Kimbell Goes Wild
US Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell has decided that her extreme mismanagement of National Forests is not enough. Now she wishes to impose catastrophic fire and wasteland desolation upon the rest of the USA, too.
Last Thursday the glorified former administrative assistant declared a national plan to extend “wildlands” designation to 400 million acres of private property [here].
“If people have an incentive to hold on to wildlands (rather than develop them), we as a society benefit from that,” she [Gail Kimbell] said in an interview. “We all benefit from keeping wildlands wild.”
This is an outrageous statement. Private property is NOT “wildlands” nor is it wild. Indeed, USFS property is neither “wildlands” nor wild, either.
Gail Kimbell burned down 9.3 million acres of America this summer in her misguided efforts to impose desolation and putrefaction upon America, in the name of “wildlands”. The USFS burned a giant block of 1250 square miles of Idaho forests in the name of “wild.” They burned thousands of homes in California with megafires.
In this her first year on the job, Wild Gail burned more acres and homes than anyone in history, save for Dale Bosworth in 2006.
What in the bloody hell is “open space” anyway? When did my property become “wildlands.” Why is it the policy of the USFS to impose their horrendous mismanagement upon 400 million acres of private property?
Haven’t you done enough evil destruction of forests, Gail?
And they are FORESTS, not “wildlands.”
Gail Kimbell is the worst USFS Chief in history. She must be fired immediately.
“Our vision for the 21st century is an interconnected network of open space across the landscape — one that supports healthy ecosystems, renewable resources and high quality of life for Americans,” she said.
What kind of “quality of life” did you impose on South Lake Tahoe, Gail? Do you really believe that burning down 250 homes improved the “quality of life” for anybody?
Your vision sucks to the Moon, dear.
The conservation plan takes effect immediately and does not require congressional approval.
By fascist, authoritarian, non-democratic fiat Gail Kimbell has declared war on the private property owners of America. Who does that FASCIST PIG think she is?
What in the hell is going on George? Evidently George Bush has also declared war on America. No president in history has done more to destroy forests, economies, and public and private American property than George Bush. His record of destruction of our National Forests by megafire is unprecedented.
Now the Bush Administration wishes to impose ever more holocaust on private property, too.
Why? The stated reason:
As homes and shopping malls proliferate, the United States loses about 6,000 acres of open space every day — four acres per minute.
This statement is horrendously false. We are currently experiencing a housing crisis as the home mortgage and home construction industries are in free fall. Furthermore, nobody but nobody is building homes or those awful, dreaded “shopping malls” in the fricking wilderness.
But just to make sure that the pain is permanent, George and Gail have decided to inflict absurd and insane regulatory oppression far outside the imperial estate.
Preserving open space is one of her top four goals, Kimbell said. The others are improving forest health to reduce the risk of wildfire, controlling invasive species and managing outdoor recreation.
When it comes to reducing the risk of wildfire, Gail Kimbell is a total, abject failure. Ditto all her other “goals.”
“Growth and development in wildlands increases the risk of wildfire for people and property, affects the Forest Service’s ability to manage the public lands … and reduces the capacity of privately owned land to provide water, recreation and habitat,” Kimbell said.
There is NO development in wildlands, Gail. You are smoking that Beltway crack, again. What in the fricking hell are “wildlands” anyway?
The USFS has a Let It Burn policy for their lands. That policy breeds megafires that roar over the legal boundaries into private lands. Massive destruction of innocent lives and properties ensue. The holocausts destroy homes and vegetation, kill wildlife, destroy habitat, ruin watersheds, foul water, and cripple recreation opportunities.
Gail Kimbell has proven that she cannot manage USFS lands. Indeed, her mismanagement is extreme. Now she is spreading by authoritarian order her nutzoid incendiarist ways to everywhere.
NO, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop Incinerating America!!!!!!!!!!!!
I vote to kick Gail Kimbell out of the Government, and as far as I am concerned, clean out of the country.
FIRE GAIL KIMBELL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Forrest Grump
Thank you, Forrest, for your perspective. You are correct, as usual.
Gail Gone Wild is just another manifestation of the USFS going down the toilet. Her pronouncement is more pathetic than real. The USFS can’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag. Their staff is down to a handful of worthless culls, and there is no way they can effect anything inside or outside the National Forest boundaries.
They can’t manage forests, fires, wildlife, or even their buildings, most of which have been sold or are being used by other agencies. Gail is a lame duck Chief, destined for one more year of excruciating failure before she is shown the door.
