|   Warrior's Society Healthy Forests Initiative Update | Warrior's Society
Nov 6, 2003 6:11 PM | | In this Healthy Forests Update:
1. The Senate passes the Healthy Forests Initiative
3. Background / Effects of the devastating fires
2. A forestry expert lists the myths of forest management
1. THE SENATE PASSES THE HEALTHY FORESTS INITIATIVE
Great news! The U.S. Senate passed the Healthy Forests bill last Thursday night on a very strong and bipartisan 80-14 vote. Importantly, the Senate turned back several amendments pushed by opponents that would have made the Senate bill more difficult to reconcile with legislation previously passed by the House.
As most of our supporters know over the past year and a half we have been asking you to contact your representatives and voice your support of this effort to address the health and mismanagement of our forests.
This Senate bill authorizes $760 million dollars annually for projects to remove dead trees and underbrush. At least half of the funds will be used near residential forest communities; the remaining funds in forests where fire hazards are critical and watersheds and reservoirs are most threatened.
There is one hurdle left before it reaches the Presidents desk for signature. The legislation needs to clear a House-Senate conference to clear differences between the House and Senate versions.
Senate Minority Leader Senator Daschle is attempting procedural roadblocks that might get in the way of prompt consideration of the bill. All that remains is to convene a conference so that the differences can be reconciled between the House and Senate versions of the bill so that a compromised bill can be sent to the President to sign. But Senator Daschle is dragging his feet in naming conferees.
If you remember, two years ago Senator Daschle slipped legislation in an appropriations bill allowing his state to address the crisis in their forests using the same methods proposed by the Healthy Forests Initiative - yet he denies other states the same consideration.
One of the chief sponsors of the bill, Senator Diane Feinstein (D) CA, has struggled for two years to get this legislation passed. In a letter to the Executive Director of the Warrior's Society written last year, Senator Feinstein wrote of the seriousness of the problems faced by our forests here in Californian and of her hopes to get legislation passed to address these problems.
To see the text of the letter posted on our web site click here:
http://www.warriorssociety.org/News/Letter_From_Feinstein.html
Please call Senator Feinstein to thank her and tell her you support her efforts to get this legislation passed. Contact Senator Boxer and ask her to drop her opposition to the bill; it is time she represented the concerns of California, not radical environmentalists. Urge them to support rapid negotiations to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of HR 1904.
Senator Feinstein's and Boxer's contact and fax numbers are at the end of this alert.
Thanks to California Senator Diane Feinstein (D) and other representatives for pushing this bill through - and to all who called, faxed and e-mailed in an effort to help pass this important bill.
2. BACKGROUND / EFFECTS OF THE DEVASTATION FIRES
In 1998, reflecting the conclusions of earlier government reports, the General Accounting Office warned that too little was being done to address the problem of "high levels of fuels for catastrophic fires" that were "transforming much of the region into a tinderbox." The GAO fears were realized in 2000 when forest fires burned 8.4 million acres, the worst fire season in half a century.
In 2002, 6.9 million acres burned and federal fire-fighting costs set a new record of $1.7 billion. In 2003, matters were looking better until Southern California erupted in flames. These devastating fires have burned close to 19 million acres of forest since the year 2000, killed millions of species, destroyed thousands of houses and taken many lives.
Stories are now appearing in the press regarding the scramble to save species severely affected by the Southern California fires. Imagine the effects on the species that inhabited the 19 million acres that have burned since 2000:
CEDAR GLEN, Calif. (AP) -- Wildlife experts are beginning extraordinary efforts to protect animal species whose habitats were charred by wildfires and now face the risk of imminent flooding.
"Particularly in Southern California, we have endemic species -- they're not found any place else in the world. If we lose them, the world has lost them," said Chamois Andersen, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game.
One species in trouble is a strain of mountain yellow-legged frog separated for millennia from its Sierra Nevada brethren and now making its home in a 10-mile stretch of the San Bernardino Mountains' City Creek.
