The ecosystem here, as with the Puget Trough, is balanced from the substrate rock and the plants and animals that have co-evolved here. Our soils are naturally acidic, low in nitrogen, and ours here are high in phosphate (I don't know about the west side).
The problem with noxious weeds (which only means they are illegal (in WA) due to being invasive, difficult to control and damaging -- economically, to the environment or a threat to human health) is that they are pre-adapted to our ecosystem and have developed the ability to better harness the available resources.
The reason we pick on gardeners is that the weeds easily escape the garden environment into the larger ecosystem where they upset the delicate balance between our co-evolved native plants and animals. Noxious weeds have been documented as second only to land development for loss of our native biodiversity. From an ecosystem perspective, this is disastrous.
When hawkweed infestations reach a landscape level (which several species have in my corner of the world), the effects start to cascade. At this time the outcome is unknown, but I have developed some suspicions.
Are you co-evolved with the plants and animals "native" to this area? What does this say about your existence here? Have you ever thought of going after land development ("the most damaging to...biodiversity"), rather than scapegoating weeds which colonize anthropogenically-disturbed areas? There's a well-documented fossil record of organisms colonizing vast areas as niches open up and climate changes (read Invasion Biology: Critique of a Pseudo-science). In my opinion, you sound kind of paranoid, and have control issues splashed with a short-sighted perspective of ecology.
