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Lawsuit Threat Complicates Thinning Plans (NM - Enviros vs. FS)
The Albuquerque Journal (subscription required) ^ | July 2, 2002 | Brendan Smith

Posted on 07/02/2002 10:49:28 AM PDT by CedarDave

Tuesday, July 2, 2002

Lawsuit Threat Complicates Thinning Plans

By Brendan Smith Journal Staff Writer


    A threatened lawsuit from environmentalist Sam Hitt could delay the thinning of the Santa Fe watershed, which is needed to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and subsequent flooding.
    State legislators on the Water and Natural Resources Committee heard Monday about the U.S. Forest Service plan to thin about 7,300 acres of the 17,384-acre watershed, which provides about 40 percent of the city's water supply from the Nichols and McClure reservoirs.
    Hitt, who formed a group called Wild Watershed after leaving Forest Guardians, filed a notice in May that Wild Watershed, Forest Conservation Council and Santa Fe Forest Watch planned to sue the Forest Service over the thinning project.
    The notice claims the Forest Service is violating the Endangered Species Act by not establishing safeguards to protect about 2,800 acres of habitat for the endangered Mexican spotted owl within the proposed thinning area.
    Santa Fe Mayor Larry Delgado has said he will blame Hitt if a wildfire rips through the watershed because of delays in the thinning project.
    Neither Hitt nor the three environmental groups could be reached for comment Monday on whether they still plan to file suit. A 60-day waiting period required from the date of the May 3 notice expires this week.
    The Forest Service is forging ahead with the thinning project despite the threat of a lawsuit, said Santa Fe National Forest forester Bill Armstrong.
    The Forest Service is awaiting responses to a request for proposals from companies willing to cut trees and pile them for controlled burns, which hopefully will begin later this year, Armstrong said.
    "It makes me a little nervous burning those trees," Sen. H. Diane Snyder, R-Albuquerque, told Armstrong.
    Because the narrow, winding Upper Canyon Road is the only road into the watershed, the Forest Service rejected the idea of trucking out cut trees.
    "Any acre that is thinned will have burning done on it," Armstrong said.
    The burning of slash piles roughly 8 feet by 6 feet will be done in fall or winter when fire risk is low, Armstrong said.
    "People aren't going to tolerate us risking anything," he said. "Escaped fire is not an option, especially after the Cerro Grande."
    In 2000, the National Park Service ignited the Cerro Grande prescribed burn at Bandelier National Monument which roared out of control through Los Alamos, destroying 354 residences.
    The Santa Fe watershed project — estimated to take up to seven years and cost up to $10 million — would thin to an average of 50 to 100 trees per acre by removing the choked undergrowth of small trees. Most of the trees that will be cut and burned are less than 6 inches in diameter, for which there is little commercial market, Armstrong said.
    Earlier this year, the Forest Service began some hand thinning with its own crews, but that work stopped when the Santa Fe National Forest closed because of extreme fire danger, Armstrong said.
    The city owns 1,124 acres of the watershed, while the Santa Fe National Forest controls 15,333 acres. More than half of the watershed is located within the Pecos Wilderness where thinning is banned, Armstrong said.
    The Forest Service also must be careful about the amount of smoke created from the burning given the project's proximity to downtown Santa Fe, Armstrong said.
    "We don't know how tolerant the citizens of Santa Fe are going to be to smoke," he said.

Copyright 2002 Albuquerque Journal



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Arizona; US: California; US: Colorado; US: Idaho; US: Montana; US: Nevada; US: New Mexico; US: Utah; US: Washington; US: Wyoming
KEYWORDS: envirolists; environment; environmentalists; forestservice
The enviro-Nazi's are still at it! But now public officals are beginning to ignore them, and act responsibly.
1 posted on 07/02/2002 10:49:29 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: holyscroller; Carry_Okie; brityank; madfly; AAABEST; HASH(0x8ab9f3c); Grampa Dave; B4Ranch; ...
PING
2 posted on 07/02/2002 10:53:14 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: CedarDave
Send the spotted owls up to Show Low Arizona...perhaps Durango or Lake George in Colorado...perhaps Provo... maybe the Black Hills of SD.

Yeah, that's the ticket...

3 posted on 07/02/2002 10:53:41 AM PDT by SGCOS
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To: CedarDave
Barratry was illegal in Tuscany.
4 posted on 07/02/2002 10:55:52 AM PDT by RightWhale
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To: CedarDave
In 2000, the National Park Service ignited the Cerro Grande prescribed burn at Bandelier National Monument which roared out of control through Los Alamos, destroying 354 residences.

The owners of the destroyed homes in Cerre Grande should file a class action lawsuit against Hitt and/or any other enviro-whackos if they try to hinder thinning and whatever other forest management that's needed.

5 posted on 07/02/2002 10:57:21 AM PDT by lideric
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To: CedarDave

With credit to MrNeutron1962:

"Is that a Spotted Owl? I've never seen one in flames before, I'm sure glad we didn't cut these trees down and ruin it's habitat."

6 posted on 07/02/2002 11:02:56 AM PDT by SGCOS
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To: RightWhale
One entry found for barratry.
Main Entry: bar·ra·try
Pronunciation: 'bar-&-trE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -tries
Etymology: Middle English barratrie, from Middle French baraterie deception, from barater to deceive, exchange
Date: 15th century
1 : the purchase or sale of office or preferment in church or state
2 : an unlawful act or fraudulent breach of duty on the part of a master of a ship or of the mariners to the injury of the owner of the ship or cargo
3 : the persistent incitement of litigation

Thanks for expanding my vocabulary!

7 posted on 07/02/2002 11:09:47 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: CedarDave
The enviro-Nazi's are still at it! But now public officals are beginning to ignore them, and act responsibly.

They can try ignoring them in Federal Court.

8 posted on 07/02/2002 11:13:19 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: CedarDave
Barratry is endemic in the US, but has spread to the UN. Those who like Dante's Comedy know at which level of the inferno barrators end.
9 posted on 07/02/2002 11:16:32 AM PDT by RightWhale
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To: Carry_Okie
Hitt, who formed a group called Wild Watershed after leaving Forest Guardians, ...

I guess the Forest Guardians were too conservative for Mr. Hitt:

    Eco-Defense
& Zero-Cut Logging

10 posted on 07/02/2002 11:23:57 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: CedarDave
The logo needs a vertical double-strike on that second "S."
11 posted on 07/02/2002 11:28:53 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: CedarDave
Santa Fe Mayor Larry Delgado has said he will blame Hitt if a wildfire rips through the watershed because of delays in the thinning project.

Santa Fe Mayor Larry Delgado should assign a detail of police officers to watch Hitt's whereabouts.

If a wildfire does hit the area, maybe the newspaper should publish Hitt's home address and phone number. I bet there will be a few people willing to give him a piece of their mind, since Hitt is clearly in need of one.

12 posted on 07/02/2002 11:31:47 AM PDT by Frohickey
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To: CedarDave
Not enough public officials. How much of the west has to burn down before everyone realizes what nut-jobs these enviro-nazi's really are? If we had some reasonable tort reform, where these groups would have to pay out court costs for these dumb lawsuits they bring, perhaps we could turn the tide.
13 posted on 07/02/2002 11:33:02 AM PDT by SoDak
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To: CedarDave
The timing on this lawsuit could not be better for our side.
The arrogance of these trees first and humans last enviral Nazis will be their undoing!


Does NM have a senator with any balls to stand up against these enviral Nazis, who want to place your State in a State of Clear and Present Danger due to their anti human agendas in your forests?

Is there a major newspaper willing to take them on? Or are like us dependent on Fox News, Free Republic and the internet to get the truth out?
14 posted on 07/02/2002 11:38:42 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: lideric
You posted this observation and the best remedy that be brought against these elite enviral nazis who are responsible for burning down homes and endangering innocent people!

In 2000, the National Park Service ignited the Cerro Grande prescribed burn at Bandelier National Monument which roared out of control through Los Alamos, destroying 354 residences.

