SOS Forests

The Big Lie About Fire Retardant

A reader writes, “Doesn’t fire retardant kill fish?”

No it doesn’t. In one case in history, when an entire truckload of the concentrate drained into a stream after the truck drove off the road and over the embankment, a few fish were killed.

Never in history is there one single case of even a single fish being killed by aerially-applied fire retardant.

Never ever ever. It’s a total LIE that fire retardant kills fish.

What kills fish is fire (and firebombing).

Wait, you say, how can fire kill a fish under the water?

Because forest fires burn so hot they sometimes boil streams or at least raise the temperature of the water enough to kill fish.

That’s right, sports fans. Fires burn right to the water’s edge. This may shock you, but riparian vegetation isn’t fireproof!

The new rule prohibits fire retardant in so-called riparian zones 300 feet on either side of streams. So that vegetation will burn and the streams will boil.

Fire also creates ash, which when wet becomes lye, and gets into the water and raises the pH. Fire turns fresh water alkaline via the ash, and that kills fish.

Fire also burns the humus layer down to mineral soil, which then erodes into streams — killing fish by reducing the dissolved oxygen and coating fish gills so the fish strangulate.

The fishing is nil after a forest fire. Nobody goes into a burn zone to catch fish, because the fish are dead. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed that fire retardant use ruined their fishing experience (no kidding, it’s in the plea) but the opposite is true — fire kills fish, fire retardant saves them.

Which is all well known to the USFS, but they are on a mission to incinerate America’s forests, and so they kowtowed to the fire retardant LIE.

There was nothing scientific about the fire retardant decision. It was pure politics — and arson politics at that. They are arsonists in a big way. Million-acre arsonists. Arsonists who are burning the Federal Estate with glee and abandon.

Which is why the USFS shuns fire retardant and embraces napalm as the their treatment of choice for our forests.

What ought to be banned in the US Forest Service. Keep them by law no nearer than 30 miles from any public forestland. Dump retardant on them if they get any closer.

The Jaramillo Subchron and the Domestication of Fire

Every now and again the Earth’s magnetic field flips, so that the + pole becomes - and vice versa [here].

A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the Earth’s magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. The Earth’s field has alternated between periods of normal polarity, in which the direction of the field was the same as the present direction, and reverse polarity, in which the field was the opposite.

The geologic periods between polarity reversals are called chrons and subchrons [here].

Chrons are long periods during which the magnetic field remained oriented in one direction for most of the duration of the chron. The current chron, called the “Brunhes normal”, began 780,000 years ago. The immediate prior chron was the “Matuyama reverse”. … Most chrons are interrupted by shorter periods, called subchrons, during which the field flips to the opposite of the dominant orientation during the longer parent chron.

The Jaramillo Normal Subchron was a “normal” period of about 40,000 years from approximately 1.1 million years to 970,000 years ago [here].

Our mid-Pleistocene 40Ar/39Ar age recalibration of the geomagnetic polarity timescale is nearly in accord with the oxygen isotope, climate record calibration of the astronomical timescale proposed by Johnson (1982) and Shackleton et al. (1990). 40Ar/39Ar ages of a normally magnetized rhyolite dome in the Valles caldera, northern Mexico, yielded a weighted-mean age of 1.004 ± 0.019 Ma. A K-Ar age of 0.909 ± 0.019 Ma for this rock by Doell and Dalrymple (1966) was the linchpin for the recognition and calibration of the Jaramillo Normal Subchron (JNS). Other 40Ar/39Ar ages from the Valles caldera and 40Ar/39Ar ages of Ivory Coast tektites indicate that the JNS began at about 1.11 Ma and ended before 0.92 Ma, probably near 0.97 Ma.

Why is that important? Because depositions of iron-bearing sediments align with the Earth’s magnetic field and leave a permanent record of the polarity, known as post-depositional detrital remanent magnetization (pDRM) [here]. And those deposits can then be dated to within their particular chron or subchron.

In a recent paper [here]:

Francesco Berna, Paul Goldberg, Liora Kolska Horwitz, James Brink, Sharon Holt, Marion Bamford, and Michael Chazan (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa.

researchers discovered burned bone fragments and ashed plant remains inside a cave, and dated the silty aggregates that enclosed them to the Jaramillo Subchron.

The ashed plant remains are situated in the middle of archaeological stratum 10, which shows a normal magnetic orientation and is bracketed between two cosmogenic burial ages of 1.27 ± 0.19 Ma and 0.98 ± 0.19 Ma. The Normal event can therefore be assigned to the Jaramillo subchron (1.07–0.99 Ma), a time range that fits with current understanding of the chronological position of the early Acheulean within the ESA [Earlier Stone Age] in Southern Africa.

The Acheulean is a cultural era or tradition typified by special types of worked tools [here].

[The Acheulean] was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history starting more than one million years ago. Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organisation arose as a result of their development.

“They” being our ancestors, Homo erectus [here].

What does all this mean? It means that proto-humans were cooking with fire at least 1,000,000 years ago. The Abstract of the Berna et al paper:

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

In Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human [here] primatologist Richard Wrangham theorizes that Homo erectus was physiologically adapted to eating cooked food, and that adaptation dates to 1.8 million years ago. If proto-people could cook, if indeed cooking was a biological imperative, then ipso facto proto-people were capable of controlling fire.

