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Show _The Salt I ake Tribune OPINION| Sunday October 12,2008 Weneed a sensible approachto fighting wildfires By Rick Bass Writers om the Range It’s the sweet timeof year in northern Montana, late drying-out summer, easing into therains of autumn, andin the soft low green hills of the Yaak Valley, on the Kootenai National Forest, the mornings are tinged, not unpleasantly, with the smell of wood smoke. Objects take on a golden glow,illuminated by the smoke-filtered sunlight above. Sometimes the smokeis so far away that you can smell it but can’t see it, or can see that strange gold light, even as the sky appears to be perfectly blue, and you know that autumn is coming as it always has. Up here, the really large wildfires tendof late to run in six-year cycles, as they have perhaps across the millennia, whereasthe political cycles rage every two years. Cycle by cycle, we make slow gains in educating the public about fire in separating fear-mongering myth from scientific reality though in election cycles, the truth often backslides. This year, the Bush administration’s so-called “Healthy Forest Initiative” (H.R.1904, known in the senate as the “Senate Logging Bill”), was a document born of the times. It is most dangerous and untruthful on two majorpoints: First, it focuses on increasing logging of the national forests in the remote backcountry, far from the human communities supposedly at risk. The Forest Service’s own studies show that fire prevention is most effective within 200 feet of a dwelling. Second, the bill proposes to take away the public’s democratic right to participate effectively in the decisionmaking process of how our national backcountry sources of municipal and community drinking water. (Roughly 80 percent of the nation’s fresh-water supplies originatein the last roadless areas of our nationalforests). What most recently has emerged is a compromise sponsored mostly by Westerners of both parties, which, if not altered by further compromise, will keep logging out of old-growth and other sensitive areas, protect and streamline the appeals process, and focus on thinning in and around human communities. If this is the bill that winds up on President Bush’s desk, Westerners will be watching to see if the projects authorized focus on removing the small, flammable overstocked trees closest to communities, rather than continuing to fund giving the largest, healthiest trees to the timber industry. What I hope emerges from our forests are managed, and it also in trudes on the federal court system by directing the judiciary torulein favor of the timber industry. Despite the timber industry’s claims to the contrary, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has ascertained that citi- zen participation in national forest management through the formal appeals process has not had any detri mental effect nationwide; indeed it can be, and often is, a positive force, able to increaseefficiency. A more moderate and democratical ternative to the Bush administration’s bill has been offered in the Senate by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the latter cer tainly no stranger to wildfire in her state. Leahy’s and Boxer’s “Forestry and Community Assistance Act of 2003" (S.B. 1453) would protect’ the | attempts to treat national forests near settlements is “communityforestry” pilot restoration projects on a small scale. As an added incentive for fuelsreduction projects, a system could be authorized that would bundle perma nent protection of backcountry roadless areas with fuels reduction near human communities, in the front country These are the efforts that can unite local mill owners and environmental ists. What sometimber industry execu tives and rural communities have learned is that local relationships and agreements are far moreeffective than iron-fisted legislative riders that at tempt to undo decadesof federal law Rick Bass is a contributorto Writers on the Range (http://www.hcn.org), a service of High Country News in Paonia, Colo. He is a geologist, wildlife biologist and the author ofseveral books about the Yaak Valley of Montana, where he lives. eeah The MOST Frightening OPEN THRU bo)Amt)I eeeh ees Ly2 id)J Peet ae th ey Ne | Monday-Thursday: 7:30-10pm Friday-Saturday 7:30-Midnight| te i ~~ Closed Sundays , | West Valley City | 78) Phone 467-8100 300 West 1300 South, SLC ae ee ee oe) | www.nightmareon13th.com —_—— — is South Salt Lake Wed-Tht130580 Fri & Sat 7:30-F (closed Sun-Tues Lookfor the searchlight! ; t - the United States Marine Congas“TagsVers” 300 North 2000 West Pleasant Grove www.nightmaremansion.com West Jordan [MBER 10% NovemBeR 1, 2003 TH eee WEST e WEST JORDAN $1 orr Fri & Sat $2 orF TUEs - THURS Open 7 Mon.-Thurs. 5-10 pm Fri. 5-Midnight Sat. Noon-Midnight Closed Sunday $7 Adults « $4 ages 5-107 Ages 4 & Under Free 10 Tues Tuurs; 7 - 12 Fai, SAT " 4650S. HIGHLA ND a He my eo tAQAS Ideas: “a an er C01 sy N4 BY = ; , > d os # er De oS '& eae eye. 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