Eastern Oregon “Rubes” a Million Times Smarter Than Californians
That last post left a bad taste in my mouth. Californians are soooooooooooo stupid. Fortunately, somewhere in the world there are people who are clued into fire and know how to prevent it. That somewhere is Eastern Oregon.
Not that they can do much about it. Most of E. OR is owned by the Federal Gummit, and the boneheads in DC are hellbent to burn, baby burn. But at least Eastern Oregonians see the big picture and are trying to knock some sense into the the DC bosses before the next megafire holocaust hits.
From the Baker City Herald last week [here]:
Farm Bill’s forest fix falls short
By ED MERRIMAN, Baker City Herald, May 29, 2008
The 2008 Farm Bill includes new programs and funding for private forests, but woodland owners and forest managers in Baker County and across the state deem the dollars a “drip in the bucket” considering the scope of the nation’s forest health crisis.
“There is so much fuel buildup that we are going to have more and more catastrophic fires. It’s just such a tragedy to waste that natural resource,” said Lyle Defrees, who owns forested land near Sumpter and is a former president of the Baker County Private Woodlands Association.
The Food Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, commonly referred to as the Farm Bill, includes $39 million in new funding to be distributed over 10 years under the Healthy Forest Reserve Fund, which helps private forestland owners protect endangered species and provides funding to restore forestland damaged by natural disasters through the Emergency Forestry Conservation Program. …
Defrees said he has participated in forest thinning projects with 75 percent funding distributed by the Oregon Department of Forestry through the federal National Fire Plan. That federal program helps landowners thin overstocked, fuel-loaded forests in urban interface areas where the risk of catastrophic fire threatens homes and entire communities located in or near forests.
Defrees said the program is making dramatic improvements on private forestland in the urban interface zones. But he contends that what’s really needed — and is not included in the Farm Bill — is a federally funded program to carry out that type of thinning on a broad scale to restore healthy forests on private and public lands across the country.
Defrees said overstocking, followed by bans on timber harvesting in public forests, created the forest health crisis in which trees are growing so close together that they’re susceptible to insects, disease and fire.
He said his forest lands and much of the forests in Northeastern Oregon are overloaded with 900 trees or more per acre — nearly five times more trees per acre than is sustainable in a healthy young forest of trees under eight inches in diameter. …
Joe Hessel, of the Oregon Department of Forestry office in Baker City, said there is some concern about whether Farm Bill money for thinning projects will continue to be distributed through state entities such as the ODF, which understand the problems and have longstanding relationships with private woodland owners. …
“If we lost that funding we’ve traditionally received from the Forest Service and BLM, and the Farm Bill doesn’t pick it up, the thinning and fire mitigation will come to a screeching halt,” Hessel said.
The National Fire Plan pays 75 percent of thinning costs — usually $200 to $600 per acre.
“If a landowner was going to have to provide full funding at $200 to $600 per acre or more, most of the folks couldn’t afford to do it,” Hessel said, adding that “thinning is the most effective prescription for treating bug-infested” and fuel- loaded forests. …
Mike Gaudern, president of the Oregon Small Woodlands Association in Salem, said federal programs are largely misguided, and funding targeting forest health on private woodlands is “a drip in the bucket” compared to the nation’s massive forest health problems.
Gaudern said private woodland owners are interested in biomass energy programs included in the Farm Bill. “Obviously, we’d like to use our biomass resources on the east side of the state, but biomass isn’t going to be the thing that saves small woodlands,” Gaudern said.
He contends that many of the forest health problems on private land were created by lack of management on national forests over the past several decades, a result of lawsuits filed by environmental groups that opposed any logging, even to improve forest health or to salvage logs after a fire.
“We are spending millions and millions of dollars fighting fires and funding programs that are failing to address bug and fire issues,” Gaudern said. “Ninety percent of our natural resources are being burned up or killed by bugs in the name of politics or sustainability.
“It’s a backward way of thinking,” Gaudern said. “We have tried to get fully involved in the federal issues, but the response we get is that the forest health problems are beyond our (the government’s) control, and that is really sad to say in the United States,” Gaudern said.
“At best the Farm Bill is a token effort in relation to the forest health crisis,” Gaudern said. “The major problem is lack of economic activity on the federal forests.”
He said that lack of logging on federal forests led to the shutdown of lumber mills across the state, and in Eastern and Southern Oregon the bugs have moved in and are killing off the sickly, stunted trees in overcrowded forests.
Gaudern said he believes the answer to the forest health crisis is to invest in re-establishing private enterprise and allowing commercial logging to thin and utilize the forest resources instead of allowing them to go to waste from bug kill and fire.
To reiterate, for the benefit of Californians who are dense as door knobs, if public lands are not managed then giant fires will explode there and burn all the way to your house, and then your house will burn down, probably with you in it.