And it follows that if our ancestors could cook with fire, they were certainly capable of setting fire to their environs.

Anthropogenic burning is a technology at least as old as Acheulean handaxes. Strong evidence from Wonderwerk Cave dates control of fire to 1,000,000 years ago, during the Jaramillo Subchron.

Hominids have been burning their landscapes for at least that long.

By the time the First People arrived in North America (15,000+ years ago), they had a million years of burning technology experience and practice under their belts.

If someday some fool questions you as to whether the Indians burned Oregon with skill and adroitness (as happened to me recently, by a college professor no less) you can tell him (as I did) that a million years of practice makes perfect.

Government To Purchase 27 New Bombing Ranges

The Federal Government sent little ol’ me a press release yesterday. I guess they wanted my reaction. Well, here it is.

Using funny money printed by the Fed (because the U.S. Government is bankrupt) President Obomber plans to acquire 27 new tracts of private land of unspecified acres for napalming.

The press release is [here]. A quote:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the U.S. Forest Service will dedicate $40.6 million for 27 exceptional land acquisition projects in 15 states that will help safeguard clean water, provide recreational access, preserve wildlife habitat, enhance scenic vistas and protect historic and wilderness areas.

Projects funded are in Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. Projects range from protecting nationally significant lands from threat of residential development in North Carolina to help pave the way to help purchase the largest single parcel of privately held land with the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

“In keeping with the Obama Administration’s America’s Great Outdoors conservation initiative, USDA is committed to conserving and restoring our forests and bringing jobs to rural America,” said Vilsack. “Through our partnerships with states, communities, tribes and others, it is vital that we step up our efforts to safeguard our country’s natural resources.”

Don’t be fooled by the “safeguard” talk. Most of the tracts selected have already been incinerated in massive Federal Let It Burn fires. The rest are slated for firebombing in the near future.

Obomber’s “Death To America” program is well underway.

100,000 Birds Die in Old-Growth Firebombing

The headlines in the Ogreonian today screamed (in large font type) “10,000 Birds Die”. The article [here] goes on to say that maybe 10,000 birds died in the Lower Klamath refuge this winter, maybe from avian cholera, and that maybe low water flows had something to do with it, and that thousands of birds die there every year anyhow.

So the screaming headline turned out to be another stinky cheese piece of yellow journalism, sensationalized nothing.

What the Ogreonian never reported, to this very day, is that last summer the US Forest Service firebombed 10,000 acres at Santiam Pass, and incinerated 100,000 birds (assuming there were 10 birds per acre when the firebombs hit).

It wasn’t avian cholera; it was a firestorm induced by Federal government functionaries in attack helicopters.

That’s a disaster the Ogreonian doesn’t want you to know about. Federal firebombing of green, old-growth spotted owl nesting stands does not comport with their movie, the illusional delusional worldview they are attempting to inculcate into their readers.

The truth conflicts with the propaganda, so let’s just pretend it never happened.

The dead-tree-press is guilty of killing a lot more than birds.

USFS Replaces Fire Retardant With Napalm

The US Forest Service will no longer be using fire retardant to douse forest fires. Instead they will be using a type of napalm to blast America’s forests to charcoal.

In response to a lawsuit brought by the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and the subsequent ruling by Federal Judge Donald Molloy [here], Thomas Tidwell, Chief, USDA Forest Service decided last December to ban the use of fire retardant on 30 percent of USFS lands.

The Nationwide Aerial Application of Fire Retardant on National Forest System Land — Record of Decision is [here]. Some quotes:

Aerial retardant drops are not allowed in mapped avoidance areas for threatened, endangered, proposed, candidate or sensitive (TEPCS) species or in waterways. …

Some species and habitats require that only water be used to protect their habitat and populations; these habitats and populations have been mapped as avoidance areas. Incident commanders and pilots are required to avoid aerial application of fire retardant in avoidance areas for TEPCS species or within the 300-foot (or larger) buffers on either side of waterways. …

When approaching an avoidance area mapped for TEPCS species, waterway, or riparian vegetation visible to the pilot, the pilot will terminate the application of retardant approximately 300 feet before reaching the mapped avoidance area or waterway. …

[T]he Proposed Action prescribed a 300-foot buffer area between retardant application and surface waters on national forests, excluding about 30 percent of NFS lands from aerially delivered retardant use. …

In Western Oregon, a 300-foot buffer on either side of streams encompasses about 85 percent of the land base (because it’s wet here and we have lots of streams).

So the USFS has effectively banned the use of fire retardant on the most productive lands in the National Forest System.

What they didn’t ban was the use of aerially applied incendiaries, such as were used in Western Oregon last summer to catastrophically burn (100 percent mortality) green, old-growth, spotted owl habitat [here].

Fire retardant is a phosphorus-nitrogen-water based slurry that puts fires out. It has no effect on plants or animals, except to very slightly fertilize the soil. The effect is so slight it cannot be measured. Oh yes, another effect of fire retardant is to save the plants and animals from incineration and immolation.

