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Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

Battles over logging, funding delay wildfire mitigation projects

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Thomas Fire, Ventura, CA, Los Padres NF, 2017
Firefighters watch the approach of last fall’s Thomas Fire in Ventura, California, Los Padres National Forest. Photo: U.S. Forest Service

President Donald Trump wants the federal government to do more this year to prevent wildfires on public lands, including about 20 percent more logging on national forests.

But environmentalists argue that expanding logging could do more harm than good. And forestry experts say the president’s push in a December executive order for more “active management” of public lands — a concept most agree is a good idea — won’t get far unless Congress pays for it.

With the number of devastating fires expected to increase as the climate grows warmer and drier, experts and states want to see more federal investment in projects that could avert massive blazes.

Most forestry experts, including many environmentalists, say protecting communities from fire requires land managers to cut down problem trees, brush and saplings, and set prescribed burns that restore fire’s natural role in forest ecology.

Due to the rising costs of fighting fires, however, the U.S. Forest Service lacks money and staff necessary for projects that could make future fires less severe. [Read more…]

PG&E files for bankruptcy amid California wildfire lawsuits

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Flames from the Camp Fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend, California, on November 10, 2018. Photo: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

A day after the California Public Utilities Commission cleared the way for Pacific Gas & Electric to secure $6 billion in debt financing for its operations – amid a chorus of boos and opposition – the nation’s largest utility filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday in a bid to relieve itself of the potential billions in liability it could face from devastating wildfires.

At a hastily called emergency meeting Monday, the commission approved the utility giant’s request for regulatory exemptions that will let it to boost its short-term borrowing from $4 billion to $6 billion.

“The exemption granted is narrow and only grants PG&E exemptions for the purpose of obtaining debtor financing,” commission chair Michael Picker said, adding that PG&E shall not be allowed to pass on its borrowing costs to ratepayers.

Several attendees criticized the commission for calling the meeting with only a few hours notice, accusing the regulator of skirting public meeting laws so it could push through a “bailout” for the company.

[Read more…]

Not so long ago, American cities were starved for trees

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In 1919, 1,376 new Norway maples were planted along streets in Brooklyn. Photo: Department of Parks of the Borough of Brooklyn, City of New York

Many cities, in recent years, have initiated tree planting campaigns to offset carbon dioxide emissions and improve urban microclimates.

In 2007, New York City launched MillionTrees NYC, a program designed to plant 1 million new trees along streets, in parks and on private and public properties by 2017. They hit their goal two years ahead of time.

These programs are popular for a reason: Not only do trees improve the city’s appearance, but they also mitigate the urban heat island effect – the tendency for dense cities to be hotter than surrounding areas. Studies have shown that trees reduce pollutants in the air, and even the mere sight of trees and the availability of green spaces in cities can decrease stress.

But as I show in my new book, “Seeing Trees: A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin,” trees weren’t always a part of the urban landscape. It took a systematic, coordinated effort to get the first ones planted.

[Read more…]

Fighting fire with finance: Unique financing approach can restore ailing forests

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Forests provide many different services to people, most of which we don’t pay for and therefore tend not to be aware of or to take them for granted.

Wildfires burning in important municipal and farm irrigation watersheds have awakened many to the true cost of unhealthy forests, when tens of millions of dollars must be invested to filter the water that nature previously filtered for us, rehabilitate a watershed to stabilize the soil, and clear sediment from reservoirs that filled after a wildfire.

This TedX presentation by Leigh Madeira demonstrates how using financial markets and private investment, water districts, cities and other entities can accelerate the restoration of watersheds after 100 years of fire suppression has created overly dense forests. [Read more…]

Federal judge: U.S. law doesn’t protect ancient redwoods as ‘natural wonders’

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U.S. District Judge William Alsup spent two hours weighing arguments on whether the state Department of Transportation, Caltrans, provided a sufficient opportunity for public comment and adequately studied the $21 million project’s impact on trees up to 3,000 years old. Photo: Shirley Atkins/Treesource

SAN FRANCISCO – A judge’s stark warning that natural wonders have no right to exist under federal law unsettled a group of conservationists fighting a proposed highway project through a majestic grove of ancient redwood trees in Northern California.

“It might be hard to swallow, but they could actually cut down an old growth tree that’s been here for 2,000 years for a highway as long as they consider the consequences of that action,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup told a dismayed group of environmentalists on Wednesday.

Alsup was addressing more than a dozen opponents of a proposal to widen a 1.1-mile stretch of Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park in Humboldt County. Assuming the role of law professor, Alsup lectured the crowd on how U.S. environmental laws grant no rights to ecosystems; they merely require government agencies fully consider the impact of proposed projects on the environment.

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