With no more vegetation to hold the soil and sop up impending rain, flooding into the Santa Ana River could push the frogs more than 30 miles downstream.
"They just would never make it back," said Steve Loe, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist. "There's a good chance if we don't do some fairly significant recovery work, we could lose them forever from these mountains."
The recent fires have confirmed the thesis we have presented intensely over the past year and a half that our forests have been mismanaged and the wilderness designation is not the answer - but a detriment that ties the hands of land managers. For an education on the Healthy Forests Initiative and what should have been done to prevent these fires - or warned of the dangers of the wilderness designation in preventing these fires see the following:
http://www.warriorssociety.org/News/HealthyForestsUpdates.html
To see our Wilderness Bill Update that links the wilderness designation campaign to Dave Forman and the Eco-terrorist organization EarthFirst! see our web site at:
http://www.warriorssociety.org/News/WildernessAlert25.html
3. A FORESTRY EXPERT LISTS THE MYTHS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT
From the Friday, October 31, 2003 issue of the Orange County Register:
Dr. Bonnicksen is Professor of Forest Science at Texas A&M University and author of the book America's Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery published in 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. He has also held posts as president, chair, and vice-chair of several other organizations, including the Bay Area Chapter of the Sierra Club.
In testimony last month before a congressional hearing in Lake Arrowhead, Bonnicksen spelled out what he considers misconceptions about forest management. Here are excerpts:
MYTH: ALL FIRES ARE GOOD AND FOREST MANAGEMENT IS BAD.
Historically, natural fires burned a far different kind of forest than the uniformly thick, overpopulated forests we have today. Forests of the past were resistant to monster fires, with clearings and patches of open forest that acted as tiny fuel breaks for fires that were far smaller and far less hot.
Fires can't burn that way in the forest of today. They bite into a superabundance of fuel, burn super-hot, destroy wildlife and watersheds, and leave a desolate landscape scarred by erosion and pitted with craters.
MYTH: WILDFIRES AND MASSIVE INSECT INFESTATIONS ARE A NATURAL WAY FOR FORESTS TO THIN AND REJUVENATE THEMSELVES.
On the contrary, "no-cut" policies and total fire suppression have created the overcrowded forest conditions that enable fires to spread over vast areas that never burned that way in their known history. The resulting devastation is not natural. It is human-caused.
MYTH: THINNING NARROW STRIPS OF FOREST AROUND COMMUNITIES, OR FUELBREAKS, IS MORE THAN ADEQUEATE AS A DEFENSE AGAINST WILDFIRE.
Anyone who thinks roaring wildfires can't penetrate these flimsy barriers could not be more mistaken. Fires often jump over railroad tracks and even divided highways.
Fuelbreaks are impractical because forest communities are spread out over huge areas. It would be virtually impossible to create an effective thinned zone to encompass an area so large.
Dr. Bonnicksen's September 2003 resources committee testimony was prophetic:
"Among the saddest aspects of this forest being wiped out is that the devastation was predictable and preventable. In fact, specialists representing many interests and agencies came together in a 1994 workshop to do something about the unnaturally thick forests in the San Bernardino Mountains. They knew that communities like Idyllwild, Big Bear, and Lake Arrowhead were in imminent danger from wildfire. The workshop produced a report charting a course to improve the safety and health of the forest and surrounding communities. The recommendations were never acted on. Now, an entire forest is lost."