Fire retardant was banned. In place of fire retardant the USFS now uses explosive chemicals encased in polyacrylate “Ping Pong balls” and ejected by AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, and other combat-ready attack helicopters [here].

The chemicals of choice are glycerin (1,2,3-propanetriol) oxidized by potassium permanganate [here].

14KMnO4 + 4C3H5(OH)3 –> 7K2CO3 + 7Mn2O3 + 5CO2 + 16H2O

Explosive chemicals shot from helicopters do not put the fire out; they expand fires by aerially igniting forest canopies and inducing fire storms. The effect is similar to napalm, killing plants, animals, and people [here].

It is unlikely that radical anti-forest, pro-holocaust groups like FSEEE will be suing to stop the use of potassium permanganate-glycerin Ping Pong balls dropped on forests by attack helicopters, because they think the best thing to do to America’s forests is to burn them to the ground.

The US Forest Service agrees. Their de facto mission is to commit total destruction to America’s forests.

Burn, baby, burn.

A Devolutionary Idea: Give Oregon Counties Our Public Forests

The following essay is posted with permission from the author, Jim Welsh, Publisher and Editor of MooCountyNews.com, Tillamook County’s local online news journal [here].

Jim writes: As I examine the relationships between various levels of government, I see a common thread: power arising to the highest or most powerful entity with a corresponding decrease in accountability and effectiveness due to what I will call a lack of ownership by those working at the higher levels of the government.

One of the biggest impediments to what I call “Devolution” is an desire by too many conservatives to go to Washington or Salem with a belief that that Washington or Salem can be made to work more efficiently. It is a political oxymoron. The question is not whether those places can be made to work more efficiently but rather should they even be doing the things they do?

Do we really need the State parks in Tillamook County to be managed by Salem? Do we need Rest Areas on Hwy 101 in Tillamook to be managed by ODOT. Do we need ODFW to run hatcheries to stock our rivers? Do really expect an administrator in Salem will ever have the knowledge of a State Forest that a local Forester who walks it every day has.

Until we can convince the public that the real issue is about what level of government should provide our necessary agreed upon services, I am afraid we will be forever hearing both parties say they can run Big Government better.

*****

A Devolutionary Idea: Give Oregon Counties Our Public Forests

by Jim Welsh, MooCountyNews, March 28, 2012 [here]

We keep hearing from our elected representatives how hard they are working to solve the problems with Oregon’s counties that rely on timber harvesting for their funding. But the real problem is they continue to try to fix the problem with solutions that are at least 100 years outdated. There are two giant landowners in Oregon, the Federal government and the State of Oregon. Let’s look at these landowners and think about whether they really need to continue to be landowners anymore or at least to the extent they are today.

Start with the all forest lands owned by various departments of the Federal government. For the most part these lands initially became Federal property by dint of sale or treaty or sometimes as a spoil of war. However they were gained, they became the responsibility of Washington, D.C. because these acquired lands were not yet states. They were Federal territories. Over time citizens were allowed to stake claims to parcels of land and eventually these territories were populated enough that they became states. If people worked hard and improved these land claims they would eventually gain ownership of the land. Much of the private property of the United States had its origin in this system. Of course, as we see today, not all of these lands were given away or sold to individual citizens. The Federal government retained much of these territorial lands or later ceded large tracts to a newly admitted state.

There are a variety of reasons the Federal government held onto many of these large tracts of land. Some were held because they had no present economic value, some because the land had strategic value (forts, landmarks, etc) and some because they had value for large future projects. (I do not speak of National Parks and most National Monuments which comprise a very small percentage of Federal land holdings).

When these lands were initially acquired by the Federal government, by fiat, it became the landowner. And since there were no other governmental entities to oversee or protect them it fell to the Federal Government to manage these lands.
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The New USFS Planning Rule Is a Pack of Lies

The entire Fed Register document, Final Rule and Record of Decision, National Forest System Land Management Planning Rule, dated March 23rd, is [here] if you are interested.

It’s a pile of ecobabble gibberish, a set of rules that the US Forest Service intends to violate immediately — a pack of lies really.

Allow me to deconstruct the document and reveal it’s bogosity and mendacity for you. First, some background:

In March, 2007, five years ago, Northern California U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton enjoined the USDA and the Forest Service from implementing the 2005 Planning Rule [here]. The Planning Rule guides the creation, amending, and revision of National Forest Land and Resource Management Plans (LMRP’s) under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).

In December 2009, more than two years ago and after a delay of three years, the USFS announced a process to create a new Planning Rule intended to get National Forest planning going again [here]. The USFS requested scoping comments to get them started on the process [here]. In December 2010, the USFS produced a draft rule and again requested public comments [here, here].

Last week the USFS released their finished product in the Federal Register [here].

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Ron Wyden: Nomex Ninny of the Year

Once again it is time to award our Nomex Ninny of the Year, a special honor that goes to politicians without a clue. Previous winners are Washington Goob Christine Gregoire and Montana Snitter Jon Tester [here].

This year’s illustrious Nomex Ninny designee is none other than Oregon Senior Senator, the Honorable Ron Wyden.

Ron’s flare for ignorance regarding forests has been highlighted in these digital pages before [here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and more].

Now Ron has stepped into the fray once more, with predictable stupidity, or worse.

