Aslan Shand

The changes that the National Party have demanded to the Koala State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP), that passed in the NSW Legislative Assembly (Lower House) yesterday, will ensure that koalas are extinct in the wild by 2050, say experts in the field.

The Inquiry into Koala Populations and their Habitat in New South Wales recognised that the 1994 Koala SEPP had failed to adequately protect koalas and their habitat and that the regulatory framework for private native forestry does not protect koala habitat on private land.

During yesterdays debate local Ballina MP Tamara Smith said, It is the such a shame to see what I regard as the most idealogical bill I have seen during the six years I have been in this place before the Parliament. It is a perfect example of the term un-logic, which has been described around the world. It is not ignorance or stupidity; it is reason distorted by suspicion and misinformation. It is an Orwellian stat of mind that arranges itself around convenient fictions and ignores established facts [the] science is being sidelined and replaced by negotiation and politics. It is a tragic day. Our iconic koalas are headed towards extinction and thats whats at stake.

Before the Black Summer fires in 2019/20 northern NSW koala numbers had declined by 50 per cent over the previous 20 years. The Black Summer fires burnt approximately 30 per cent of likely koala habitat according to North East Forest Alliance (NEFA).

Yet the NSW Liberal Party have put forward the Local Land Services Amendment (Miscellaneous) bill 2020 that is not only a massive step backwards for koala protection in NSW, but also removes many other critical environmental protections on private land, according to Greens MP and Chair of the Inquiry into Koala Populations and their Habitat, Cate Faehrmann.

This bill isnt a compromise on the new koala policy. It takes koala protections back 25 years, at a time when we need to be strengthening laws to protect koala habitat. We lost maybe 10,000 koalas in NSW in the Black Summer fires. If this bill passes, the government may as well sign their death warrant, said Ms Faehrmann.

The updated Koala SEPP has been years in the making, but now all that hard work has been scrapped to appease the National Party and the powerful timber and farming lobbies.

NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, says that the NSW government has introduced a bill which, if enacted, will condemn the koala, and many other species, to extinction. On the North Coast 61 per cent of high quality koala habitat occurs on private property, pointed out Mr Pugh.

These proposed changes are clearly intended to make the Koala SEPP ineffective and remove most of the few hard won gains made over the past 25 years.

Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive, Chris Gambian, points out that, Nothing in this bill helps ensure koalas survive beyond 2050. But it does mean property developers could bulldoze koala trees without needing an approval.

Analysis of the bill by the Environmental Defenders Office has found that the bill allows for: unregulated land clearing of koala habitat not already identified in rural areas; the prevention of expanded koala habitat protection on private farmland into the future; and the exemption of Private Native Forestry operations from important development consents, with their durations doubled from 15 to 30 years.

After making a great song and dance about standing up to the Nationals, it seems the NSW Liberals have backed down completely, said Evan Quartermain, head of programs at Humane Society International (HSI).

All members of parliament are being called on to use their conscience and vote the bill down.

We need to try to convince our local parliamentarians to vote against it (or at least abstain), said Mr Pugh.

At a time when koala populations are crashing, with climate change induced droughts and fires decimating survivors, and predictions of extinction in the wild by 2050, it is reprehensible that the Berejiklian government is changing the rules to remove protection for core koala habitat so as to allow it to be logged and cleared indiscriminately, says Mr Pugh.

The National Party stopped north coast councils from rezoning land for environmental protection in 2012, they stopped the Byron and Tweed Coastal Koala Plans of Management being approved in 2015, and now National Party MP Ben Franklin has promised the Shooters [and Fishers] that e-zones will not be created in relation to any koala plans of management.

Thanks to the Nationals, councils are not allowed to protect koalas or protect anywhere from logging.

It is the height of hypocrisy for Byron Bay-based National Party representative on the koala inquiry, Ben Franklin, to find [as part of the Inquiry] that the regulatory framework for private native forestry does not protect koala habitat on private land and that it is unacceptable that land identified as core koala habitat can be cleared because of departmental delays in approving koala plans, to now to claim in parliament that there is no need to protect core koala habitat from logging and clearing. Ben Franklin needs to be held to account.

Conversely his colleague in the koala inquiry, Ballina-based Liberal, Catherine Cusack, needs to be supported in her stance against National Party bullying and encouraged to vote down these draconian measures intended to reverse protections for koalas and hasten their extinction.

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NSW Liberals betray koalas and back down to National Party - Echonetdaily

When David Springett executed a perfect underwater marriage proposal to his girlfriend three years ago, her response in the affirmative gave him another reason to love the Great Barrier Reef.