Of course, to prevent those frequent occurrences, some active management will have to be done on Federal forests. That means wacko “environmental” lawsuits must not be allowed to ruin the landscape through promotion of megafires.
There is no benefit to appeasing eco-terrorists with anti-human, anti-civilization agendas. When your life is at stake, allowing nutballs to gum up the stewardship works is suicidal. Not to mention the catastrophic destruction of the environment that proceeds directly from such appeasement.
The Farm Bill falls short by a country mile. The death and destruction of forests, farms, towns, and cities will continue. Our politicians are doing us all great disservice by ignoring the forest fire crisis. We should run the buggers right out of office, not for partisan reasons but for the health and safety of our landscapes, towns, neighborhoods, and our very lives.
by bear bait
by bear bait
I have to wonder how much of the Eastern Oregon plan to salvage log was facilitated by the concepts of the Quincy Library Group? Those folks have worked for years to have a plan to rehabilitate their public lands, only to have the NGO’s judge-shop and get it stopped. Back stabbing does occur. I hope the Eastern Oregon deal is not killed by carpetbaggers from NGO HDQS, far, far away. I would not discount that possibility.
Nor would I.
NGOs like the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club make huge moaning noises about “the USFS is breaking the law” to justify their NEPA suits to halt all management.
At the same time, in utter hypocrisy and duplicity, those selfsame NGOs promote megafire holocausts with absolutely no NEPA processes at all.
They sit in on the secret meetings at the highest level of government firefighting (the WFLC), abscond with millions of dollars straight from the Federal Treasury, provide kickbacks and cushy jobs for revolving-door USFS bureaucrats, all the while spreading propaganda about the “benefits” of forest incineration.
They spit on NEPA when it comes to burning down America’s forests. That is why I frequently refer to them as arsonistic eco-nazis. Their utter contempt for the law is matched by their utter contempt for the U.S.A. and their explosive hatred of forests.
Those are the ugly facts. It’s time the responsible citizens of this country faced them, and pushed the NGO’s back into the stinking mire they oozed out of.
Oregon is 3000 miles from the seat of power that legislates federal programs. Indeed, most of the representation in the august body hails from 2000 miles or more from the problem. They are up to their collective asses in tornadoes, hurricanes, and drought, and needing someone or something to blame. Fixing federal forests is not on the radar. Helping private property fix their forests is not on the radar. The radar is going to be on social service action and reducing the military, all accomplished by raising taxes. The high price of gas to run a car will be met with a suggestion to ride your bike more. But you can’t buy a bike if the frigging truck that brings them from the factory somewhere else doesn’t have the fuel to get it here.
Billy Crystal used to do a bit about a Latin guy who was mostly concerned with “lookin’ good.” Well, that is a political mantra today. The world can go to hell in a handbasket as long as the people running this country are “lookin’ good.” Style over substance. We are a country of style over substance.
So the style is to have “fire as the benign and good cleanser of forests debris and fuel build up.” Substance is that those very same fires burn good stuff, too, and other people’s stuff as well. But style will win over substance each time. Lookin’ good. We be lookin’ good.
This is a very wet spring, with more residual snow than I have seen in my lifetime, or at least since I was in Boy Scouts… 1954… lost the Skyline Trail in August due to deep snow. It did not have the reflectors in those days, high in the trees every several hundred feet along the trail. Silly us thinking August was a good month to go wilderness lake fishing. Bushwhacked our way out, getting to McKenzie Bridge three days past due. My folks just thought the fishing was good, and we’d stayed longer. We thought they might have search party looking for us. NO such luck. So this very wet spring, and lots of snow still on the ground, will probably put a damper on wildfires this year, but it will grow some trees, some brush,
add to the fuel for the next dry spring. And you know what, nobody in Washington DC gives a shit. Not on the radar screen. Don’t care.
So there is not going to be any money forthcoming from blowhards and poseurs like Rep. Peter DeFazio-his Democrat majority can’t move on it-nor will Rep. Walden get anywhere because he is now a back bencher, a Republican without clout, votes, and power. Senator Wyden talks about it, but he can’t get there from here, either, because he sits on committees that are important to HIS future, not the future of rural Oregon. But he will talk a good game. And then go home and bounce the twins on his geriatric knees. Smith is running for re-election. Even recognizing he can’t git ‘er done is bad for his campaign, so the issue is locked away for future consideration. Help is NOT on the way. Never was and never will be.
Buy asbestos underwear, overclothes, and boots, and sleep well. The boys who were beating each other up this afternoon in Congress are now out sipping bourbon, and backslapping each other, having a gay (Sen Craig?) old time, or at the least, a lot of fun. It is GREAT to be a legislator in Washington DC. Good pay, good medical, lots of perks, a great retirement. All you have to remember is to look good. Be lookin’ good.