With wildfire season approaching, Wyden demands outside review of Forest Service aerial tanker fleet

By Charles Pope, The Oregonian , March 27, 2012 [here]

WASHINGTON — Angered by what he sees as the Forest Service’s indifference and alarmed by the potential for catastrophic wildfires this year, Sen. Ron Wyden formally asked Tuesday for an outside review of the government’s plan for modernizing its aging fleet of aircraft for fighting fires.

The Oregon Democrat said he decided to ask for the General Accountability Office study after being convinced the Forest Service and Interior Department were not moving fast enough to develop a plan for replacing the fleet. The aerial tankers, which are crucial in fighting big fires, average 50 years old. The government contracts with two private operators for the planes. … [more]

This story is as old as the hills. The tanker fleet problem dates back to at least 2002 [here]. Congress (with Ron firmly seated in his seat) has dropped the ball innumerable times since then.

More importantly, last year the USFS effectively banned the use of aerial fire retardant [here], thanks to lawsuits brought by Wydenites [here].

Now the emergency drops by air tankers on raging forest fires will be water-only and relatively ineffective.

Even more to the point, the USFS now uses aerial incendiary devices in place of retardant to fight fires [here, here, here].

Get it? Fire retardant bad, napalm good.

The new method of fire fighting is to firebomb. With helicopters, not aerial tankers. Tankers aren’t needed anymore, just military attack helicopters carrying IEDs.

All thanks to fearless leaders like Ron Wyden, who would rather firebomb old-growth than put the fires out.

So, for his duplicity, his arsonism, his complicity in and endorsement of firebombing Oregon’s priceless heritage forests, we are proud to name Oregon’s (actually he lives in New York City) Senator Ron Wyden 2012 Nomex Ninny of the Year. It’s the least we could do.

Woodsy Wyden surveys Oregon forest for future firebombing.

Obama Aborts Congress, Constitution, With New Ocean Agency

Herr Barack Obama, the new American Dictator, has promulgated some horrendous stuff, but none so unconstitutional as Executive Order 13547.

Far worse even than the Health Care Mandatory Penalty Act, which makes criminals out of every citizen, Executive Order 13547 circumvents Congress, the Courts, and the U.S. Constitution by dictatorially declaring all land and waters of this country to be chattel owned by the President in fulfillment of UN Agenda 21.

Executive Order 13547 — Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes
[here] enacts new law without consent of Congress, creates a new agency shielded from both Congress and the Federal Courts, appropriates monies, and gives the new agency broad control over every square inch of America.

Executive Order 13547 begins with the phrase:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, …

and proceeds to overstep that authority, to declare new powers to the Presidency, and to violate the Constitution with impunity. Congress did not pass any law directing the President to establish this new agency. He did it on his own, in violation of the Constitution.

Executive Order 13547 creates something called the National Ocean Council [here], which is to develop “coastal and marine spatial plans” that will “ensure the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources”.

Any trickle of water that eventually reaches the ocean, and any puff of air that drifts from land over the sea, is now subject to the whims and diktats of the National Ocean Council.

The National Ocean Council will be co-chaired by unelected political appointees not subject to confirmation by Congress. It will have the power to override existing laws and force the Secretaries of of State, Defense, the Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (all subject to confirmation by Congress) to bend to the will of the Council.

Executive Order 13547 pledges to conform to “applicable international law, including customary international law,” but is itself in direct violation of U.S. law. Herr Dictator Obama has declared “international law” to be superior to national law, in direct contravention of our Constitution and in obeisance to UN Agenda 21.

Last week the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs held an oversight hearing on “Empty Hooks: The National Ocean Policy is the Latest Threat to Access for Recreational and Commercial Fishermen” [here].

Hello Congress, this issue is far bigger than just fisherman, for gosh sakes. Time to catch a clue!

At any rate, one testimony [here] was especially insightful, that by accomplished environmental attorney George J. Mannina, Jr. [here]. A quote:

Advocates of the National Ocean Policy will assert that the Executive Branch could promulgate regulations under its existing delegated authority to do some or all of these things. That may or may not be the case, but Executive Order 13547 does not take that approach. Instead, it creates, via the National Ocean Policy, a new set of requirements with which existing statutes are to be consistent, and then places these new standards beyond judicial review. This effectively constitutes the enactment of new legislation that violates the separation of powers set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, when Congress has delegated legislative authority, it has done so to specific departments and agencies. Executive Order 13547, and its National Ocean Policy, effectively amend each of these statutes by changing the Congressional delegation of authority from an individual department or agency to a collective of at least 23 departments and agencies.

Barack Hussein Obama and his Radical Left minions want you to believe that environmental concerns trump your Constitutional rights. Don’t believe it. It isn’t true. We cannot and will not allow them to abort our Constitution no matter what excuse they offer.

Utah Demands Her Land Back

The Federal Government has been a terrible trustee of lands that rightfully belong to the States.

The situation has deteriorated to the point that the Feds are now mad firebombers, waging a violent war against the western states, dropping bombs on Oregon forests like we were the Taliban. It’s an undeclared war, but it’s a real war nonetheless.

One state, Utah, has had the gumption to stand up and demand her land back.

