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[slickmisc] Forest Health Petition To Be Signed This Month
© 2002 Rich Martin
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What a concidence. I was just wondering out loud, with only my better half present, about the "water shortage". Now in Texas, that might not be news, but it doesn't seem to be limited to the Lone Star area. Denver has had to conserve water to farmers to the south have enough for their crops. My daugheter in Lafayete is also experiencing a shortage. I know we have more people, but the ice caps have added water to the eco system (it's only salt water until it evaporates) and don't forget about the govt mandated gal-and-a-half toilets, which by the way, aren't as bad as I had expected. I speculated, but the below message might be a partial answer to this crisis.
Rich Martin
Editor, Slick eZine
http://slickplus.spunge.org/list/
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Immediate Release
Contact: Jay Walley
The Paragon Foundation News Service (PFNS)
Alamogordo, New Mexico
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780 words
Forest Health Petition To Be Signed This Month
by Clifford Nichols, Esq.
Catastrophic wildfire history continues to be made in New Mexico today, as the next step in the process of forest cleanup is taken.
Last year, the state took the bold first step by passing into law Senate Bill 1. The bill declared a state of emergency in the state's national forest lands, citing excess fuel loads, which will lead to catastrophic fires in the foreseeable future. The bill also called on counties to begin plans for removing those excess fuel loads to protect their communities and mitigate the state of emergency.
The second step begins today. The state will petition Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman for transfer of limited jurisdiction over national forest lands within state boundaries to allow the emergency cleanup efforts to move forward. Today and tomorrow, the formal Petition to the Secretary of Agriculture arrives in the hands of the Governor and each state legislator and county commissioner in New Mexico. Once the lawmakers have signed the
Petition, it will be presented to Secretary Veneman on October 7 of this year.
The Petition calls on the federal government to either act responsibly or assume responsibility for the state of emergency in New Mexico's federal forests. If granted limited jurisdiction to remove excess trees and promote forest health, the counties can each develop plans to protect their constituents for years to come.
Also at issue is the widespread shortage of water throughout the state. Each tree can consume up to 200 gallons of water per day, and some officials estimate there are billions of excess trees in the national forests. Downstream from these watersheds, many areas of the state are starved for water. Thus, the removal of excess trees necessarily contributes to watershed health as well.
If the Secretary of Agriculture is unwilling to transfer limited
jurisdiction over the national forests within New Mexico's boundaries to the state, as allowed under federal law, then the state must assume that the federal government will either: 1) take action to remove the excess forest growth themselves, or 2) take ultimate responsibility for damage to property or injury to people caused by catastrophic forest fires in this state in the
future.
The accompanying fact sheet and Petition to Secretary Veneman will provide you with a framework of information on the facts of the law and the situation within the state. For more information, please contact Clifford Nichols at (505) 243-4682 or via email at cnic9@yahoo.com.
Facts:
In Senate Bill 1, passed and signed into law in March 2001, federal lands within the state's boundaries were declared to be in a state of emergency. Senate Bill 1 declared the state of emergency, and authorized counties to begin work on plans to effect immediate cleanup in the national forests impacting their communities. It is a government's fundamental sovereign duty
to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
Nearly 6.4 million acres, both public and private, have burned during this fire season. That figure includes 309,000 acres in New Mexico. President Bush, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, and the US Forest Service have all publicly declared that the catastrophic fires of the past fire season have been the result of the excess fuel load in the national forests
resulting, in part, from environmental litigation. Both the administration and the Forest Service have acknowledged poor management of the forests to be part of the cause for the emergency.
President Bush and Secretary Norton have also publicly declared that the conditions in the foreseeable future are likely to result in more catastrophic fires if not corrected. Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota has publicly acknowledged that environmental litigation has been responsible for holding up cleaning efforts in his home state. In August, Senator Daschle
passed federal law exempting South Dakota from environmental litigation until the state of emergency in the national forests in South Dakota has been addressed.
Forest conditions not only impact the fire debate, but also affect the watershed. Officials estimate that a mature tree consumes two hundred gallons of water daily. The Forest Service estimates that the Lincoln National Forest alone contains approximately four billion excess trees. Even young trees impact the watershed in the Lincoln National Forest at the rate of hundreds of billions of gallons of water daily.
At the Joint Meeting of the Water and Natural Resource Committee and New
Mexico Finance Authority Oversight Committee held in Ruidoso Wednesday and
Thursday of last week, state lawmakers and water experts called for the
state to take the next step in putting Senate Bill 1 into action. The
Petition to Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman will reach all state and
county lawmakers today or tomorrow to begin the signing process.
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