Comments (0)

By Megan Kimble, September 12, 2011 7:25 pm

After the fire, comes the flood — and then another summer. In a story on Arizona Public Media, forestry and fire experts acknowledged that the wildfires that burned more than one million acres of Arizona’s forests and grasslands this summer could have been made less severe with better forest management techniques — but also that wildfires are an unavoidable part of the landscape.

“I think we have to accept that in Arizona, particularly the White Mountains, fire is inevitable,” said Stephen Pyne, a fire historian and professor at Arizona State University, in an interview that aired on Arizona Week on August 26. “As long as we keep this as public land and we want to keep it in a quasi-wild state, fire is going to happen.”

Pyne said that prescribed burning would diminish the risk for the out-of-control fires, like the Wallow Fire, which burned a state record of 538,000 acres over five weeks this summer. “Right now, instead of tame fire, we’re relying on feral fire to do that ecological work.”

Arizona’s 2011 Wallow Fire (Photo: U.S. Forest Service)

In New Mexico, a historic practice of letting natural fires burn has helped current wildfires in the Gila National Forest burn with relatively low severity, said Molly Hunter, a professor of fire ecology at Northern Arizona University. But, she acknowledged, the practice works partly because of the region’s remoteness and lack of human habitation.

It’s an interesting conundrum — how to control the forest so that it can stay wild.

In August of 2009, the Station Fire burned 240 square miles of the San Gabriel Mountains, the biggest forest fire Los Angeles had seen in over a century. My family’s home was one of thousands to be evacuated, but luckily not one of the 80 homes that burned. I remember feeling at once terrified as I watched the flames crest the ridge behind our house, and simultaneously disconnected — told you so, nature seemed to be saying. The chaparral in the mountains is supposed to burn every decade. Fire regenerates the ecosystem. There hadn’t been a fire in over a century, so the unnatural magnitude of the blaze was due to our safekeeping and the layers of thick, dry brush spread over the hillsides. Thousands of homes were evacuated, eight burned, and two firefighters died fighting the blaze.

It was clear then, and it’s clear now, how much we have to have to push back nature in order to sustain and protect the settlements we’ve constructed. The question, then, is how much to push back.

“Fire is going to happen, and in many ways its essential. It’s part of the dynamic of the ecosystem. But we have a lot of choice in what kinds of fires we have — how big, how frequent,” said Pyne.