Herbert signs bill demanding feds relinquish lands in Utah
Legislation seeks state takeover of millions of acres of public lands.

By Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar 23 2012 [here]

Gov. Gary Herbert signed legislation Friday demanding that Congress turn over roughly 30 million acres of federal land within Utah’s borders — a move that proponents acknowledge could lead to a court battle.

“It’s a difficult fight. This is the first step,” said Herbert before signing the measure, “but it’s a fight worth having.”

Supporters of the effort contend the federal government made a promise to Utah and Western states to dispose of hundreds of millions of acres of federal land, just as it had done in states east of the Rockies. …

Rep. Rob Bishop said the federal government is paying $8.6 billion a year to manage federal lands, and isn’t doing a good job of it.

“The state of Utah is willing to stand up and say to the federal government, we’re willing to take responsibility for the state of Utah,” he said. “The West is ready. It needs it. It’s now time to change the way we’ve done things traditionally … because the way we’ve done things traditionally flat-out doesn’t work.” … [more]

HB511 is entitled EMINENT DOMAIN OF FEDERAL LAND, and it “authorizes a political subdivision to exercise eminent domain authority on property possessed by the federal government unless the property was acquired by the federal government with the consent of the Legislature and in accordance with the United States Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 17.”

Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 is the so-called “Enclave Clause”:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;…

The Enclave Clause limits Federal ownership of land to military bases, navy docks, and Federal buildings, as well as Washington DC. It does not authorize the Federal Government to own half the state of Utah, or of Oregon for that matter.

Article IV, Section 3 Clause 2 of the US Constitution is the so-called “Property Clause”:

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State…

That clause has been interpreted to mean the Feds can own as much as they want of western states, and firebomb those lands with impunity. But western states have argued that the “equal footing doctrine” requires Congress to recognize western states’ sovereignty over public lands, because the Original Thirteen States don’t have Fed land claims and aren’t subject to vicious and stupid firebombing of their forests by Federal functionaries.

For more discussion of the legal technicalities, see the Family Guardian website [here].

A Voice for Local Government in Our National Forests

Note: the following testimony is the personal statement of Marcia Armstrong. Her personal website is [here]. Mrs. Armstrong is a Supervisor of Siskiyou County, CA, and very ably represents her constituency, but the full County Board of Supervisors statement that was submitted to Congress on this matter is somewhat different and may be found [here]. Mrs. Armstrong has also served as Executive Director of the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau and Siskiyou County Cattlemen’s Assoc. Mrs. Armstrong’s testimony may be downloaded in pdf format by clicking [here].– Admin (Mike Dubrasich, Exec. Dir, W.I.S.E.)

Testimony of Marcia H. Armstrong, Supervisor District 5, Siskiyou County, CA

To the House Natural Resources Committee, Sub-committee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
United States House of Representatives
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
March 20, 2012

Re: Additional comments for recent oversight field hearing on “Explosion of Federal Regulations Threatening Jobs and Economic Survival in the West” held in Elko, NV

To Whom It May Concern:

Siskiyou County representatives were unable to attend the recent Subcommittee Field Hearing held in Elko, NV that was focused on the “Explosion of Federal Regulations Threatening Jobs and Economic Survival in the West.” It is our understanding that comments submitted prior to March 22, 2012, will be accepted as part of the Field Hearing record. Thus, please accept this paper as part of that official record.

My following statements will describe:

(1) In detail, how our local economy and public health and safety has declined precipitously since the advent of the Northwest Forest Plan, the listing of various endangered species, and implementation of other environmental and land/water management regulations;

(2) The scope of environmental and land management regulations that affects access to and the continued productive use of local natural resources for the economic benefit, health, safety and enjoyment of local communities;

(3) Certain specific international credos, policies, platforms and programs that have unduly influenced various Administrations, the scientific community, Federal agencies, and influential environmental groups;

(4) How those international agendas have been specifically implemented in Siskiyou County;

(5) An Appendix showing timber harvest trends for the past two decades on several of our local National Forests.

Siskiyou County joins with other western counties in asking for your assistance in: (a) restoring balance to the management of our National Forests; (b) recognizing the direct relationship between active forest management and multiple use and the economic health, cultural vitality and prospects of our local communities and Counties; (c) mandating a real and substantive voice for local government to communicate local needs and provide input on the management of our Federal lands; (d) recognizing the value of retaining our surviving timber infrastructure and the need for a stable supply of material for our wood products industries;(e) stepping up the pace and scale of wildland fuel reduction in the name of public safety (HR 1485 Herger Catastrophic Wildfire Community Protection Act [here]) - providing and supporting new opportunities for biomass utilization; and (f) passing reforms to the Equal Access to Justice Act so that a handful of special interests from outside our area cannot hold the active management of our National Forests hostage for profit.

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Firebombed Old-Growth Forest Photos

Last month the US Government waged an aerial attack on Oregon and our old-growth forests by firebombing them. Over 6,000 acres of heritage forest were destroyed by military-style incendiary bombing.

Yes, I know, it’s completely nuts. But it happened. And now firebombing old-growth is established as the de facto forest policy on Federal lands in Oregon and elsewhere.

