Posted on 03/01/2006 1:14:25 PM PST by Dashing Dasher
Sacramento County plans to burn down Karl Yuki’s home. (LIE LIE LIE) The Yuki family home is on a 90-acre pear orchard near the Sacramento River north of Sacramento International Airport. “Our family had lived there for quite a while, over 50 years. We were leasing it from the airport,” Yuki explained. The family gave up farming and moved to Lodi about a year ago. Although the house is unoccupied, the orchard remains a home for crows, various small birds and squirrels. Occasionally, coyotes and deer are seen. The airport has plans to transform the orchard into an environment specifically designed to be inhospitable to birds and other wildlife. The primary goal of the transformation is to make wildlife scarce in order to avoid collisions between wildlife and planes at the airport.
The county plans to torch the (UNINHABITED) farm buildings as a training exercise for firefighters. Pear trees will be uprooted and put through a wood chipper. Trees near the farm buildings and growing along the edges of the property will be cut down. A small grove of about 40 oaks adjacent to the orchard will be removed also. The land will be leveled and planted with a “monoculture” of low-growing grass that will be cut and disked periodically. A total of 69 native oaks will disappear. Three environmental groups--the Sierra Club, Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk and the Environmental Council of Sacramento--want to save the oaks. They propose an alternative plan, to remove the pear orchard, retain the oak trees and keep an eye on the result.
The oaks are 1,200 feet from the airport’s west runway and are considered a “wildlife attractant” by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Trees, bushes, ponds and farm crops are examples of wildlife attractants; they provide food, water and cover for wildlife. Oaks provide nest sites, perches and rooting places for birds.
Greg Rowe, senior environmental analyst for the airport, said, “Birds and aircraft don’t mix.” Sacramento International Airport has the highest number of bird strikes in California. Records show that there are five bird strikes per 10,000 flights at Sacramento, but the FAA believes most bird strikes go unreported.
No one has ever been killed by bird strikes at Sacramento, but in 2002 a passenger plane hit a heron during takeoff. The pilot shut down an engine and returned to the airport. The airport appears to be surrounded by wildlife attractants. Rice fields, the Sacramento River and the Yolo bypass create a paradise for waterfowl and wading birds, like herons. And above it all is the Pacific Flyway, a major migratory route for birds. A study at the Sacramento airport found that large flocking birds, like ducks and geese, present the greatest danger because flocks can potentially disable more than one aircraft engine.
In October, FAA officials inspected the airport and issued a “letter of correction” stating that the airport was not in compliance with FAA regulations. Several wildlife attractants were cited, including trees. Rowe said the letter prompted him to include oak trees in the Yuki-orchard removal project.
James Pachl, the attorney representing the environmental groups, contends that “most of their problems are with waterfowl. If you knock down some oak trees, you’re still going to get waterfowl. You should not be knocking down trees just for the sake of knocking down trees or as a way to make a report look good to the FAA.”
Toni Barry, principal environmental analyst at the county’s Department of Environmental Review, is working on a draft environmental-impact report (EIR) for the Yuki orchard project. The report will take everything into consideration: public safety, wildlife habitat and even terrorist attacks. “You don’t want somebody with a rocket launcher climbing up in a tree,” she said. Barry added that homeland-security issues also will be included in another EIR she’s currently working on, the airport’s master plan. The master plan includes the construction of a new runway, to be built around 2020, directly in the path of the oaks.
Barry says the construction of a new runway is dependent on future population growth and demand for more flights. Pachl noted, “It is an interesting coincidence that the airport may put in a third runway.” (SACRAMENTO IS GROWING LIKE CRAZY)
Kevin McRae, with the Sacramento Riverfront Property Owners’ Association, said he believes the airport wants to cut the oaks down to make way for a runway that won’t be built for years, if at all. (LIE LIE LIE)
“It’s not necessary to cut down the oaks,” McRae insisted. “Oaks are a precious resource to be conserved, and I think that to remove any more oaks of more than one or two years of age gratuitously without good reason is uncalled for. They should be preserved, not destroyed.”
Jude Lamare of Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk agreed. “These trees have been there for decades, and FAA regulations have been there for decades, and no one has ever said, 'We have to take these trees out.’ Until now.” (YO, GENIUS - TREES GROW AND BECOME MORE OF A HAZARD)
The draft EIR will be completed in April. It will go to the county’s Project Planning Commission for comment, and then a final EIR will be created for consideration by the county’s board of supervisors. The environmentalists hope public support will persuade the board to save the oaks.
"The primary goal of the transformation is to make wildlife scarce in order to avoid collisions between wildlife and planes at the airport."
Sounds like a good goal to me!
My comments (IN CAPS) and my Bolding - not in original article.
FYI...