Springett, 45, from Cairns, sells diving gear to shops and training centres the length of the Queensland coast. He talks to lots of tourists and tourism operators, and dives for fun every few weeks.

But he is starting to fear that, like the reef, his livelihood could be on borrowed time. I cant imagine therell be any diving industry if the reef dies off, he says.

The Springett family which now includes one-year-old Summer have just moved inland from a beach suburb to Kuranda, 300 metres up in the tablelands, because of worries about rising sea levels caused by global heating.

Springett, a former diving instructor, is retraining as an electrician and is hoping to snag an apprenticeship with an eye on a job in a renewable energy boom in the state.

This is a transition that Queensland is now facing on a statewide scale as it heads to an election on 31 October. Can it break away from fossil fuel extraction and develop jobs and growth in a way that protects its remarkable landscapes and ocean wonders?

Selling a message of hope and prosperity that retains the states global brand of corals, beaches and rainforests is one that, according to Nick Heath, no political party has been able to achieve.

We dont have a political party that can nail that narrative, he says.

Heath has seen Queensland elections from every available angle. He has led environmental groups campaigning on climate and the Great Barrier Reef, lobbied on behalf of the seafood industry and been an adviser to four Labor ministers after switching from management consultancy.

We have the horns of a dilemma in Queensland, he says. We have some of the most important environments on the planet and thats not coming from me just take David Attenboroughs word for it.

When Attenborough, the 93-year-old natural history documentary maker-turned environmental activist, is asked to name his favourite place on Earth, his answer will invariably be north Queensland.

Attenboroughs apparent love for Queensland above all other places is illustrative, Heath says.

To an outsider, Queenslands reputation is firmly fixed by the biggest reef, the cutest critters and the whitest sands, but Heath says voters are apathetic and politics are stuck in an adversarial cul-de-sac.

No party, he says, has managed to sell a policy path forward that brings industry and sustainable growth together in a way that doesnt use the environment as something to be burned through.

If we want to change Australia, then we have to change Queensland, he says. The challenge to the environment movement is how do we monetise a more sustainable economy and help the economy transition to a better place.

On the face of it, the environmental tensions in this Queensland election appear to pitch producers in rural areas against government intervention.

Graziers and sugarcane growers are lining up against the Labor governments new laws that will allow the state to control the amount of pollution running into reef catchments.

Some have latched on to the claims of the contrarian scientist Dr Peter Ridd, who says farm runoff is not harming corals and that the reef is not in need of saving. Rapid loss of corals, three mass bleaching events in five years, the federal governments main science agencies and the marine park authority suggest otherwise.

The federal Coalition backed a Senate inquiry into the states water quality laws and found that the science underpinning them was sound.

The fight over water regulations has been amplified for a year or more in the pages of the states New Corp Australia newspapers.

In May the Liberal National party failed in parliament to disallow parts of the rules. It has hinted that if elected it would introduce legislation locking in unspecified levels of control.

Heath says the dominant Murdoch media helps to set the narratives of rural versus city and greenies versus producers including the row about the water quality rules which, he points out, have not even been enforced yet.

Its not real, he says of the conflict.

He blames what he calls agripolitical groups in farming and fishing that to justify their existence are loud, vocal and antagonistic and drown out more reasonable voices. Whether theres actually a problem or not, they have to agitate and create fear just to maintain their business model, Heath says.

We have such an apathetic electorate and we need to engage so much more because our understanding is so impaired by the mainstream media.

If we were fully informed then so many more of us would be attuned to the issues at stake and then wed be more concerned at the standards of debate and the quality of the futures being put in front of us.

In Townsville, Dr Maxine Newlands is a political scientist at James Cook University who has studied how environmental issues fit into peoples daily conversations and are treated by media.

Theres almost been a complacency from some quarters around the natural beauty that we have, she says. There are people here in Townsville who have never been on the reef, yet they live here. That speaks to the politics and the lack of engagement with these beautiful places.

Some editors wont put climate change on the front page. Its all about pushing jobs and growth.

This week the Queensland Conservation Council tried to energise the campaign with analysis showing that moving the state to 100% renewable energy was feasible, possible and could generate 10,000 construction jobs, then 11,000 ongoing jobs.

During an online environment forum organised by QCC, the states environment minister, Leeanne Enoch, the LNP spokesman, David Crisafulli, and the Greens MP, Michael Berkman, debated the reef regulations, climate policy and the need for more protected areas.