Our Congressional Delegation, Governor, and Legislature favor firebombing over other forest management activities, such as responsible stewardship. Firebombing is quick and clean. Just napalm forests. That solves everything. Obomber hates forests, too, but he such a pathetic dead fish that I doubt he even knows he firebombed them. But Obomber’s flunkies know — they planned and executed the bombing with supreme malice aforethought. Teach you peasant scum who’s really in charge.

Way to go, fearless leaders. Don’t worry, I will let all your constituents know about your lust for total annihilation of our forests. You da Man. Bomb baby bomb. Kill kill kill. Do your own voters. Do them but good.

Next up: nuking Oregon forests. Da Man will be Chernobyling Oregon forests next. Fry them to the ground in an instant and leave the ashes to glow in the dark for the next 10,000 years.

Bomb bomb bomb. Kill kill kill. It’s bipartisan. It’s democratic. Vote for your own executioner/firebomber/whacked-out nutball monster forest murderer. No matter who you vote for, your forests are toast.

Photos taken October, 2011 of the Shadow Lake Burn, Deschutes and Linn Counties, Oregon. Click on images to enlarge them.

The last photo is of the adjacent B&B Burn (90,000 acres, 2003) eight years after that fire. Note paucity of vegetation, wildlife, diversity, etc. Expect the U.S. Government to annihilate all Oregon forests in this manner in the near future. That’s the policy. Bomb Oregon forests to hell. Leave nothing alive.

Death to forests. Death to America. It’s the change you voted for. Or not. In any case, duck and cover. Incoming firebombs, courtesy your government.

Burn the Village

(Mike rambles on…)

The Shadow Lake Fire received no initial attack. DNF public announcements declared the fire management strategy as “allowing nature to run its course in the wilderness”. That is a treatment prescription. No EIS or EA or NEPA process was instituted. No Section 7 ESA consultations with USFWS. No Section 106 consultations under NHPA. No public process. No NEPA. It was an illegal fire.

Over 6,000 acres of the total forest burned was firebombed. IC Wally Bennett and the Boise NIMO team firebombed old-growth in Oregon. They used ping pong balls filled with TNT ejected from helicopters into green*, old-growth, heritage Oregon Cascade forests. The effect is similar to napalm. More than 60% of the Shadow Lake Fire burned because it was firebombed by the NIMO.

* The 10,000 acres burned was NOT dead lodgpole pine. It was green, mixed conifer, at least 10 species, multicohort, with an older cohort of ponderosa pine from 200 to 500 years-old. The fire was mainly in the Santiam Pass corridor south of Cache Mountain at 4,500 feet elevation.

To my knowledge, this is the first time that Oregon old-growth has been firebombed. Let It Burn has now become Burn It By Firebombing.

“Firefighter safety” is a feeble and disingenuous excuse. An initial attack crew of 5 people could have put the fire out in two days. That’s 10 man-days total. Instead, some 15,000 man-days were expended. Most injuries suffered by firefighters do not come from getting burned by the fire. Instead they come from accidents with equipment and machinery, such as pulaskis, chainsaws, trucks, vans, and helicopters. The likelihood of injury is directly proportional to the number of man-days. By increasing the man-days one-thousand-fold, they also increased firefighter risk one-thousand-fold. If the fire had been contained, controlled, and extinguished at 10, 20, 50, or even 100 acres, there would have been no need to emergency evacuate Big Lake.

Fire planning is a rude joke. It seems the planners are always fooled. Their models never work. So let’s just firebomb.

It “needed to burn” so much they had to firebomb 6,400 acres out of the (exactly) 10,000 acres within the final fire perimeter. They were careful to firebomb only within the designated wilderness boundary. The amount of acreage burned and the specific area were predetermined and desired at least from the discovery of the fire and likely much before that.

Clearly, the fire was an applied treatment, a federal agency action undertaken for “environmental” reasons, including the DNF’s initial public statement that the fire was to be allowed to burn “to let nature run its course in the wilderness”.

Another purpose was apparently to reduce the fire hazard. However, the firebombing of green trees left more dead, dry biomass than was present before the fire. While fine fuels were consumed, they will soon grow back in the form of brush. Within 10 to 15 years the hazard will have returned, but with an additional 200 tons/acre of dead fuels.

In any case, regardless of the USFS’s ever-changing, never examined justifications, the National Environmental Policy Act requires an EIS process before a federal agency undertakes an action that will likely have significant impact to the environment. Note that under the law (NEPA) it does not matter whether the impacts of the action are beneficial or detrimental to the environment. The NEPA process kicks in if the impacts are expected to be significant. No one, including the USFS, denies that the impacts of fire on forests are significant.

One good question never asked is why the area is designated wilderness at all. Wilderness, by law, is supposed to be “untrammeled” land, absent the signs of man. In the case of the Shadow Lake Fire, the area is the Santiam Pass south of Cache Mtn.

The Pass, a plateau at 4,500 feet (a fairly low elevation between 10,000-foot mountain peaks), has been the main east-west highway across the Oregon Cascades for 10,000 years. The Pass connects the MacKenzie, Santiam, and Willamette Valleys with the Metolius, Deschutes, and Eastern Oregon. Just to the south of the Pass is Obsidian Cliffs, an ancient quarry — tools from which can be found 1,000 miles in any direction. The Pass was vegetated by open, park-like ponderosa pine for thousands of years due to anthropogenic burning — frequent, seasonal, human-set fires in grassy fuels. Many of those old trees (now dead from the Shadow Lake Fire) had been bark peeled or used as hearth trees.