You posted, The owners of the destroyed homes in Cerre Grande should file a class action lawsuit against Hitt and/or any other enviro-whackos if they try to hinder thinning and whatever other forest management that's needed.

They need to drag this anti human/tree hugging enviral nazis into civil court and end up owning his clymer, his board and the organization he represents.

Then if Rico actions or fraud due to poor science posing as the reason for their actions is found in the civil trials, turn that data over to the NM Attorney General for investigations and submission of their findings to a Federal Grand Jury for criminal actions.

15 posted on 07/02/2002 11:43:46 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: Frohickey
You posted, "If a wildfire does hit the area, maybe the newspaper should publish Hitt's home address and phone number. I bet there will be a few people willing to give him a piece of their mind, since Hitt is clearly in need of one.

As soon as any fire breaks out, wildfire, nature caused or arson cause, Hitt and his EnviraL Nazis should be strapped into parachutes, given a hoe dag, put into a smoke jumping plane and forced out of the plane while over the fire. Then they can either hug a tree or fight what they have brought about by their agenda.

Then the meanest civil trial lawyers should line them up for civil trials to sue them for all of their personal savings and holdings and their organization. If during those trials, any evidence of criminal or Rico actions that set up this tinder box should be given to the NM DA for investigation and presentation to Federal Grand Jury.

Sue them in civil court and get everything they. Then hammer them in federal court. Any judge involved, who is a card carrying enviral must recuse themselves or be up for impeachment for not recusing themselves.

16 posted on 07/02/2002 11:58:47 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: Grampa Dave
Regarding Senators willing to stand-up to them, nobody like Jon Kyl of AZ. Bingaman is one of them (his solution is to spend more money to deal with the after-effects) and Domenici is pretty much silent (he's up for re-election and needs some support from the less radical enviro types). The ABQ Journal had an editorial on June 26 which had a rebuke (mild as it was) of the fringe groups:
Thin Forest Instead of Spinning Blame



   There's plenty of blame to go around for the tinderbox condition of the West, according to an environmental activist and an advocate of natural fire.

   Don't single out environmentalists for overgrazing, overzealous fire suppression and other factors that go back more than a century, said John Horning of Forest Guardians in Santa Fe and Tom Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research in Tucson.

   Their remarks came in the wake of a statement from the Western governors meeting in Phoenix. But neither the governors nor anybody else is laying a century of accumulating forest fuels at the environmentalists' door.

   The governors criticized efforts over the past couple of years to stall or block removal of those fuels by weeding out smaller trees. And that was not a criticism of environmentalists in general, but of a far smaller group of litigious activists.

   For example, the watershed above Santa Fe, grown thick as a matchbook, is a disaster waiting for a spark. It is imperative that it be thinned. Santa Fe Mayor Larry Delgado doesn't blame "environmentalists" for a century's worth of mistakes. He blames environmental extremist Sam Hitt for threatening a lawsuit to keep foresters from starting to rectify those mistakes now.

   There is plenty of blame to go around -- but the full-time activist fringe is too self-righteously obsessive to shoulder its share, much less adopt a cooperative approach to reducing today's threat.

    All content copyright © ABQJournal.com and Albuquerque Journal.


17 posted on 07/02/2002 1:53:41 PM PDT by CedarDave
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To: CedarDave
I was wondering why Senator D was so silent with this mess.

Isn't amazing that the enviro nazis now want to share the blame after a decade of their agendas that closed roads, left dead trees and brush in their new Druid Cathedrals. (We used to call them our forests!)
18 posted on 07/02/2002 1:59:29 PM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: CedarDave
Swine will sprout feathered limbs and take flight before it would happen, but the Forest Service should take their chainsaws into the forest and simply start cutting the appropriate trees - threatened lawsuit notwithstanding. This pathetic, mortal fear of the "system" that controls our every movement has become unbearable. We've gone from existing as a society of laws to a society that is controlled utterly by mindless lawsuits.
19 posted on 07/02/2002 2:01:37 PM PDT by Basil Duke
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