Crisafulli moved quickly to try to hose down fears an LNP government would lead to a weakening of the states land-clearing laws, the Vegetation Management Act.

The last LNP premier, Campbell Newman, weakened the act in 2013 and land-clearing rates skyrocketed, to the extent the state was labelled a global land-clearing hotspot.

The Palaszczuk government reintroduced restrictions in 2018 but Gemma Plesman, the Queensland campaigns manager for the Wilderness Society, says she is waiting for data to see if those changes have slowed clearing.

In 2018, she says, before the Labor government passed the laws, annual land-clearing was at 392,000 hectares the equivalent of bulldozing a Gabba-sized forest every three minutes.

A WWF-Australia commissioned study estimated land clearing at those rates was killing about 1.1 million mammals, 3.7 million birds and 39.9 million reptiles a year.

Crisafulli has pledged that an LNP government would retain protections for land within 50 metres of a reef watercourse, with another category covering areas protected by covenants or used for offsets.

But Plesman says the LNP has so far been silent on a category of vegetation that supported millions of native animals and threatened species. There are still loopholes in current laws that allow clearing, she says.

About 32m hectares of land in Queensland is mostly open to land clearing under the current laws, she says, yet there is evidence those areas have regrown to habitat that could support threatened species.

Land clearing as a political issue tends to get ignored, especially in inner-city seats, but Plesman says people care.

The Wilderness Society has polled three marginal seats in south-east Queensland Springwood, Mansfield and Chatsworth and Plesman says 71% of voters said they were concerned about land clearing and its impact on koalas.

We need politicians to know that just because people are understandably stressed through Covid, people also havent forgotten about this, she says. Weve lost 80% of koala populations in south-east Queensland and 50% across the state.

This month the Palaszczuk government released a 10-year protected area strategy and retained a pledge to have 17% of the state under protection, in line with UN convention targets. The state now has 8% of its land area under some form of protection.

Conservationists say the strategy, which included an extra $60m in funding, is a good start but it lacks timelines and the funding is well below what is needed.

Heath says Queenslands fame internationally as a place rich in species and natural wonders from reefs to ancient rainforests should put environmental protections central to policy debates.

Theres no greater risk to the global environment than here in Queensland, he says. We have enormous value and enormous stakes, but our debate is about other things entirely.

Originally posted here:
'We have to change Queensland': the environmental issues at stake in the election - The Guardian

PORTLAND Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chautauqua Countys Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is heading into the third of five years of the Vineyard Improvement Program.

October 2020 marks the sweet spot of the program. There is still the maximum amount of time available for removal and replant. The program allows for one year to complete the Concord removal and two more years to complete the replant. Many applicants havent needed quite that much time, but some do, often depending on what commodity is being replanted. For more information, visit lergp.com and click on the big purple Vineyard Improvement Program button.

Applicants need not be grape growers. Many of the abandoned Concord vineyards around have probably been willed to family who have no interest in growing grapes, or the vineyards just were no longer profitable and fell into disrepair. Landowners are welcome to apply. Proof of Concord will be required, and the land must be replanted to an agricultural commodity. Replants have included field crops, cover crops, hay fields, vegetable plots, orchards and vineyards even Concord vineyards.

The Vineyard Improvement Program is a reimbursement program that will issue one check at the completion of the project. Applicants can be reimbursed 50% of their costs up to $1,500 per acre for Concord vineyard removal, and 25% of their costs up to $1,500 per acre for replant. Eligible costs include labor, equipment use, custom hire, land clearing, trellis, plant material, tiling if needed. Seed crops are not eligible for reimbursement.

So far there have been 22 applicants to the program, eight of whom already have their projects completed and have received their reimbursement checks. To date more than $148,000 has been paid out and over 107 acres of unwanted/uncontracted Concord vineyards have been replaced with another agricultural commodity.

The program is provided by New York Ag and Markets and is paid for by the Southern Tier Agricultural Industry Enhancement Program. It is available to the Southern Tier of New York which for this program includes the following counties Chautauqua, Erie, Niagara, Allegany, Broome, Cattaraugus, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Steuben, Schuyler, Tompkins and Tioga.

For more information, Kim Knappenberger (ksk76@cornell.edu), Kevin Martin (kmm52@psu.edu) or Jennifer Phillips Russo (jjr268@cornell.edu).

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The Concord Vineyard Improvement Program enters year 3 | News, Sports, Jobs - Evening Observer

CANAJOHARIE This village is like a number of Mohawk Valley Rust Belt communities along Interstate 90 where the industrial base left years ago with nothing to replace it.

