxon said Athens officials use sheep for the same work.

Closer to home, Peachtree City opted against using goats to keep its kudzu in check in 2007.

After two years of study, officials decided that keeping a herd of goats — who have to be maintained and protected from predators and thieves — was just too difficult in an urban setting.

Decatur, too, knows the risks if it decides to go with goats. “You have to fence them, or they wouldn’t last long,” Saxon said.

The City Commission is scheduled to vote on the cemetery master plan Sept. 15, but it could be a year before any four-legged lawn mowers start work.

Only after the plan is approved will lengthy design work begin, such as for drainage improvements, tree plantings — and, maybe, some fences.