Posted on 08/14/2007 3:06:37 PM PDT by vadum
from http://www.american.com/archive/2007/august-0807/agent-green
Agent Green
By Stephen Albert and James Dellinger
Activists opposed to herbicide use are fighting for a dangerous weed—and increasing forest fire risks.
August is the peak of the wildfire season in the Western United States. Last year, over 8 million acres had burned by the end of the month, and this year you can expect the evening news to be filled with even more tragic stories about wildfires spreading across the West, devouring people and property.
Who’s to blame? Fingers often point to the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which controls over 250 million acres of public lands, an eighth of the nation’s total land area. Perhaps that’s why the BLM recently announced new measures to prevent wildfires. The risk is that in calling for increased use of herbicides to control the growth of vegetation, the federal agency courts legal action by extremist environmental groups.
Currently, BLM treats a mere 300,000 acres with herbicides to halt the spread of invasive vegetation—more commonly known as weeds. Weeds, particularly those that are not native to the area, are a constant threat. They degrade soil productivity and choke waterways, deprive livestock of food, crowd out native plant species and, perhaps worst of all, increase the risk of wildfires. Weeds on western public lands are estimated to be spreading at the alarming rate of over 2,300 acres per day.
BLM’s job is to manage public lands, protecting them for a variety of uses, including recreation, livestock grazing, and the preservation of wildlife habitat. Invasive vegetation is a major threat to public lands, and the worst weed in the field is cheatgrass. Originally from Mediterranean Europe, it grows up to two feet high in dense patches and quickly develops a root system that chokes out native grasses. Fast-growing cheatgrass also dries out four to six weeks before native plants, becoming incredibly hazardous and providing overwhelming amounts of fuel for rampant wildfires. Moreover, when wildfires ravage forests and prairies in the western states in the summer and fall, cheatgrass is one of the first plants to reappear the following spring.
But when the BLM tries to fight this particularly ruthless weed, it has found opposition from a second foe: the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an environmental activist group. The Center’s advice: let the cheatgrass grow. Do nothing—even if that leads to more forest fires. The BLM frequently uses controlled fires to manage its lands, but it has found that fire actually increases cheatgrass growth. That’s why it’s resorting to herbicides. On June 29, the agency proposed to triple the number of herbicide-treated acres to 900,000 in 17 western states. It says this will reduce the spread of invasive vegetation while cutting the risk of fires.
Nothing doing, says the Tucson, Arizona-based CBD. The Center promotes an extremist ideology that would sacrifice human needs to the needs of other species, plant as well as animal. The founders of CBD are obsessed with returning Western lands to the wild. Center co-founder Robin Silver has warned urbanites, “We will have to inflict severe economic pain.” Center conservation director Peter Galvin told a reporter, “We’d like to see belly-high grass over millions of acres.”
The CBD ideology of ecological preservation is directly opposed to the BLM mission, which is to manage public lands for the public good. Loggers, ranchers, city and county officials and even school districts throughout the West have felt the sting of CBD lawsuits. The group has been amazingly effective in wielding its legal weapon of choice, the Endangered Species Act, which it invokes to halt road construction, new housing, and recreational and agricultural projects on behalf of species like the Andrews dune scarab beetle, the Ash Meadows gumplant, and the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard.
Using herbicides to control harmful invasive plants like cheatgrass is endorsed by responsible groups such as the Western Wildfire Impact Reduction Center, an information clearinghouse on ways to mitigate wildfires. The Center says natural and man-made firebreaks can’t work unless cheatgrass is controlled by herbicide treatment.
But that doesn’t move the activists at the Center for Biological Diversity. They blame invasive vegetation on the BLM, for allowing livestock grazing and road building on public lands. They also blame the Bush Administration—for failing to stop global warming!
Over the next several months, as more and more wildfires burn out of control, the news media will show tearful homeowners asking frustrated lawmakers what they can do to stop wildfires.
There are solutions that work—if we let them.