And Canajoharie has an additional challenge: sky high water and sewer rates, thanks to the debt incurred to service what had been the villages economic mainstay.

While the village was updating their water-sewer infrastructure, the Beech-Nut baby food plant that had been here since 1905 was preparing to leave.

By 2011, Beech-Nut was at a new plant 22 miles away in the town of Florida, which is also in Montgomery County.

Now, village leaders, Montgomery County officials and economic developers are hoping the abundant water that is available could be a drawing card to bring in a manufacturer, perhaps another food processing facility, on the 27-acre site that has sat empty for nearly a decade.

A heavy water user would be nice, Montgomery County Executive Matt Ossenfort said Tuesday during a brief media tour of the plant for reporters and for U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, whose 19th Congressional District includes Canajoharie.

Even though officials on Monday had no revelations of tenants or firm plans for the complex, they wanted to make it clear that they are making steady progress in preparing the site for a new user. They recently completed asbestos and mold removal on the plants west side, which faces the villages small, quaint downtown area.

And the east side of Canajoharie Creek, which divides the site, has already been cleared and is just about shovel ready.

While asbestos removal and land clearing over 10 years may seem like a snails pace for progress, Ossenfort and others explained the work is in part regulated by the flow of state or federal money required to remediate the hazards and knock down the old buildings.

The most recent work was funded by $6 million in state Restore NY funds. County officials are constantly on the lookout for new funding streams to pay for the work.

Ossenfort said theyve already heard from developers who would like to put a truck stop on the propertys east side, but theyve said no since that wouldnt generate enough jobs. Light manufacturing or a food plant would work on the east side, he said, and theyd like to keep the building's original faade on the west side intact to house smaller businesses or even shops. They would also like to build a clear connection with the Mohawk River-Erie Canal, which is a stones throw away.

Despite the slow movement, the success of the Florida Business Park suggests that the region can still attract employers.

In addition to Beech-Nut, that 800-acre park has Dollar General, and Target warehouses. And most recently, online retailer Amazon has put in a last mile center where items are prepared for local delivery. They are currently hiring, said county economic development Director Ken Rose.

Part of that parks success is its size, noted Canajoharie Mayor Jeff Baker. It was also one of the reasons Beech-Nut moved as there was not space to expand in the village. Were landlocked, he said.

Delgado said he was encouraged by what he was seeing and pledged to help push for any federal money that might be available for the site preparation work. We can lend our name to support for grant funding, he said.

Canajoharie is at the northwestern corner of the first-term Democrats 19th Congressional District. Ossenfort and Baker, who wore a Dont Tread on Me baseball cap, are both Republicans.

That didnt seem to matter as they were happy to see Delgado who, equipped with a flashlight, gamely toured the darkened, empty hull of the old factory.

Im going to give him the benefit of the doubt, Baker said of Delgado.

rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU

Continued here:
Slowly but surely, county officials are getting Beech-Nut site ready for re-use - Times Union

SINGAPORE: Forested areas greater than the size of the Netherlands have been burnt in Indonesia in the past five years, with 30 per cent of the fires occurring on pulpwood and palm oil concessions, environmental group Greenpeace said yesterday.

Greenpeace said analysis of official data showed 4.4 million ha of land burned over 2015 to last year, with 1.3 million ha of that lying in the concession areas.

The group's report said eight of the 10 palm companies with the largest burnt areas in their concessions for the five years have not been sanctioned.

Indonesia's new jobs creation law, which activists say favours businesses at the expense of the environment, is "rolling out a red carpet" for more deforestation, it also said.

"Year after year, they (companies) have broken the law by allowing forests to go up in flames," said head of the Greenpeace South-east Asia forest campaign Kiki Taufik.

Indonesia's Environment and Forestry Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Three of the five companies Greenpeace said had the largest burnt areas in their concessions from 2015 to last year are suppliers to Indonesia's biggest conglomerate, Sinar Mas Group, and one of the country's largest paper companies, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP).

A spokesman for APP, which is part of Sinar Mas Group, said it has spent US$150 million (S$204 million) on a fire management system, and that it continues to help local communities transition away from slash-and-burn land clearing towards more sustainable methods.- REUTERS

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Total forested area burnt in Indonesia bigger than Netherlands - The New Paper

Part III

William quickly became prominent in the social and political fabric of Old Middle Florida. Among his contemporaries were John and Robert Gamble, James Gadsden, Richard Keith Call, Achille Murat, Thomas Randall, Joseph White and others who heavily influenced Floridas early affairs. A number of these men were neighboring plantation owners in the vicinity of Waukeenah. In particular, he bonded with R. Keith Call and Achille Murat. Call, with close ties to Andrew Jackson, was at one point Floridas territorial delegate in Washington and would later become its territorial governor.