To read the full testimony of the hearing, go online to
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/108cong/forest/2003sep22/bonnicksen.htm
SENATOR BOXER AND FEINSTEIN'S CONTACT INFORMATION
Please take the time to call Senator Feinstein to thank her for her support of the Healthy Forests Initiative and for not supporting the current wilderness bills. Senator Feinstein Main District Office: One Post St., #2450 San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 393-0707
Email: http://www.senate.gov/~feinstein/email.html
Fax: (619) 231-1108
Fax: (310) 914-7318
Fax: (415) 989-3242
Fax: (202) 228-3954
Fax: (559) 485-9689
Fax a copy of your message to Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer
Main District Office:
1700 Montgomery St., #240
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: (415) 403-0100
Email: http://www.senate.gov/~boxer/contact/webform.html
Fax: (213) 894-5012
Fax: (909) 888-8613
Fax: (619) 239-5719
Fax: (559) 497-5111
Fax: (415) 956-6701
Fax: (916) 448-2563
"In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. [Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml]" |
| Name the largest fire of the 20th & 21st century? | smilycook
Nov 7, 2003 7:27 AM | | Can anyone name the largest fire of the 20th and 21st century? Can you provide the year of the fire, how it started, where it burned, and what the major causes were.
Also a side trivia question who invented the Pulaski and how does it relate to the largest fire.
Hint: Smoke from this fire was seen in Chicago and New York! |
| Name the largest fire of the 20th & 21st century? | dave54
Nov 7, 2003 9:46 AM | | The Great Idaho Fire of 1910 was several fires that burned together. Yellowstone 1988, So Cal 2003, Indonesia 1986, et al were several distinct fires that were lumped together in the public view.
So what was the largest individual fire? I would have to check the records, but I would speculate China (1992?) -- over 900,000 hectares from a single ignition point. Talk about a get-tough policy -- the peasant laborer that accidently started it was executed.
Ranger Ed Pulaski, of the 1910 fire fame. The tool was designed by a small group of people and refined over several years by others. His name got attached to it. |
| Great Fire of 1910 was over three million acres | smilycook
Nov 7, 2003 10:12 AM | | Great Fire of 1910 was over three million acres and was the largest fire in recorded US history. The fire was started and fueled by the greed of the timber and railroad industry. Miles of slag piles were left near railroad lines and the railroads were using fuel that caused sparks to fly out the stacks.
This fire resulted in a change in national policy to fight every fire and view fire as evil. I think the greatest lesson that can be learned is that nature will always have its way! |
| Great Fire of 1910 was over three million acres | dave54
Nov 7, 2003 2:01 PM | | Between 1900 and 1920 a full 25% of all timber harvested in the United States was used by railroads, primarily as ties. Before the development of wood preservatives a railroad tie lasted only 3-5 years before rotting away. Railroad work crews were constantly replacing ties. Upon reaching the end of a track they would start over at the other end. The Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI was chartered to find ways to make the nation's timber supply last longer. Finding a way to preserve railroad ties was among their first assigned tasks. It worked. By 1932 the railroad's share of national wood use was negligible while the single largest consumer of wood products in the U.S. became agriculture -- 40% of all lumber nationwide was used in fruit and vegetable shipping crates, now replaced by cardboard and plastic. Is that an 'improvement'? I'll leave that debate for others.
In the 19th century forest fires consumed more forest acres annually in the U.S. than logging, urban sprawl, insects, disease, and all other natural and artificial causes combined. Now, in the 21st century -- 50% of all wood consumed worldwide is fuel for heating and cooking, while the United States is growing about 1.5 times as much wood each year as is harvested. 4 to 1 in California statewide. 20 to 1 in the Sierra Nevada National Forests. Thousands to one in the Southern California National Forests, since the Forest Service has been prohibited from managing the forest there.
The environmental industry loves to talk about global overpopulation as a problem. What over forest overpopulation? American forests are literally choking to death on their own increasing density while we import wood from other countries. The HFI will help slow the over-densification of forest ecosystems while improving forest health, increasing biodiversity, benefitting wildlife, increasing resilience to catastrophic disturbance, and stabilizing rural economies. The bill is win-win all the way around. True environmentalists and the overwhelming majority of scientists support the bill. The sierra club does not. But the sierra club abandoned sound environmental policies years ago in exchange for a leftist political agenda, so I expect their opposition to sound forest policies. Also note the fledgling sierra club SUPPORTED the fire exclusion policy in 1912. |
| By the way, I'm not against forest thinning.... | The Preacher
Nov 7, 2003 2:29 PM | | ...I just don't believe that it will have measurable effect on preventing or controlling wildfires. I think that wild fires are wild... they're gonna burn -- eventually -- no matter what. And as long as peple keep putting house in the forests, they will burn too.
