Posted on 08/08/2004 7:16:27 PM PDT by television is just wrong
Why the West Is Burning A five-year drought has parched soils, lowered reservoirs and weakened forests. And if the past is any guide, the dry spell could go on for decades By J. MADELEINE NASH/SAGE
Monday, Aug. 16, 2004 In California the wildfire season generally ramps up slowly, and the largest fires usually don't arrive until fall. But this year is different, says Riverside County fire captain Rick Vogt, surveying the aftermath of a blaze that swept through the rural community of Sage, 80 miles from San Diego, with unseasonal intensity late last month, blackening more than 3,500 acres. Fire fighters this time were able to contain the flames, but next time they may not be so lucky. A five-year drought has left this always arid region even dryer than usual, and when the hot Santa Ana winds start to blow off the desert in September, it could take only a spark to set off fires that will be much more difficult to control.
Already the fire season in Southern California is breaking records. Last year was bad enough; this year is outpacing it in both the number of fires started (2,749 vs. 2,453) and the amount of acreage consumed (69,167 vs. 38,523). And Southern California is not alone. A fast-moving wildfire exploded in a canyon on the outskirts of Las Vegas two weeks ago, forcing the evacuation of 75 Girl Scouts from a campground in the Spring Mountains — this on top of a fire that threatened the capital of Nevada and another that nearly destroyed a $200 million astronomical observatory in Arizona. Just a few more big ones could easily turn 2004 into one of the West's worst fire years on record.
And no one knows when the drought will end. Scientists believe this dry spell, which has plagued a broad swath of the West since 1999, is more typical of the region than its 60 million inhabitants would care to admit. As Charles Ester, chief hydrologist for Arizona's Salt River Project, a major provider of water and electricity, puts it, "What we took as a period of normal rainfall in the past century was actually a period of abundance."
Consider, for example, the 1922 compact that determines the allocation of water from the Colorado River. Scientists have shown, by studying tree rings and other historical evidence, that the allocation was based on water flows that were the highest they had been for more than 475 years. By contrast, the flows since 1999 rank among the lowest. As a result, Lake Powell, the giant reservoir created on the Colorado by the Glen Canyon Dam, stands some 60% below capacity and seems destined to fall even lower. No wonder that states like Colorado — whose rights to that water are trumped by the rights of California, Nevada and Arizona — are anxiously bracing for a crisis.
At risk are not only natural ecosystems and agricultural enterprises but also the multiple amenities that people living in the West have for so long taken for granted: ski resorts and golf courses, green lawns and lush gardens, swimming pools and hot tubs, not to mention such modern necessities as dishwashers and flush toilets and the hydropower that keeps refrigerators and home computers humming. Caught off guard, political leaders and water-resource managers have been turning to scientists for help. What do researchers know about patterns of drought in North America? What do they think occurred in the mid-1990s when a big chunk of the West abruptly veered from wet to dry? And do they believe that the current shortfall of precipitation is just a temporary dry spell or an ominous realignment of the earth's climate system?
Secrets of Tree Rings That the West is a semiarid region subject to episodic droughts has been understood for some time. What's new is the detailed picture of those droughts that is emerging from a vastly improved network of North American tree-ring records that extend back more than 1,000 years. Those records — some 835 in all — are based on the growth rings laid down by multiple species of long-lived trees, including blue oaks, giant sequoia and bristlecone and ponderosa pines. Interpreting the rings takes skill, but the basics are simple. The rings are wide when moisture is sufficient, narrow when it is not.
From the Aug. 16, 2004 issue of TIME magazine
We are now drying up
I'm no greenie, but I wonder why there aren't incentives to contractors to develop solar water heaters, pipes above ground, clothes lines (!), water cachements in developments, gray box timers to control water heaters, etc.
Though we fancy ourselves in control, we live at the mercy of a just God who has richly blessed us and our land. When we reflect on the choices we made in the last decade, how can we expect those blessings to continue? We are now solely dependent on God's mercy, because His justice would require our destruction. Our time for choosing is less than three months away...
The California Indians had a long history of burning, which reduced the fuel load and helped the grasslands to spread. This reduced the effects of wildfires.
This regular burning was outlawed by the Spanish governor, Don Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, in 1793 because the Spanish needed the grass for their livestock.
The underbrush and dead trees gradually took over, and the grasslands have been reduced. Now, when wildfires occur the effects are very serious.
But we can't do regular burning because too many people live in the hills and because we have too many lawyers and insurance companies.
So, plan on seeing devastating wildfires on a regular basis.
(By the way, areas that burn in May, or June, or July, in smaller fires, probably won't burn in September and October in larger fires. Go figure!)
"I'm no greenie, but I wonder why there aren't incentives to contractors to develop solar water heaters, pipes above ground, clothes lines (!), water cachements in developments, gray box timers to control water heaters, etc."
What do most of those have to do with saving water?
This is nothing new for southern California...nothing has changed. We go through extended periods of drought and then we'll have a year of heavy rainfall. What matters most is the snowpack in the Sierra. Over the past 5 years, the average snowpack has been close to normal...I don't think any of the Sierra ski resort operators have had much to bitch about. Californians needn't worry about water and fires...we'll always have plenty of each.