James Dellinger is executive director of GreenWatch and StateWatch at the Capital Research Center. Steve Albert is a fellow at the Capital Research Center.
Capital Research Center: www.capitalresearch.org
How about if the Fed. Gov. pays more than cursory attention to the Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment, and relinquishes control of public land to the states.
Close the BLM.
Cheatgrass is the vegetative equivalent of a tapeworm. If these people advocate on behalf of Cheatgrass, they are true contrarians. This report is hard to believe.
I have a novel idea too!
Why not tell the environmentalist to f**k off?
More info on them here. They can literally blind someone.
The Arizona environmentalists are absolutely insane. The growth of the weed enhances forest and range fires and as it grows it threatens the giant saguaro which has no defense against fires. They are messing with the symbol for Arizona and likely don’t even know it.
Can’t they be sued for damages or for allowing a dangerous fire situation to exist? If my house and land was destroyed, I would sue these fanatics until they were totally broke. If all the people negatively affected by these deranged fools banded together, they could bring a class action that might use the tobacco lawsuits as a model. There is knowledge of consequences and reckless behavior and arrogant quotes to back it up.
Alternatively, the BLM needs to do what is done in my county: charge anyone who aids or abets wildfire, through negligence or direct action, for all associated firefighting costs.
Can’t think of a better person to ping to this article! Please educate us about this issue from a sensible point of view.
I have a novel idea too!,,same here...
find out who these people are and plant kudzoo in their yard..
Sounds to me like ya'll need some goats.
Chattanooga has a problem with kudzu. It's a vine that was introduced here in the southeast from Japan to help control errosion, but it got away. Now, it grows wild and at almost a foot a day, it will quickly engulf anything nearby. It's not at all uncommon to see entire stands of trees, sometimes acres, totally consumed by kudzu vines. I swear you can hear it growing after a good rain.
City officials tried herbicides, cutting it, burning it, you name it. It would always come back. The best solution thus far has been to turn some goats out to areas with the kudzu and the goats keep it eaten back with a byproduct being fertilizer. (goat poop)
kudzoo=kudzu,,,,thanks tennesee,,,ROLL TIDE
“If these people advocate on behalf of Cheatgrass, they are true contrarians.”
Interesting thing about the “contact us” list at The Center for
Biological Diversity”
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/aboutus/staff.html
Mostly PO Boxes.
I guess they don’t like the idea of arriving at work some day and
finding new “diversity” blooming in the lawns/gardens around
their buildings.
And of course I am NOT suggesting that anyone should give an assist to
cheatgrass and other non-native nusiance plants coming up in their lawn.
thats a go... but lots of luck... they(BLM) vote democrat. they told me so.
thats a go... but lots of luck... they(BLM) vote democrat. they told me so.
Anyone remember the name of that vine like weed that was supossedly taking over everything in the south? I remember pics of it in the eighties growing up telephone poles and down the power lines and completely covering houses and entire forests.
What ever happened to that? I showed an old retired farmer relative of mine pics of it once and he said “I got the perfect solution. Convince people to eat it and grow it for food and then suddenly it will all start dyin and need fertilizer and irrigation to live.” I laughed so hard I nearly puked.
What was that stuff anyway?
I know how to git yer goat! I just hafta find out where ya tied the danged thang!!!
That would be the aforementioned kudzu.
I recall reading an article many moons ago about a guy who was making ethanol (before it was fashionable) out of kudzu. Apparently, kudzu contains something on the order of about 80% sugar. The problem is how to harvest it.
When I lived in Georgia I used to ride my mountain bike on an old logging road that ran through a large patch of kudzu. I swear you can hear that stuff grow after a good rain......
The article didn’t mention whether the grazing animals eat the cheatgrass and perhaps spread the seeds with their poop. Those grazing animals have to have much more land in the arid West than they do elsewhere. I’ve never been too happy with the BLM controlling nearly 50% of the West, nor the low prices they charge the ranchers. When sheep graze, they kill the native grasses.
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