I agree. Making the land inhospitable to animals will cause them to go elsewhere. What do the animal rights nuts think.. that's the only trees and land in the entire world those critters can live on? Gimme a break. I do not recall seeing any endangered animals mentioned either.
This is a win/win all around... Saves Property, Human lives, AND the lives of birds which would get struck.
We had a birdstrike today, no damage. But last year, while inside the marker, a bird smacked the FO's window and cracked it right down the middle, by the time they pulled off the runway, it was shattered. Had the window shattered then, he would have been dead and the passenegers in jeopardy. In this case SMF is not moving, so the things near the field that attract birds need to be removed, period. Citing envirowhackism in this saving the birds over an MD-80 full of people on short final, is so typical of a whacko moonbat liberal tree hugger..
That's why I posted it. I heard about this last night and couldn't get over it. Coyotes? Deer? Geese? Ducks? Hello?
How much of an "environmental mess" would an MD80 smacking down short of the runway create?
I was furious about the beginning of the article. The guy no longer lives in this house, no longer farms this land - but thinks we should put his memories above the lives of the people flying in and out of SMF?
Self Centered Enviro-Whacks!
We were taking delivery of a new jet years ago and our POI (FAA inspector)was getting typed in it. In fact, his check ride was the actual first flight in the US. Anyway on short final to 12L, they smacked a goose on the left leading edge right near the root. They got it on the ground and taxied it to the hangar where we were all waiting to see the new bird.(Literally)As he parked we could see something was wrong, but it wasnt until we got closer we saw what happened. The entire leading edge was ruined. Avian remains all over the side of the plane, and a very sheepish FAA driver. Twarnt his fault, though. The wing had to be replaced grounding our brand new bird before it had even been weighed. Had the goose hit the windshield, there would have been a much different result..
People don't realize how much damage they do. That's why I posted some of those pictures. It's an enormous hazard.
I've heard of several deer strikes too - which are deadly. I fly into several fields where we need to do a low pass or two to clear the runway.
Uh, you fly out of Sacramento much, Dash?
This reads like a press release from the Sierra Club.
Rarely SMF, usually Sac Exec, Mather, University, Elk Grove and Rancho.
Can you please adjust the title, it should read...
Clear-cut for takeoff
Citing wildlife and terrorists, the airport wants to destroy more native oaks
I seem to have cut off the word, "takeoff" from the title.
Apologies.
Dash - - You may want to mention that the Sacramento News and Review is to the left of the Sacramento Bee (which is to the left of Pravda).
I didn't think that needed to be said, after you read the article.
But, YES - they are to the left of Castro.
(from http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19950922-0)
Narrative:
Boeing E-3B Sentry 77-0354 was military Boeing 707-derivative, a.o. equipped and AWACS system. The aircraft, operated by the US Air Force 962nd Airborne Air Control Sqn, 3rd Wing, was assigned call-sign Yukla 27 for a 6.2 hr training mission. At 07:43 Yukla 27 was holding short of runway 5, waiting for takeoff, when a Lockheed Hercules departed. This aircraft disturbed a flock of Canada geese. The Yukla 27 crew were not warned about this by the tower controller. At 07:45 they were cleared for takeoff and the throttles were advanced. As the plane rotated for lift-off numerous geese were ingested in the no. 1 and 2 engines resulting in a catastrophic no. 2 engine failure and a stalling no. 1 engine. The crew initiated a slow climbing turn to the left and began to dump fuel. The aircraft attained a maximum altitude of 250 feet before it started to descend. The plane impacted a hilly, wooded area less than a mile from the runway, broke up, exploded and burned.
PROBABLE CAUSE: Ingestion of Canada geese into the no. 1 and 2 engines. Two contributing factors were the fact that the 3rd Wing lacked an aggressive program to detect and deter geese; the preparations for the migration season of the bird hazard reduction working group (BHRWG) were insufficient. An earlier safety agency staff assistance visit (SAV) had misled the 3rd Wing to believe that they were prepared. The second contributing factor was the tower controllers failure to notify Yukla 27 or airfield management that geese were present on the infield.
}:-)4
btt
Did you ever see that video of the F14 vs. bird on takeoff.
The words "Eject Eject Eject" came up pretty quick.
Never seen that. I remember a Reader's Digest story, many years ago, about an F-4 (I think) that took a buzzard right in the face at 450 knots. The backseater ended up having to land the airplane; the pilot lived, but he never flew again and lost an eye.
It's simple physics. A couple of pounds worth of bird slamming into something at an effective speed of several hundred miles an hour is going to do a hell of a lot of damage, and I cannot believe these people are shortsighted enough not to figure that out.
Here's another wicked set of birdstrike pics for you. American Airlines 767 meets bird, and the result was the pilot wound up with half the instrument panel almost in his lap...
http://www.elchineroconcepts.com/B767%20folder/index.htm
}:-)4
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