I may be wrong here -- and I certainly do not proclaim to be an expert on the science of forestry -- but won't the hundreds of thousands of acres that just burned in Southern California return as "healthy" forest... eventually? |
| By the way, I'm not against forest thinning.... | Dances With Hornets
Nov 7, 2003 4:44 PM | | Preacher,
I suggest you read the full testimony of Dr. Bonnicksen:
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/108cong/forest/2003sep22/bonnicksen.htm
"Today's catastrophic wildfires are bad for forests. When a devastating fire finally stops, it leaves a desolate moonscape appearance. The habitat for forest dwelling wildlife is destroyed, small streams are boiled dry, fish die and their habitat is smothered by silt and debris. The fire also bakes the soil so hard water cannot get through, so it washes away by the ton. All that is left are the blackened corpses of animals and fallen or standing dead trees. Often there are too few live trees left to even reseed the burn and the area soon becomes covered with a thick layer of brush that prevents a new forest from becoming established for many years.
Historically, natural fires burned a far different kind of forest than the uniformly thick, overpopulated forests we have today. Forests of the past were resistant to monster fires, with clearings and patches of open forest that acted as mini-fuelbreaks for fires that were far smaller and far less hot. These light fires naturally cleared away debris, dead trees and other potentially dangerous fuels."
I heard an evening news interview with Dr. Bonnicksen and he stated was what usually replaces the forest in this kind of fire are meadows and grasslands. Many species that are not adaptable to this new environment do not return and new species may take their place. It' kind of funny how environmentalists are stopping logging to protect the Spotted and other owls no longer have worry about logging anymore of course the Spotted Owl has been decimated - 19 million acres of forest burned since 2000.
An as I've said, I will expect the environmentalists now saying instead of making these areas wilderness to stop logging, we must make them wilderness to help the species recover from these fires.
How may of you want to bet against this prediction? |
| I don't think we should stop logging.. | The Preacher
Nov 10, 2003 10:48 AM | | ... but I don't think that logging is the panacea, the savior of the earth that that you think it's going to be. Maybe it will have a small effect, but in the grand scheme of things... beyond decades and even centuries, Mother Nature is going to have her way, and there's not a damn thing we can do. Look how long the dinosaurs occupied this planet, compared to the blink of an eye that we've been here. Species will come and go, including man. |
| thinning does reduce fire intensity. | dave54
Nov 9, 2003 3:18 PM | | That has been proven countless times in virtually every forest type nationwide.
Vegetation management does not 'stop' fires, it only reduces intensity to a lower level where resource damage is less and suppression actions are more effective. In the recent wind event fire behavior was so extreme any fuel management would be ineffective. However, fuel treatments are highly effective the other 360 days per year.
The chaparral vegetation will return fairly quickly. The conifer forest will take centuries to return, if ever. The speculation is because of climate change, air pollution, encroachment of non-native plants, population pressures, and land use patterns the San Bernardino mountains will never be a contiguously forested mountain range again. There will remain a few remnant conifer stands, but the intact forest is gone forever.
A broken leg will 'heal' eventually on its own also. It may not ever work right again, but it will mend in some form. Does that mean we should be reckless and let fractures occur and if they do occur, not go to a doctor for treatment? After all, won't nature 'heal' it better than any human doctor can? These are ridiculous questions, yet they are exactly what the environmental industry is demanding for our remaining open spaces. |
| thinning does reduce fire intensity. | The Preacher
Nov 10, 2003 10:42 AM | | Again, I'm sure it will... to an extent. But really, how far will you have to go to get the desired effect? All the studies seem tyo be based on "this is what happens when forests are not thinned," but are there any actual success studies of "this is how we saved xyz by thinning the forest to the amount of abc"?