It is tragic beyond tragic, though. The needless pain, suffering, and destruction wreaked by disaster after disaster promulgated by the USFS will not be forgotten. When Gail and her minions attempt to tell private citizens how to manage private land in the wake of her agency’s repeated mega failures, they will be laughed out of the room, or worse.
By the way, [here] is a lovely (and historic) poster that may be useful in the ad campaign (535KB).
Well, they burned my barn, and they stole my horse
I can’t save a dime
I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?
Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I’ll remember always
Old memories of you to me have clung
You’ve wounded me with your words
Gonna have to straighten out your tongue
It’s all true, everything you’ve heard
Dylan - Workingmans Blues #2
by Gordie
She reminds me of a number of environmentalists in that she knows and uses some of the buzz words without really understanding what they mean.
Her record at Region 1 was atrocious. Her appointment as Chief was token sexism. The USFS used to base promotions on merit. Now it’s based on patronizing PC posturing. Sickening.
by bear bait
If no enviros are suing to stop her, you have to know they are co-conspirators.
You knew the USFS was done when one of their female hires burned half the Front Range in Colorado a few years back as collateral damage to her burning love letters on a red flag warning day.
I would like to see their science, but evidently, none is needed nor required.
When Clinton sacked Dale Robertson just because he could, and appointed a biologist with no administrative experience to be Chief, he opened the door to the political clown class to become agency heads. You have to know Kimball is a political hack, because that is who now gets the job. And she will be gone after the next election, to be replaced by Emmett Kelly or some other clown to run the joint. That is how it now works back there in Foggy Bottom, D.C.
And we know that policy is now decided only when the major NGOs are aboard in the decision. Big Environment is now the special interest running the Piss Fir Willies. The public replaced economic interests for emotional interests, a decision that will bode well for science and common sense…NOT!!! The MOFO’s can’t define an old growth tree, after 30 years, but want to protect them all. Nobody has let out the secret that trees use great volumes of water, and dry up creeks if the trees become too numerous. Today in the paper it is too many elk living in Medford among the pear orchards and ranchette alfalfa fields, where they are a nuisance. The elk are there because they have good security and lots of food and water, conditions not available in the nearby public forest lands now being choked with too many trees and no vegetative diversity or diversity in geography… drum rolllllll… and now we have another transplant opportunity… or cougar feeding as it really works. There are places overrun with cougars that are below critical mass in elk population and the herds will fail soon if their numbers are not augmented.
Piss poor USFS/BLM management is producing this (among many) wild-animals-in-town crisis situation. There is no food for them on public lands because there is little on a choked forest floor for them to eat. So that vast monoculture of public lands is going from being an economic and social engine to a public liability. Sort of like living next to the gasoline refinery. It is not if and when they have fires, but how many and how big. That is the new public lands model. I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.
by sweed7
Once again Bear Bait has it right. You can’t hunt cougars with dogs. So, the present method is to let the cougar feed on two staked out goats and the shoot him when he comes for the third. Very time consuming and a little hard on the goats. So, cougars are everywhere including a school yard in Oregon. Blacktail deer are getting scarce in Oregon as are wild sheep and goats. When the remaining game come to town seeking sanctuary from predators, so do the cougars and wolves. They are all sent to town courtesy of the USFS and BLM.
by Jack J. Lafayette
I’m going to say this and this is going to be controversial and I don’t give a damn. I have a serious problem with all of these land trusts where a person who has a finite life can decide on their own to lock up their parcel of land forever using some trust.
Now I know it dovetails perfectly with crazy people who would love to see 4 billion people die off in order to “sustain” the planet, but an idea that locks up land in perpetual trusts handcuffs future generations and guarantees higher premiums for land that will lock out regular people from being able to enjoy the American dream of owning land that they may or may not choose to work.
And this new plan is just another in a long line of these types of arrangements.
I rarely if ever seek a government regulation, but a law or judicial interpretation negating these perpetual land trusts frankly is in the best interest of Americans who haven’t been born yet.
Here is an entity scrambling for a mission. It will fail, as it should. USFS certainly has some good experts left, at least on the theoretical side, or at the Mad Lab where they cook up wood products.
But the supposition that the agency will be looked at land use experts and advisors when they are doing such a crummy job on the grounds they already “steward” is misguided. No, idiotic.
The fundamental incompetence exhibited here by such a proposal only serves to illustrate how such pervasive, all-consuming ineptitude is the only product still being offered by what WAS the best federal agency.
A shame. A tawdry, miserable, pathetic shame.
Hmmm. I just thought of something brilliant. A commercial. How about a nice pan shot of smoking forest and wreckage, with a tear running down Smokey’s cheek?