The kinds of fires we have reflect decisions in forestry management. We can turn fire over to nature, giving it room to run. We can burn the land ourselves. We can try to exclude fire, to suppress its presence. Or, we can try to change the landscape itself. Pyne thinks it’s a little of everything. Logging and other commercial uses won’t prevent forest fires, but neither will protection at all costs. “We will have to manage fire in the state something on the model that we manage water,” he said.

~~~

Megan Kimble is noticeably more cheerful since she stopped commuting on the freeways of Los Angeles and started biking around Tucson, where she’s a student in University of Arizona’s MFA program for creative nonfiction (and a new contributor to the Terrain.org blog!). Find her at megankimble.com.

Comments (0)

By Simmons Buntin, August 17, 2010 4:54 pm

Recently, artist Nicole Antebi sent us a little information about a new media/book website:

Water, CA: Creative Visualizations for a New Millennium
www.watercalifornia.org

Water, CA is a series of 22 contemporary projects engaging the history, mystery, and challenge of California’s water. Presented by Antebi and artist Enid Baxter Blader, Water, CA is a multimedia experiment in geography that incorporates mythological and playful understandings of complex histories. The enticingly interactive website features essays, painting, photography, video animations, and a California water timeline.

And I think we may just be looking at the future of creative, place-based multimedia. It is accessible, informative, artistic, and — once you’re familiar with the format — easy to move through. I admit it took me a while to figure out how to get into the individual projects (hover over the location of your choice then click the artist’s name). Ideally there should be a connect between the list of water projects in the blue box and the website visitor’s ability to then get into the projects — but they only indicate where in the state those projects are located. Just remember where they’re at, hover your pointer over that location, and you can dive in, so to speak.

That aside, we at Terrain.org think this is a pretty fantastic collaborative effort, and encourage you to check it out, pronto.

Comments (0)

By Simmons Buntin, May 21, 2010 2:47 pm

Corporations and foundations create campaign that will fund environmental nonprofits to protect the Colorado River

Fort Collins, CO – A coalition of seven sustainably driven corporations and foundations has united to raise funding and awareness for the environmentally threatened Colorado River. The campaign, initiated by New Belgium Brewing and the Clean Water Fund, will donate money to environmental nonprofits in the Colorado River basin working to promote water conservation and protect the river.

“We are proud to bring this dedicated group of environmental philanthropists together,” said Kim Jordan, CEO of New Belgium Brewing. “The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the American Southwest, and it is the lifeblood of the people and the companies that thrive here.  Although the threats to this river are enormous, we want to step forward and begin the necessary work to help keep it alive.”

The philanthropic campaign includes partners from the beginning of the Colorado River basin all the way to the end:

• New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, Colorado
• Patagonia, Ventura, California
• Aspen Snowmass Environment Foundation, Aspen, Colorado
• Kenney Brothers Foundation, Denver, Colorado
• National Geographic Maps, Evergreen, Colorado
• Environment Now, Santa Monica, California
• OARS, Angels Camp, California

In an average year, the Colorado River flows with approximately 5 trillion gallons of water. Over the last decade, dams, diversions, and a population of 30 million users have completely drained the Colorado so that it no longer reaches the Gulf of California but ends in an ecologically degraded mud flat.

Climate change, population growth, and drought threaten to deplete the river even further. Recently, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation proclaimed that within 2 years the water level in Lake Mead could drop so low that serious water and electric shortages will occur in Las Vegas. The river also contains four endangered species of fish that are clinging to life amidst the dammed and depleted flows.

The “Save the Colorado” campaign will donate funding through a granting cycle twice a year for three years – 2010, 2011, and 2012.  Granting will total nearly $500,000 and will focus on three programmatic areas:

1. Efforts that raise public awareness about the threats to the Colorado River and its water supplies.
2. Efforts that promote water conservation, or change public policy about water conservation, in cities that receive Colorado River water including the Denver/Front Range of Colorado, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, and Los Angeles metropolitan areas.
3. Efforts that protect and enhance the ecological health and biodiversity of the Colorado River and its tributaries, including addressing the threats of new diversions and dams, mitigating past degradation and securing “instream flows.”

“The beauty and scale of the Colorado River are inspiring to all of us in the West,” said Hans Cole, Environmental Grants Manager for Patagonia.  “But, the river also provides a dramatic example of how fragile such a powerful force of nature can be when faced with the combined threats of overconsumption, drought and climate change.  The River and the natural communities that rely on it need our help.  We are honored to join this campaign.”

Visit http://SaveTheColorado.org to learn more about how businesses, environmental non-profits and individuals can get involved. The first granting cycle accepts applications from June 1 – June 30, 2010.

Comments (3)

By Simmons Buntin, December 9, 2009 7:00 pm

By Shelly Yarbrough

Mike Parham, the IUSD board member responsible for prompting the school district to retrofit with solar.

Anyone who ever watched Housewives of Orange County knows that people in that upscale community have a lot of money to spend on just about anything they want.

So plunking down a few millions bucks for solar panels should be no problem for the school district in the heart of Orange County, the Irvine Unified School District, right?

Wrong.

Despite the high living you might see on television dramas and reality shows, the IUSD is pretty much like every other school district in California. The money is dried up.

So when IUSD board member Mike Parham decided his district needed to go solar, he also knew it would have to be at little or no cost to the district.

“We knew the price of buying and installing solar was coming down, and the incentives were at an all-time high, so there was no reason to wait,” Parham said.

Low cost was good. No cost was better, so that is what Parham and his district did.

Earlier this week, the IUSD voted unanimously to go solar on each of its 21 schools, selecting SPG Solar and Sun Edison to build and finance the project. All at no cost to the district.

This is not a charity thing. Or a giveaway. It is a sound business deal made possible by tax incentives on the one hand, and a sharply decreasing cost of buying and installing solar panels on the other.

Here’s how it works: Schools, of course, do not pay taxes so tax breaks are of little interest to them. Enter SPG Solar and SunEdison.

What they do is rent the roofs from the IUSD, build the system, create the power, then sell it to the schools — just like a utility might. With one difference: it is cheaper. Way cheaper. From seven to 20 percent cheaper.

And over the 20-year life of the deal that comes to more than $17 million, says Tom Rooney, president of SPG Solar.

For all you gear heads out there, “this project will generate over 6.6 million kilowatt hours of solar energy per year,” said Dylan Dupre of SPG Solar. “Over the life of the project, this will remove 127 million pounds of CO2, the equivalent of removing 12,000 cars from the road for one year.”

But as good as the finances are, what really has school board members such as Parham excited is what is happening in the classrooms. IUSD is developing a curriculum that takes full advantage of all the information its solar system is creating.

That includes lessons in science and math of course, but also business, finance and even art.

“Our responsibility is to squeeze the most out of every dollar, and to provide the best education possible with those limited resources,” said Parham, who in addition to being nationally recognized in the field of renewable energy for schools is also an investment banker. “Students, who will one day run this country, should learn about the viability of solar (and wind) energy, in order to be well-prepared for the job market of the future.”

Thanks to Parham, the people of Orange County are still getting whatever they want. Only this time they are making money from it. Go figure.

~~~

Shelly Yarbrough is a member of the Val Verde School Board in Riverside County, California. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the California School Board Association.