Federal officials have released a draft environmental analysis for a proposal intended to stop rangeland wildfires in a huge swath of the West that hosts cattle ranching and recreation and is home to imperiled sage grouse.
The analysis released Friday looks at the impact of altering or removing vegetation on strips of land up to 165 yards (150 meters) wide and up to 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) long in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Utah.
The draft released by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management follows the agency's 2017 announcement that it planned the review.
Fuel breaks can cost from $12,000 to $44,000 a mile.
BLM spokesman Ken Frederick says there's no cost estimate yet because it's not yet clear what types of fuel breaks field managers might choose.
Critics say the work fragments habitat and harms wildlife.
Public comments on the analysis are being taken until early August.
AP
1 comment:
There has been success using brush removal and seeding to perennial grasses to develop fire breaks but the costs given below indicate the agencies will use their promise to reduce fire risk to demand between $200 and $730 per acre for their future budgets.
Harm to wildlife by modifying vegetation in small areas does not start to compare with harm to wildlife by fires that could have been prevented but instead burn hundreds of thousands of acres killing all the wildlife inside the burn and plugging up streams with ash and silt.
The cost per mile of using cattle and sheep grazing to reduce fire risks would be $0/mile for the taxpayers and provide benefits for wildlife if the bureaucrats are told to get out of the way.
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