An update from the Tri-State Livestock News:
Where there's smoke
The story could be the plot for a western-style soap opera.
The latest scene involved two ranchers being sentenced to five years in federal prison for inadvertently burning about 140 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rangeland in two separate fires. That is an area big enough to feed about three cow-calf pairs for a year in that neck of the woods.
“I call it ‘as the sagebrush burns,’” said Erin Maupin, a former BLM range technician and watershed specialist and rancher in the area, of the long history involving the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), special interest groups and the cattle ranchers on the Steens Mountain of Oregon.
This is a long article and has a lot of background - worth reading if you want the full story. A bit more:
Maupin said prescribed burns to manage juniper were common in the late 1990s and early 2000s, best done late in the fall when the days are cooler.
Prescribed burns on federal land in their area have all but stopped due to pressure from special interest groups, Maupin said. As a result, wildfires now burn much hotter due to a “ladder” of material on the ground – grass, brush and trees.
The special interest groups in question would be the environmental lobbyists operating out of an office building in Washington D.C. with zero direct experience and knowledge of the local ecosystem.
“The fires now burn really hot and they sterilize the ground. Then you have a weed patch that comes back.”
Maupin said planned burning in cooler weather like the Hammonds chose to do improves the quality of the forage, and makes for better sage grouse habitat by removing juniper trees that suck up water and house raptors – a sage grouse predator.
And some (more) egregious activity by the feds:
During her tenure as a full time BLM employee from 1997-1999, Maupin recalls other fires accidentally spilling over onto BLM land, but only the Hammonds have been charged, arrested and sentenced, she said. Ranchers might be burning invasive species or maybe weeds in the ditch. “They would call and the BLM would go and help put it out and it was not a big deal.”
On the flip side, Maupin remembers numerous times that BLM-lit fires jumped to private land. Neighbors lost significant numbers of cattle in more than one BLM fire that escaped intended containment lines and quickly swallowed up large amounts of private land. To her knowledge, no ranchers have been compensated for lost livestock or other loss of property such as fences.
Gary Miller, who ranches near Frenchglen, about 35 miles from the Hammonds’ hometown, said that in 2012, the BLM lit numerous backfires that ended up burning his private land, BLM permit and killing about 65 cows.
We need some serious reform in the other Washington - too many people have way to little knowledge and to much power. It is not public service when you are not serving your constituents. Same thing with the EPA and the Colorado rivers.
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