Oh, there is a reawson for this... Soap box mode on...
There are millions of acres of national forest land in what is known as the wildland-urban interface (the parts that touch civilization -- also known as the WUI) that have been left similarly untreated. Although there are numerous reasons for this, but two are key. First, the Forest Service is chronically underfunded. This is a fault of both Republicans and Democrats. Moreover, the Forest Service regularly raids funds in the forest maintainence budget to pay for firefighting (these transfers are allowed because you don't stop fire fighting just because you run out of money). This means that maintenance projects often have no money left until Congress replentishes the fund down the road in an emergency supplemental. Second, the forests have essentially been on lockdown since the 1980s as politicans, timber companies and the enviromentalists battle over how or whether we should manage them -- the federal laws that created the national forests saw they should be managed as a national trust and for timber production. To do the kind of maintenance on the raw materials that are accelerating the fires, you have to cut down trees. Timber companies like to cut trees while enviros don't. The environmental movement started using the courts 1980s to block logging on federal lands. Originally this was done to prevent large scale clear cuts. When the Clinton adminstration came into office, large swaths of forests were put off limits while the companies and the enviros battled over what to do with the rest. President Bush tried to open some forests to logging, but was often rebuffed in the courts since the environmentalists were usually able to find a judge, especially in the 9th Circuit, to block a forest mangement plan on account that the forest didn't adequately consider the affect on the spotted owl or downstream water quality or some other reason. Unfortunately, these battles became so heated that basic forest management, such as brush maintenance in the WUI or salvage operations, was often stopped, even when there was local agreement that such action was necessary. (There are some great shots of what the area around Mt. St. Helens looks like ten years later -- compare the private lands that were maintained with the public lands that were left unmanaged/left to let nature take its course.). As a result, other some limited maintenance at the start of the fiscal year or under stwardship contracting programs, nothing gets done. Thus, we are likely to see more of this than less. Soap box mode off Greg Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: Doug Elrod <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:31:42 To: World News Now Discussion List<[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: media firewatch: teevee transmitters for Los Angeles On Aug 30, 11:56 pm, danny burstein <[email protected]> wrote: > Crews were clearing brush around the structures, but fire officials were > not sure if they could leave personnel on the mountain to fight the flames > because of the danger and limited escape routes. The fire is less than two > miles away. With the mention of "40 years of unburned brush" in some of these pieces, it would be useful to go back and see if "10 years", "20 years", etc. were mentioned at all at the appropriate times in the past. Or is this the kind of thing that's only remembered when it's too late? Surely, there's someone in authority who keeps track, isn't there? But even so, I would hope that, given the consequences, the media finds opportunities to mention "situations of growing risk" in the future! Is there some kind of intervention that can be done, say at the 20- year mark (if not earlier)? -Doug Elrod ([email protected]) P.S. The "World News Now team as the 'Fantastic Four'" bumper was pretty nice to see today! Thanks, Donna! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World News Now Discussion List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
