As wildfires get wilder, the costs of fighting them are untamed It was Day 42 of the Zaca Fire. A tower of white smoke reached miles into the blue sky above the undulating ridges of Santa Barbara's backcountry. Helicopters ferried firefighters across the saw-toothed terrain and bombed fiery ridges with water. Long plumes of red retardant trailed from the belly of a DC-10 air tanker. Bulldozers cut defensive lines through pygmy forests of chaparral. A few miles south, in a camp city of tents and air-conditioned office trailers, commanders pored over computer projections of the fire's likely spread, trying to keep the Zaca bottled up in the wilderness and out of the neighborhoods of Santa Barbara and Montecito. Platoons of private contractors serviced the bustling encampment, dishing out hundreds of hot meals at a time from a mobile kitchen, scrubbing 500 loads of laundry a day, even changing the linens in sleeping trailers. On this single day, Aug. 14, fighting the Zaca cost more than $2.5 million. By the time the blaze was out nearly three months later, the bill had reached at least $140 million, making it one of the most expensive wildfire fights ever waged by the U.S. Forest Service....
Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show The deadly 2003 Cedar fire was raging through San Diego County. Rep. Duncan Hunter, whose home in Alpine would burn to the ground, couldn't understand why military aircraft hadn't been called in to fight the blaze. He decided to do something about it. Hunter phoned Ray Quintanar, regional aviation chief for the U.S. Forest Service, and demanded that giant C-130 cargo planes be mobilized to attack the fire with retardant. Quintanar explained that winds were too high and visibility too poor for aircraft to operate. Forest Service air tankers had already been grounded. But, as both men recall the episode, Hunter would not be dissuaded. He told Quintanar to call "Mr. Myers" and rattled off a Washington, D.C., phone number. "Who's he?" Quintanar asked. "He's the one with all the stars on his chest standing next to Don Rumsfeld," Hunter replied, describing Gen. Richard B. Myers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When Quintanar resisted, Hunter called Washington and pleaded his case directly with Myers. Over the next two days, six C-130 Hercules transports were dispatched to Southern California from bases in Wyoming, North Carolina and Colorado. The planes saw action once the weather improved, but in Quintanar's view they contributed little to controlling the fire....
A Santa Barbara area canyon's residents are among many Californians living in harm's way in fire-prone areas Sometimes when Ralph Daniel looks out the huge plate-glass windows of his 1959 ranch house, a bobcat stares back at him from the patio. He delights in the quiet, the bird songs, the expansive view of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Like millions of other Californians, Daniel, 63, likes to live on nature's edge. He is a 10-minute drive from both downtown Santa Barbara and Los Padres National Forest. But he has no illusions. One day he expects to see a wildfire bolt through the chaparral and down the slopes toward his house on the fringes of Mission Canyon. "That's where I think it's going to come from," he says, pointing to a ridgeline from a seat on his patio. When it does, getting out could be a nightmare. Like many rustic communities in the West, Mission Canyon is a maze of narrow, twisting roads, dead-end drives and too few exits. From the state's earliest days, California's growth has been one endless push into the combustible wild, whether it was Gold Rush-era log cabins in the Sierra foothills, the canyon retreats of the Hollywood elite or new subdivisions sprouting on brushy Riverside County hillsides. About 40% of the more than 12 million homes in the state are on land with a high to extreme threat of wildfire, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection....
Trappers kill wolf, target grizzly bears Grizzly bears have been frequenting the Mack's Inn area again this summer, and they are confirmed to have killed livestock in the Squirrel Meadows cattle allotment in the Caribou-Targhee Forest. And wolves also have been busy taking cattle in Forest Service allotments. Ashton-Island Park District Ranger Adrienne Keller said there have been two recent reports of wolves taking livestock. When such reports are received, Wildlife Services are called in to investigate and take care of the culprits. Wildlife Services trappers killed a wolf that had taken livestock in the Davis Lakes allotment northeast of Ashton. The action occurred before a Montana judge put Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wolves back on the endangered species list. And Wildlife Services is tracking a wolf that killed livestock in the Gerrit Meadows area near the Warm River Springs Road north of Ashton....
Environmentalists sue over Colo. uranium program Environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit claiming that a program clearing the way for uranium mines in western Colorado is illegal. The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District in Denver says the Department of Energy's environmental analysis of the leasing program on federal land last year was inadequate. The groups want the court to make DOE do a more comprehensive analysis of the impacts of past uranium mining and potential impacts of new mines. ''Before supporting a whole other boom-and-bust uranium cycle in western Colorado, maybe they should think about it a little bit more,'' said Amy Atwood of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of four groups suing the federal government....
BLM to review policy on drilling exceptions The Bureau of Land Management has decided to review a provision that allows exceptions to seasonal closures and other restrictions designed to protect wildlife from oil and gas drilling in northwestern New Mexico. The agency's Farmington office is preparing an environmental assessment to determine the criteria that will be followed when evaluating whether oil and gas developers will be granted exceptions to the seasonal closures. The deadline for submitting comments is Aug. 20. Tony Herrell, BLM's deputy director for minerals in New Mexico, said Thursday the agency commonly reviews its policies to see if they are working and how they can be improved. He said other agencies, such as the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, and sportsmen and conservation groups are often involved....
Billionaires bank on Wyo wind Wyoming's future role in wind energy became a lot less speculative this week with the announcement that The Anschutz Corp. plans to take over the TransWest Express Transmission Project. The $3 billion, 900-mile-long, high-voltage line would provide for 3,000 megawatts of wind energy generation in Wyoming for delivery to emerging renewable energy markets in the Desert Southwest, according to Anschutz affiliate TransWest Express LLC. The announcement comes just weeks after another affiliate of Anschutz, Power Company of Wyoming LLC, filed notice to the Bureau of Land Management of its intention to install some 2,000 megawatts of wind generation in Carbon County. The permitting process for both projects could exceed two years....
Smaller habitat for threatened bird proposed The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed trimming the amount of coastal forest lands designated critical habitat for the marbled murrelet, a threatened species of sea bird that nests in old-growth timber. Fish and Wildlife said the 254,000 acres that would be removed from the 1996 critical-habitat designation of 3.9 million acres represents a new focus on trying to protect forests most likely to be used by the birds for nesting. Conservation groups complained that the agency was making it easier to log old-growth timber in the central Coast Range of Oregon, where the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been working on plans to greatly increase timber harvests, and ignoring opportunities to add more critical habitat to improve the bird's chances. The areas to be removed include lands in Northern California and Southern Oregon, where surveys have not turned up any nesting birds, and parts of Lane and Douglas counties that birds still use, but are more than 35 miles inland, said Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Joan Jewett....
No-Drill Policy Of Democrats Harms Planet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. She won't even allow it to come to a vote. With $4 gas having massively shifted public opinion in favor of domestic production, she wants to protect her Democratic members from having to cast an anti-drilling election-year vote. Moreover, given the public mood, she might even lose. This cannot be permitted. Why? Because as she explained to Politico: "I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet." A lovely sentiment. But has Pelosi actually thought through the moratorium's actual effects on the planet? Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60% of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it's 25%. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47%. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day; the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy. Where does it come from? Places like Nigeria, where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population — which leads to more spills and explosions....
51% of Californians back offshore drilling A majority of Californians favor more oil drilling off the coast, according to a statewide survey released Wednesday, for the first time since oil prices spiked nearly three decades ago. The support by 51 percent of residents polled this month by the Public Policy Institute of California represents a shift caused by renewed Republican advocacy for drilling as well as motorists' reaction to soaring pump prices, according to the pollster. With high oil prices and calls from President Bush and Republican presidential aspirant Sen. John McCain to open coastal waters to domestic production, support for drilling has jumped, particularly among Republicans, the poll says. Support increases with age and is slightly higher among men than women. But as the price of oil hovers around $120 per barrel, double the cost a year ago, support for drilling has increased even among Democrats and independents, says the survey of 2,504 adult residents polled across the state July 8-22....
EPA grants air quality permit for Desert Rock The Environmental Protection Agency has issued an air permit for a 1,500-megawatt coal plant that Sithe Global Power LLC and the Navajo nation plan to build south of Farmington in northwest New Mexico. Gov. Bill Richardson's administration said it plans to appeal the EPA decision. Sithe and the Navajo-owned Diné Power Authority have been struggling for four years to get an air permit for the proposed Desert Rock Power Plant -- a $3 billion project that will supply electricity to neighboring states. Sithe and Diné sued the EPA earlier this year to make a decision on the permit, which, according to federal regulations, should have been issued within one year after the companies filed their permit application in 2003. In June, the EPA issued a consent decree to reach a decision by July 31, at the latest. Sithe and Navajo officials praised the EPA decision as a major milestone in moving the project forward....
Forest Service Reveals Cibola Trails Plan Cibola National Forest Supervisor Nancy Rose, who oversees the Sandia Ranger District, has made a decision on where four-wheel- drives, ATVs and motorcycles can be used in the forest. The decision is subject to appeal by those who have standing: the 121 people who submitted comments earlier this year. The appeal period ends 45 days from when it was issued, July 14. None of those individuals with standing contacted by the Telegraph indicated they would appeal, however. "Every process is imperfect, but the Forest Service made a very concerted attempt to satisfy all parties and protect the land," Craig Chapman of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance said. Chapman said the decision is something of a compromise. "No motorized use would be the ultimate decision that we would like to have made," he said. "(The Forest Service) acted like King Solomon and made the best decision for all parties concerned." The U.S. Forest Service decision actually does prohibit motorized travel off a designated system of trails in what is known as the Cedro Area, which is south of I-40 and east of N.M. 337. There are a total of 42.66 miles of motorcycle trails, 1.76 miles for ATVs and motorcycles under 50 inches across, and 10.12 miles open to all vehicles, including offhighway vehicles such as fourwheel-drive trucks, and 7.02 miles designated for highwaylegal vehicles only....