“It seems reasonable to believe that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.” – Rachel Carson, Silent Spring 1962
Rachel Carson proved the human body is permeable and vulnerable to toxic compounds in the environment. This was a new, radical idea conflicting with the notion of “better living through chemistry.” It was the beginning of the environmental movement.
Fifty years later, Environmental Justice is an EPA initiative to provide fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.
Environmental discrimination has historically been evident in the process of selecting and building environmentally hazardous sites, including waste disposal, manufacturing, and power plants. The location of transportation infrastructures, including highways, ports, and airports has also been viewed as a source of environmental injustice.
A simple way to understand Environmental Justice is to think of providing equal rights to Public Health. Butler Hollow fires, Butler Creek flash floods, and the Chinese Fluff Mill are counterexamples of Environmental Justice needing prompt attention.
Butler Hollow Fires
Prescribed or not, forest fires are serious health risks of air pollution, water contamination, and unintended wildfires. During the 2010 Chute Ridge 350-acre project, the fire got out of control incinerating private property.
Warnings to stay inside on high pollution days are misleading and false. No one can escape the deadly effects of prescribed fires. For elderly people, people with asthma, chronic respiratory disease, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease, smoke exposure is particularly harmful. Even short exposures can prove fatal.
The problem of air pollution is all about incomplete combustion. Forest fires create highly toxic compounds. Wood smoke has to come down somewhere in the forest, polluting creeks and streams.
Fine particulates, (particulate matter) are invisible to the naked eye. If you breathe you inhale PM. Wood smoke pollution is 12 times more carcinogenic than cigarette smoke. The elderly and infirm are at high risk to any level of particulate matter. The Forest Service knows about these threats but they do not care.
Butler Creek Flash Floods
Butler Creek flash floods in 2011 and 2013 are hard to forget. Wood smoke pollution on the forest will flow into Table Rock Lake, protected by the Little Rock US Army Corps of Engineers.
The Ouachita River is not a sewer
Rivers are treasures. In the period (6000-2000 BC) before the Ouachita tribe, their indigenous ancestors lived along the river for thousands of years. The sense of wonder Rachel Carson wrote about is gone.
When Sun Paper’s Ying came in 2011 he noted abundant clean water flowing in the Ouachita River. Bill Wright of Arkadelphia said after the sale, “We think it is a beautiful marriage for us in South Arkansas. The only real resource we have here is the timber and water, and they are renewable.” Wright is wrong. 20 years ago, there were 50,000 rivers in China. Now, more than 28,000 are gone!
Last chance to Save Butler Hollow
July 7 is the deadline to send opposing comments to prescribed fires on 3,600 acres every three years. Butler Hollow provides clean air and water, shade, and flash flood protection from Butler Creek. Butler Hollow longtime residents should not have to move.
Bill Nightingale will decide the future of the Hollow. Ask him to cancel the project to protect public health.
Email: objections-eastern-region@fs.fed.us
Subject: Mark Twain Butler Hollow, Project Number 43537
Attn: Forest Supervisor, Ranger Bill Nightingale
Mail: USDA Forest Service, Suite 700 PAL/LSC Staff, 626 E. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53202
Thank you for your continuing efforts to educate the community about these blatant attempts to procure our natural beauty for profit, regardless the cost to our environment.
As global population grows, there will be increasing pressure placed on our natural environment. It will be up to each of us to speak out against plans to destroy what remains of our beautiful planet. More than that, each of us needs to take steps in our personal lives to live more simply, buying locally, eschewing plastic, etc. Such actions won’t stop what’s happening, but it will slow the advancement.
Thanks again for your tireless work.
Thank you, John, I appreciate your kind comments and the opportunity to try to help our friends and neighbors.
Local struggles, like the awesome battle of Save the Ozarks, have national impact. This is not over, it will be a hard battle but facts prevail. Luis
This NPR report was from the first meeting with District Ranger Joe Koloski. Hearing it again makes it clear the fires need to be stopped. The script is a great summary. The USFS justification is pathetic.
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/06/397891071/residents-fight-mark-twain-national-forest-restoration-plan
To stop USFS, I will attempt an Environmental Ethics argument:
1. Prescribed fires generate PM2.5 from incomplete combustion.
2. The plans to use fire on 3,600-acres of Butler Hollow, every 3 years for decades, with families and elderly and frail people residing in the forest, is an ethical question.
3. Are you willing to kill people in order to sell timber and get funds from The Nature Conservancy restoring the forest to arid glades?
A great article explains burning trees for energy is the second worst idea ever: https://thebiomassmonitor.org/2016/05/30/opinion-the-renewability-question-biomass-energy-not-renewable/
For additional information on Biomass, please visit www. TheBiomassMonitor. org (no spaces)
This op-ed was inspired by the concept of incomplete combustion discussed in our last Biomass Monitor call, with Christopher D. Ahlers, Staff Attorney with the Clean Air Council, a nonprofit organization with headquarters in Philadelphia.
He has recently published a law review article, Wood Burning, Biomass, Air Pollution, and Climate Change.