When the Indians were driven off by disease and conquest, the Pass became the site of the Santiam Wagon Road. It was/is still the best route between Western and Eastern Oregon. The wagon ruts are still visible.

The point is that the hand of man is plainly evident. This land should never have been designated “wilderness”. That not only disrespects history and science, it has led to a management problem wherein firebombing old-growth is now the preferred solution. Let It Burn is not enough - they must firebomb, too. …

Burn the Village

by bear bait

Read what Mike says about the Shadow Lake Fire [above and here]. No EIS. No consultations. Omnidirectional kowtowing to the money in the NGOs of “environmental protection.”

This is McNamara strategy: Burn the village to keep it from going over to the Viet Cong. You betcha. No villages, no enemy. No timber, no logging. No fire, we make some.

The Occupy Wall Street deal is recognition of that insanity. A basic governmental diversion from the truth, from doing the right thing. It is now all about power, the power to destroy because the power to create has been spent, at the rate of two dollars for every dollar of revenue.

Insanity. Pure, unadulterated, in your face insanity. A government rambling down the tracks to oblivion, and the engineers and conductors are all power mad and drunk on public money. If you believe the Big Lie about “provident fire” and about “firefighter safety”, you are as insane as they are. Use you noggin for something other than a hat rack. Think! Abstract. Linear. Convoluted.

Just think. You do not set fire to old growth forests to “save” them. It don’t pass the smell test.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, receives an inordinate amount of financial support from people who don’t know their ass from second base, then it must be a duck!!!

Setting fire to forests to save them is Milo Minderbinder bombing US assets because the Germans made him a good deal on plane rent. Bidness. And now the bidness of the USFS is to burn forests to save them.

Re-introduction of fire into the ecosystem. Only the model they are following was never present or used since the last Ice Age. Fire into unprepared landscapes is the newest of management schemes in the history of trees on land once covered with perpetual snow and ice fields. When they were uncovered by global warming, the natives were there to fire the forests to keep them in check, and to keep their livelihoods and safety and food stores safe.

Fire is a tool that can be used successfully only on prepared landscapes. Letting fire burn in unprepared forests yields catastrophic destruction. It is the antithesis of the original mission of the USFS. That agency was formed to save timber for the future. It has been transformed into a Fahrenheit 451 agency that routinely destroys America’s forests as a matter of policy and action.

Conservation. Conserve. Use and replace. Log and plant. Thin and burn. Manage. Not dropping little droplets of ping pong balls of napalm to burn 500 year old forests in a significant pre-European trade and use area.

What the USFS did was criminal A crime against the forests. A crime against logical preservation and conservation. It was the little kid kicking down the sand castle because he could. The USFS burned the Shadow Lake landscape because they can and did. Out of control government. Maybe there needs be an “Occupy the Forest” movement, to reorder the management of such forests.

bear bait

Napalming Old Growth In Oregon

Well, not napalm actually. The chemical used by the US Forest Service to incinerate 10,000 acres of heritage “protected” old growth ponderosa pine on the Deschutes National Forest last week was potassium permanganate injected with nitroglycerin.

The explosive chemicals were encased in polyacrylate “Ping Pong balls” and ejected by AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, and other combat-ready attack helicopters.

Just like Viet Nam!!!!

Only in this case the lousy gooks targeted by the Feds were Americans and our priceless heritage forests.

The original stated “purpose” of the Shadow Lake Fire was to “allow nature to take its course in the wilderness”. That eco-babble was jettisoned when the napalming began.

The new “justification” for burning 10,000 acres is “public and firefighter safety”. Of course, back when the Shadow Lake Fire started (Aug. 27th), the fire could have been put out by five firefighters in two days (that’s 10 man-days total). But in order to ensure “safety”, the fire was expanded by napalming to 10,000 acres with 600 personnel “fighting” it for three weeks (that’s 12,000 man-days and still counting).

So “safety” was enhanced by expanding the risk a thousand times over.

“Let nature run its course” is not an actual mission of the US Forest Service. Their actual mission is to care for land and serve the people. But that crapola is just for propaganda purposes. The US Forest Service is napalming old growth. That’s their de facto mission. Kill, kill, kill. Burn baby burn.

Slaughter forests, especially old growth. Kill every living thing. Convert old growth to tick brush with snags (they call it “early seral with structure”). Murder forests. Leave a legacy of scorched earth moonscape.

There was no NEPA process. The Deschutes NF didn’t do any EIS or EA before they determined that catastrophic holocaust was the treatment of choice. No “survey and manage”. Fork the law. The USFS doesn’t need no forking laws. They have badges. They ARE the law.

Do you need some links? Here you go:

KOHD [here]: Crews are letting the fire run its natural course, but they are fighting the fire with fire by spitting out thousands of little ping pong balls out of a helicopter.