Again, I'm not agaist thinning, and i agree that mankind should do whatever it can to prolong it's existence. I just don't think that thinning forests is going to have that much of an effect, over the long term. Especially considering much bigger problems, like over population and the rampant burning of fossil fuels. i know that forest fires pollute the air too, but it's just a drop in the bucket compared to one day of internal combustion commuting on Southern California freeways. |
| thinning does reduce fire intensity. | dave54
Nov 11, 2003 1:20 PM | | Too numerous to count instances of where a fire encountered a thinned stand and changed intensity, mostly anecdotal observation and post fire analysis. In September 2002 a rather serendipitous fire occurred on Lassen National Forest in California. The Cone Fire started on private land and rapidly spread to the Black's Mountain Experimental Forest -- an area where silvicultural and forest ecology research has been conducted for 50 years. The Cone Fire burned an area that had been recently divided into smaller sections and each treated differently -- different thinning methods, different basal area retained, some grazed, some not, some control burned, some not, residual slash mechanically treated, with staked survey plots already established and complete before-and-after records of conditions. An added bonus was the overhead command-and-control airplane had a wing-mounted infra-red video camera (not all of them do) and the fire behavior in each plot was recorded on video. The research scientists went ape! The ongoing research was destroyed, of course, but in exchange were given a golden opportunity to study how fire effects, harvesting methods, and follow up activities interact. A few preliminary papers have already been published, but the research and analysis will be going on for years. The early results are astounding. One presentation has already been made to a House Subcommittee.
The role of forest fires' contribution to global atmospheric carbon is an ongoing study by NASA and the USGS. It is more significant than previously thought. One study from Colorado State University indicated the 2002 Hayman Fire in Colorado released more carbon into the atmosphere than all the cars driven in Colorado during the entire year. I am certain someone will do similar calculations for the recent So Cal fires. Plus all those homes that burned released more than carbon. There are a lot of plastics and petrochemicals in homes. The toxic witches brew of gases in a typical residential fire is well known to firefighters (often jokingly referred to as 'methyl-ethyl-bad-shit' in fire conversations). Multiply that by 3,000, plus the trash, fences, cars, etc that burned. There is a reason firefighters have one of the highest cancer rates among all occupations. Even pure forest fire smoke contains many proven carcinogens. |
| Interesting. Well, thanks for the info, dave54. | The Preacher
Nov 11, 2003 2:16 PM | | I'm going to bow out of the fire management discussion, as I am obviously under educated on the subject. I must say that getting educated on the (appartently complex) subject seems like an overwhelming task. |
| I prefer the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 | darkage
Dec 5, 2003 9:04 PM | | Maybe it didn't cover the largest area, but it sure as hell took the most human lives. During the last part of the 19th century northern Wisconsin was extensively butchered by greedy lumber barons. 1871 was a very dry year and combined with the massive amounts of slash left in the logger's wake it was a bomb waiting to explode. And on the night of Oct. 8th it did. Whole communities were immolated. When the fire reached the city of Peshtigo many sought refuge from the flames in the Peshtigo river only to asphyxiate as the fire engulfed the river and sucked all the oxygen out of the sky. The fire didn't stop when it reached the bay of Green Bay - it jumped the bay and devoured a large area on the Door penninsula as well. This wasn't a fire - it was a holocaust. People were incinerated before they ever saw the flames comming. Many thought it was the end of the world and for many it was. The fire consumed 1.5 million acres and killed 2500 people. The fire was caused by human stupidity and greed. Some of the best trails around are deep in the forest west of Peshtigo. There are still blackened stumps of ancient pines standing in the woods like spectres. I won't touch them because I believe they hold wrathfull spirits - some things sould be left alone. The local forestry agent who manages the land is against mtbs in the area. Of course, his salary comes 100% from logging sales. Oh how far we've come. Maybe next time millions will die. |
| I prefer the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 | Dances
Dec 12, 2003 6:29 PM | | |
| I prefer the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 | Dances
Dec 12, 2003 6:39 PM | | Darkage,
Just think, the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 was fueled by slash and burned 1.5 million acres, leaving the area up until today with still blackened stumps of ancient pines standing in the woods like spectres.
Can you imagine what the 19 million acres of forest that have burned since 2000 will look like in 100 years? These fires were not fueled by "slash" but by the fuel made up of accumulated debris and overgrowth, causing crown fires that according to the NOVA program "Fire Wars," released the energy of the atom bomb dropped in Hiroshima every 15 minutes.
I bet in many of these areas the conditions you described are very evident. Logging was not the cause of these fires that far exceeded the 1.5 million acres you described. We can't blame loggers for these fires. |
| Don't cheer yet. | dave54
Nov 7, 2003 10:10 AM | | The dem leadership in the Senate is now reneging on their promise to support the bill and are attempting to stall it.
For those who don't understand the process -- invariably a Senate and House version of the same bill will differ -- different amendments are attached, wording differences, technical details, etc. After each chamber passes their version of the bill a Conference Committee composed of both Representatives and Senators from each party is to rewrite the bill, using pieces of each version, then the conference bill is resubmitted to each chamber. Traditionally, the rewritten bill is passed without change or debate. Occasionally, it sent back to conference again, but usually is passed as a formality, since the disagreements should have all been resolved in conference.
Now Senate dems are using parliamentary loopholes to stymie the conference committee, and even Feinstein, who broke the logjam with compromise language, is now threatening to vote against the conference bill. The dems in the House are blasting their counterparts in the Senate over this promise-breaking.
Basically, the dems in the Senate were lying when they voted for the bill. They only voted for it because it looked good against the headlines of the So Cal fires. Now that the fires are no longer in the headlines they feel safe to fight it again. |
| Actual number of acres burned since 2000 | Dances With Hornets
Nov 9, 2003 8:25 AM | | Source of information:
National Intergency Fire Center:
http://www.nifc.gov/stats/wildlandfirestats.html
2003 (estimated) Fires 55,914 - Acres burned - 3,500,711
2002 Fires 88,458 - Acres burned - 6,937,584
2001 Fires 84,079 - Acres burned - 3,555,138
2000 Fires 122,827 - Acres burned - 8,422,237
Total fires 351,278 - Total Acres burned 19,215,670
Millions of species killed, hundreds of deaths and injuries, thousands of home and other property lost.
And the Sierra Club says, "We should only thin around communities, it is much better to have these devastating fires destroying millions of acres of habitat for endangered species than allow any type of thinning that could possible stop it. Of course the public land managers must close all public access to these area so the species can recover or we'll sue to make it so under the Endangered Species Act. Maybe it would be a good time to remove existing trails to limit access, we'll talk to Dave Forman about that; Wildlands Project wins whether we thin or not - hurray!" |
| Look at the NIFC situation report. | dave54
Nov 9, 2003 4:10 PM | | published daily during fire season, weekly the rest of the year. Scroll down to the section on 'Wildland Fire Use' -- that's jargon for what the media erroneously calls 'let burn'. So far this year almost a third of a million acres were intentionally allowed to continue burning, mostly in remote wilderness areas. In the individual fire narratives look for the acronym 'WFU'. Also in the narratives look for 'indirect attack' mentioned. That's where the fire is allowed to burn up to a strategic location, like a major ridge top, and is stopped there, allowing the intervening mountainside or canyon to burn. The decision to employ these tactics are determined on a case-by-case basis, after looking at risk and benefit to resources, threat to infrastructure and communities, cost, and threats to public and firefighter safety. This is the default suppression strategy now. Aggressive direct attack is employed only on the section of the fire where the threats are greatest, and the remaining perimeter is indirect attack. If the fire starts anywhere near a community, though, the risk is deemed too great and is aggressively suppressed.
As far as only save communities and let the forest burn -- according to FEMA more property has been damaged or destroyed from floods and mudslides resulting from forest fires than from the fires themselves. Ask the city of Denver what happend to their municipal water supply reservoir after the 2002 Hayman fire -- tens of millions of dollars to rebuild the water treatment facility and to handle the silt and ash now in the reservoir. In a National Association of Realtors study of Payson AZ following the 1990 Dude Fire, homes untouched by the fire but were adjacent to or had the view from the home burned lost 50% of the property value overnight, with a corresponding decrease in property tax revenue to local government. 10 years later property values had recovered to 80% of the pre-fire value. Homes not affected by the fire lost no value. Smoke from forest fires is now classified as a public health risk by the CDC and several deaths have been attributed to smoke inversions. Western newspapers from the late 1800's recount how towns were smoked in for weeks on end because of the fires in the mountains and the same newspapers carry articles on floods and mudslides the following Spring. Public health records suggest a statistically significant increase in infant mortality and deaths from respiratory and heart disease during the same smoke periods. Tourism dependent communities across the western U.S. lose millions of dollars every year from forest fires. The sierra club urges rural communities wean themselves from commodity extraction and base their economies on eco-tourism instead. Fires are incompatible with a tourism based economy.
The environmental industry still insists fires have no negative effects, only good. The reality is where unbiased objective analysis on the positive/negative, long-term and short-term, direct and indirect effects of allowing fires to burn are evaluated WFU wins only in the most remote backcountry under relatively benign conditions. Not that in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where fires have been allowed to burn since 1972, a full half of the fires were suppressed because the risk outweighed the potential benefit.
'Natural' fires are the ultimate NIMBY -- everyone supports it in concept. No one wants it in their local area, only somewhere else. |
| Healthy Forests Legislation Passes | Dances With Hornets
Nov 27, 2003 1:20 PM | | HEALTHY FORESTS LEGISLATION PASSES
Washington, DC - On Friday, November 21, 2003, the House passed the conference committee compromise struck by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The measure was overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 286-140. The Senate is also expected to pass the legislation today, paving the way for President Bush to sign the bill into law.
Since 1997, the Resources Committee has passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act twice, held 73 official legislative meetings on the issue, and 32,811,288 acres have burned.
"The overwhelming bi-partisan support for this legislation in both the House and Senate makes the need for and quality of this legislation irrefutable," said Chairman Pombo. "This is the most significant reform of forest management policy in nearly a century, and it could not come any sooner.
In recent years, we have seen millions of acres of forestland and wildlife habitat decimated, water supplies and air quality polluted, and family homes and human lives lost forever at the hands of catastrophic wildfire. This bill will empower experts to actively maintain our national forests to reduce the risk of these tragedies from occurring in the future. By reducing dangerous fuel loads on the forest floor, we can reverse the trend in our national forests from one of increasing risk and disease to one that reflects healthier and well-managed forests for future generations to enjoy."
This bill will:
(1) Revamp the Forest Service's conflict-ridden administrative appeals process, requiring would-be appellants to participate early in the development stages of a forest restoration project in order to reserve the right to file an appeal. This provision is virtually identical to the House-passed language.
(2) Create an historic paradigm shift in the way Courts consider legal challenges to hazardous fuels reduction projects, mandating that the
Courts weigh the environmental consequences of management inaction when the specter of catastrophic wildfire looms. It would also require that federal judges reconsider any injunctions to projects every 60 days.
(3) Expedite analysis and review requirements for priority wildfire mitigation projects, applying House-passed environmental analysis requirements to projects focused on protecting communities, and Senate passed analysis procedures to projects focused on protecting watersheds and endangered wildlife. Senate-passed old growth language was also restructured to eliminate significant litigation loopholes. Requirements related to the retention of certain large trees were clarified ensuring that the bill's wildfire mitigation purposes were not trumped by these new standards as well.
(4) Ensure that the public has a full and thorough opportunity to participate in the decision making process. It embraces the House-passed, bipartisan Western Governor Association 10-Year Strategy's robust public input and participation requirements, ensuring that interested persons will have numerous opportunities to engage decision makers during all phases of a project's development and implementation. |
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