I personally think it's going to be another close one.
I do believe we're in for a fall some time in the future.
I think September 11 2001 was something God allowed to happen as a wake up call and a warning. Many people seem not to have gotten the message.
Oh, and by the way ...Semper Fi!
It took the 2003 California fire disaster to wake up some of the "progressives" to back off on their tree-hugging.
Senate Approves Forest Management Plan
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP)--Against the backdrop of raging wildfires in the West, the Senate approved a forest management plan late Thursday that would allow expanded tree thinning on 20 million acres of federal land to reduce the risk of fires.
Meanwhile, the House approved a record $2.9 billion for firefighting and fire protection in federal forests as part of a $20.2 billion spending bill for the Interior Department.
The congressional debate over the forest bill and the firefighting money took on urgency because of the devastating wildfires that this week have destroyed more than 2,600 homes and blackened 730,000 acres across southern California.
``There is a tremendous lesson in these fires. That the land has to be managed,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a leading co-sponsor of the compromise forest bill. The Senate approved it by a vote of 80-14.
The compromise bill must now be merged with legislation passed by the House in May, which would allow more aggressive and more wide spread tree cutting than approved by the Senate.
The legislation, a modified version of President Bush's ``healthy forest'' initiative, calls for establishing expedited procedures for tree thinning on 20 million acres of federal forests that are especially susceptible to fire threat and in many cases are close to populated areas.
The bill would authorize, subject to future appropriations, $760 million a year for forest management, more than double current spending. About half the money would be earmarked for forests situated in areas where wild lands begin to merge with populated areas.
Environmentalists have criticized the legislation because it would allow forest-thinning without environmental reviews and with limited--and in some cases no--judicial review. They accused lawmakers of using the Western wildfires to open federal forests to new logging, including the cutting of mature trees.
Feinstein and other supporters of the bill rejected the criticism and said the compromise was designed to limit logging to only the most at-risk forest lands out of the 190 million acres of federal forests. They said it specifically includes protection for large old-growth forests.
``For those who have been so worried that we're going to log the forests to death. They have watched them burn to death,'' said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. ``It's high time we fix it.''
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said old growth forests will continue to be protected. ``Even with respect to the amount of acreage to be thinned, it is a fraction of the work necessary in high risk areas,'' he said.
The Bush administration supported the Senate bill and said it would provide ``the needed flexibility to manage public lands wisely'' and implement a forest management plan ``good for both the environment and our economy.''
The firefighting funds approved by the House by a 216-205 vote would provide $800 million for battling wildfires, an increase of nearly $300 million over the current budget. It also would allocate $937 million this fiscal year for activities such as tree thinning aimed at reducing the wildfire threat.
Supporters of the ``healthy forest'' bill in the Senate argued that a buildup of dead trees, brush and undergrowth has aggravated the fire threat and resulted in the kinds of wildfires that have devastated much of the West in recent years including the current fires in California and Colorado.
During the day, a series of amendments came up seeking to further limit the tree thinning program. But each was defeated as was a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to funnel more of the forest protection fund to areas close to populated areas.
A proposal to limit the program to five years, offered by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was defeated 61-31. Domenici said the job of improving forest health to significantly reduce the threat of wildfires could take 15 years or more.
AP-NY-10-30-03 2127EST
This is an unusually early fire season though.
Oh, the usual dimwitted suspects
Environmentalists could be consulted to avoid destroying wetlands, and only excess water above a certain level would go into the system. Otherwise, this excess water just continues to flow into the gulf. (The war would come when the western states start trying to divvy it up fairly)
Five year drought?
Anybody check the level of Lake Bonneville lately?
Lake Lahontan?
How about Malhuer Lake or Goose Lake?
Silver or Summer Lakes, or the lake surrounding Fort Rock?
"I'm no greenie, but I wonder why there aren't incentives to contractors to develop solar water heaters, pipes above ground, clothes lines (!), water cachements in developments, gray box timers to control water heaters, etc."
Sounds like a greenie to me..
" surely we could build a water pipeline from the Mississippi to the western states."
Screw that. Get your own damn water.
Ping
If only we'd listened to the landscape architechs and government planners that told us to live in clusters and use mass transit and force compliance with what old Europe has learned... We could be so much better off if America had never happened... damn those pioneers and cowboys!!!
They just wouldn't listen to those savages grinding their nuts on the rocks and living the simple life... So sad!!! (/dripping sarcasm)
I just believe in wise stewardship. I don't let my children eat a bag of potato chips at one sitting, either. Just because we have resources doesn't mean I should try to exhaust them as quickly as possible. Provident living is something that all Americans used to practice.
"Screw that. Get your own damn water."
Nice.
I live in Arizona and pay flood insurance for a property that hasn't had a flood in over 100 years, and probably won't within my lifetime.
The money all goes to FEMA who uses it for cleaning up after floods in the Mississippi river region every year.
Mind calling FEMA and telling them you're letting me off the hook for paying for the floods that ravage the homes of people dumb enough to live in what is called the "flood plain?"
What, no?
Pay for the cleanup of your own damn floods.
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