SCIENCE WATCH [here]

THE National Forest Service reports that it has successfully used common Ping-Pong balls filled with an incendiary chemical mixture to start a controlled forest fire in central Utah. A spokesman said the little chemical firebombs proved to be more effective than the jellied petroleum generally applied by spraying from helicopters, because the table-tennis balls started fires on the forest floor rather than in the treetops. The Ping-Pong bombs are also considerably cheaper than the napalm-type igniter jelly.

Small holes are pierced in the balls, and the balls are filled with a combination of common chemical, the spokesman explained. Before each firebombing mission, several hundred balls are loaded into the hopper of a dispensing machine aboard a helicopter. When the helicopter reaches its target, the dispensing machine pumps one of the chemicals into each ball and launches it down a chute toward the ground. Soon after the ball hits the ground, its contents burst into intensely hot flame.

The target of the recent experimental incendiary attack was a 1,300-acre stand of alpine fir trees deemed a hindrance to the growth of more desirable trees. The Forest Service plans to replace the burned forest with spruce and grass, thereby improving grazing for elk and deer.

PremoFire [here]:

PremoFire Aerial Ignition Devices provide a safe and reliable ignition source for your fire operations. Containing potassium permanganate, only PremoFire Spheres release enough heat energy and deliver enough burn time to light difficult fuel sources in variable moisture conditions.

It’s a war, waged by the Fed, with us as their target. The purpose is to destroy our forests, watersheds, economy, livelihoods, and kill us if they can. The purpose is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. The purpose is to jam the big Federal boot heel down on the necks of peasants. The purpose is annihilation and blitzkreig.

The reaction from urban folk:

Shadow Lake Fire: Passersby marvel at orange sun, thick smoke

By Janie Har, The Oregonian, September 04, 2011 The Oregonian [here]

SUTTLE LAKE – As promised, what was wimpy, barely visible smoke from the Shadow Lake Fire this morning had turned into a thick, wide gray column that had dozens of onlookers at the Mt. Washington viewpoint transfixed.

By 2 p.m., more than two dozen cars were parked at the viewpoint off U.S. 20. People crowded around fire information officers posted there since morning and asked questions, snapped photographs, and marveled at the tiny orange sun in the sky and the smoke about five miles away.

The haze cast an angelic light.

“It’s incredible being able to witness this,” said Chris Thomas, who had her photo taken with Christina Cole. The two had been in Sunriver for the last week and hadn’t paid much attention to the wildfire until today as they headed back to Portland.

Cole was thrilled with the cycle-of-life nature of the burn. For others, the spectacle was both beautiful and a little scary. …

So there you have it. The USFS firebombs old growth, and the urbanites marvel at the “angelic glow”. My guess, and this just a guess, is that if Portland was firebombed by the Federal government, the residents would not be transfixed by the “angelic glow” of the smoke.

Pyne Commentary On the Wallow Fire

From The Wallow Fire: The monster that didn’t have to awaken

by Stephen J. Pyne, Op-Ed, Arizona Republic, Jun. 12, 2011 [here]

It’s never too early to second-guess, but as the Wallow Fire continues to rake through the White Mountains like a giant grizzly paw, it’s worth reviewing how such a burn could happen.

For more than a century, Americans have faced fire on their public wildlands. For the first 50 years, we tried to abolish it and failed. For the past 50 years, we have tried, with patchy success, to restore it.

What we have learned is that all strategies for wildland fire work brilliantly until they fail, and they can fail under conditions that wipe out all the good they had done.

Letting fires burn freely in the backcountry is cheap, safe and ecologically benign until, inevitably, one bolts free, rips through towns, smokes in valleys, and overruns protected places outside its designated domain.

Setting prescribed burns replaces nature’s fires with tamer surrogates until they fail to do the ecological work required or one slips its leash and runs amok.

Large-scale landscaping - clearing, thinning, building roads, converting - can change the behavior of fires but does not eliminate them. Big fires can still ramble, and the meddling can fundamentally mar the character of the land under protection.

Firefighting, or fire suppression, loses 2 to 3 percent of fires under extreme conditions. The resulting firefight is like a declaration of martial law, a means to put down a temporary insurrection; it is not a means to govern. Trying to exclude fire in naturally fire-prone places only stirs up an ecological insurgency.

Each approach fails on its own. What has a chance to work is a mixture of strategies, adjusted to particular places. Restoration takes time, patience and support from a sustaining society. Its prescriptions are political as much as ecological. Like a culture’s architecture or legal system, its fire regimes reflect the choices it makes and the values on which it bases them.

It is not that fire has been ignored. The flames have drawn partisans like a leaping bonfire. But they stand with their back to the fire, speaking out to some group, using those flames to animate their message. The fire matters because it affects something else that they value. They don’t see fire as a common cause, a universal catalyst for the biota, and something with its own logic and demands.

Intellectuals have been no less remiss. Arizona’s universities have disciplines devoted to earth, water and air, but the only fire department is the one that sends emergency vehicles when an alarm sounds.

What is striking about the American style of fire is how technically robust it is and how politically dysfunctional and inept in practice so much of it has become. … [more]

Note: Stephen J. Pyne, Regents Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, is the author of numerous books, including Fire: A Brief History, Tending Fire: Coping with America’s Wildland Fires, and Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery.