Last Friday was the deadline to send opposing comments for the First Phase of the infamous USFS Butler Hollow project. The files posted on their website with the project documents were unavailable during the July 4th weekend. The problem was fixed on Tuesday but failed again. I called Forest Supervisor Bill Nightingale and was told he is no longer with the USFS. A new Forest Supervisor will be assigned.
Next steps
Public comments submitted by the 45-day deadline will be sent to a USFS Regional panel for an independent review. The panel will write a report and a recommendation for the new Mark Twain Forest Supervisor. We are looking at a couple of months before we hear her decision.
Smoke gets in your eyes
One of the many objections is about prescribed fires and the smoke from incomplete combustion. Fire was discovered by one of our relatives, Homo Erectus, about 350,000 years ago. We love fire, we have to keep burning stuff. It turns out fire is a very complex chemical process involving heat, oxygen, and fuel. Fuel in the forest is tree branches and other woody material that accumulates over time. Mercury and other airborne chemicals pollute the forest.
USFS takes directions from USDA and advice from the US Congress, our elected representatives, like Bruce Westerman and others. USFS used to “care for the land and serve the people” but for the last five years, they have become Forest Fire Fighters on the West Coast.
Westerman and others choose to ignore the climate emergency due to carbon dioxide from burning stuff. West Coast wildfires make the news and the Forest Service borrows funds from Eastern Districts where fires are man-made – arson.
For most people, the solution to excess carbon dioxide is to stop burning. USFS wants to prevent wildfires by burning the fuel in the forests. Bruce Westerman likes the plan, timber sales are included, and Bruce wants to sell timber to the new wood pellet mills in his district.
Abhorrent Behavior
Wood fires create smoke and lethal toxic particles (PM), so small that Homo Sapiens have no way to block them. If you smell wood smoke, you are inhaling PM traveling to your lungs, bloodstream, and brain. USFS does not want to pay for your hospital bills, and does not care for people. Taking a page from the insurance industry, like flood insurance unavailable for areas known to flood, USFS says people are responsible for taking any necessary measures to avoid smoke. This is called Averting Behavior. As long as USFS lets you know the date and place of prescribed fires, USFS is not responsible if you die. But fire dates can change at any time. Most people don’t die right away, making it hard to prove it was due to smoke.
First, second, and third-hand smoke
If you live near Butler Hollow, staying indoors is not an option. Smoke gets inside your house and stays there for a long time. Your house, furniture, rugs, and all your belongings will be contaminated.
A simple solution
USFS is trying to solve the wrong problem with money. Prescribed goats can get rid of vegetation and clean the floor of the forest. The US is a rich nation with plenty of funds to pay USFS to keep the forests untouched, secure it from intruders, illegal loggers, and arsonists. We pay Bruce Westerman over $1.5 million per year. He has five offices, gets long weekends and works only a few days per year. His staff can help you get a flag and plan a tour to D.C. We have 535 representatives in Congress for a total cost of around $1 billion. We can give USFS $500 million per year. We can’t afford Congress and we don’t need what they do. West Coast wildfires will get worse if we keep burning fuels, ignoring off-shore wind and distributed solar power. Bruce tried to pass the “Resilient Forests Act of 2015” giving USFS unlimited power but failed. Bruce is on the list.
Dr. Luis Contreras
Especial thanks to my new best friends, Josh, Kay, Dorothy, Leonard and the Citizens Against Polluted Air
Please visit their websites:
PrescribedBurns dot com
TheBiomassMonitor dot org
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Good: The many volunteers that stood up and said NO. Special mention to the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE), a watchdog non-profit organization opposing USFS abuses.
Bad: Sierra Club, Audubon, and especially the Ozarks Water Watch, “formed to promote water quality in the upper White River basin watershed through collaboration on research, public policy and action projects in Arkansas and Missouri.” Thank you very much for doing absolutely NOTHING to protect the people hurt by USFS.
Ugly: The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the American Bird Conservancy and the National Wild Turkey Federation sponsoring the Butler Hollow project.
TNC gets the BIG & UGLY award. TNC is a stealth non-profit corporate tax shelter pretending to care for people and nature to avoid paying taxes. TNC funds Sierra Club, Audubon, Ozarks Water Watch, Tyson Research Center in Eureka, MO, Washington University, and many other organizations, to control these groups. TNC has $7 Billion assets, the world’s largest international non-profit.
The notion of Averting Behavior is an abuse of power. AB makes no sense to anyone but USFS, like the exceptions you find at the bottom of legal documents using an unreadable small font.
USFS notification process is useless. USFS says on their website the date of the burns can change:
A prescribed fire is one that is ignited by highly-trained fire personnel under very specific fuel and weather conditions. “Dates for these prescribed fires may change based upon weather conditions,” said Mark Twain National Forest Fire Program Manager Jody Eberly. “We monitor weather and fuel conditions up to the very moment the match is lit, and if all conditions are not right, we will cancel or reschedule some of these prescribed fires to make sure we can safely meet our objectives.”
Each prescribed burn will be conducted when there is favorable atmospheric ventilation to minimize smoke impacts to local communities. “Even under the best circumstances, local residents may notice smoke from these prescribed burn projects for a few days following ignition, particularly in the evening hours”, cautions Assistant Fire Management Officer Jim Cornelius. Often, although the air is smoky, it still meets federal and state air quality standards.
Drivers and residents are reminded of the possibility of unexpected shifting winds that could increase the risk of smoke along roadways near burn areas. Signs will be posted on roads near all prescribed burn areas prior to and when burning is in progress. “Whether it’s prescribed fire or wildfire, if the public encounters smoke on the highways, slow down, turn on your lights and drive appropriately under the conditions,” said Cornelius.
The Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2016, a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas to combat “fire borrowing,” has been included in the new Energy Policy Modernization Act and is headed for Senate discussion after a conference.
Westerman ignores runaway climate change and pretends life is good. His worldview and Dark Money gets in the way of reality: severe droughts, extreme storms, rising temperatures breaking all records, what climate scientists call emergency conditions, are the root cause of West Coast wildfires.
Stephen Hawking recently said, “pollution coupled with human greed and stupidity are the biggest threats to humankind.” Hawking knows his stuff.