Of all the characters marching through this period, none were more colorful or popular than Achille Murat, nephew of Napolean, Prince of Naples and husband of Catharine Willis, great grand-niece of George Washington.

It is not surprising that William Nuttall moved with ease into the elite political and social circle of his realm. He was obviously intelligent, well educated, charming, energetic and highly ambitious, although imbued with a tendency for this latter trait to outpace his judgement. He is variously described by those he encountered as amiable, affable and uncommonly handsome. Call pulled him into his political organization known as the Nucleus and Nuttall was seriously considered a future candidate for territorial delegate.

The areas growth engendered heavy demand for legal services such that William joined Achille Murat in the practice of law, a partnership which appears to have endured from circa 1829 to 1834. Both partners shared impulsive drives toward risky investments including land and banking ventures. Their involvement in the Union Bank ruptured their association when Murat was removed as a director and later replaced by Nuttall whom he accused of surreptitiously undermining him.Shortly thereafter, Murat migrated to New Orleans, and, after unsuccessful endeavors there, particularly speculative land investments, he returned insolvent to Lipona, his Florida plantation.

Also worthy of mention is another scheme Murat and Nuttall promoted prior to their breakup. In 1831 they, along with other substantial planters formed the Wacissa and Aucilla Navigation Company to make navigable the Wacissa and Aucilla Rivers for transport of agricultural commodities, primarily cotton, out to the Gulf and the port at St. Marks. This route would improve their existing logistics which entailed difficult overland travel. The key feature of this project was the clearing and deepening of a tributary of the Wacissa to form a canal joining it to the Aucilla. Much effort would finally be expended on its construction, mainly after 1850, by slave labor contracted with Kidder Moore and Captain D.F.P. Newsome. Contrary to local legend, there is no evidence that William Nuttall employed any of his slaves on this ill-fated venture.

Part IVGiven his law practice, plantation administration, political involvement, land and banking speculations, Nuttall was indeed a busy man, but he found time to enjoy the plentiful social activity afforded by friends and local events. Obviously missing was a wife. 1832 would prove to be a momentous year in his life. On June 6, John Nuttall, his father, died and was buried in the Nuttall Cemetery in Franklinton, North Carolina.

By this time, William had fallen in love with Mary Wallace Savage, a Savannah, Georgia heiress. How they became acquainted is unknown but William undoubtedly traveled at times and could have visited in Savannah on his initial journey from North Carolina to Florida or later.

Mary Savage also traveled and could have visited the Tallahassee area or Newport, R.I., a popular resort for the wealthy which played a major role in her life.

Nuttall might have sojourned there as well. It is a tribute to Williams charm, attractive persona and social station that he was able to entice Mary into marriage, given the fact that El Destino was still a somewhat primitive frontier venue, and the area remained very much subject to raids from the Seminole Indians.

On June 30, 1832 they were married in Savannah, followed by a honeymoon spent largely in Newport, R.I. and accompanied by Marys mother. Their return to El Destino opened a new and very different chapter in Marys life but it is clear she adapted well and was soon widely respected and admired.

The end of 1832 marked another milestone for William when he became the sole owner of El Destino by purchasing the entire plantation from his fathers estate for the sum of seventeen thousand dollars via a note to James Patton, executor.Though rustic and without amenities typical of a frontier setting, the social life of the region was quite vibrant. There were horse races, elaborate dinner parties, balls, receptions, weddings and frequent visits among local residents, often with overnight stays. Ellen Call Long, in reminiscences entitled Florida Breezes, gives a vivid description of one such event at El Destino in the early 1830; a costume ball was held whose characters included Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, Bluebeard, Falstaff and others, drinking champagne and waltzing in great revelry. Adding to the excitement and beauty of the evening was a ring of bonfires built by the slaves in a perimeter around the home, whose more mundane purpose was to prevent a surprise from the Indians, albeit a marked lack of anxiety by both hosts and guests. Florida Breezes also holds some of the best depictions of Mary. Passages describe her as grand looking with a countenance more expressive of all that is beautiful in womanly character. Also a male admirer states, there is nothing provincial about her; she would grace a queens drawing room. Other narratives personify her as tall, pretty and, perhaps, stately in bearing. As events would soon confirm, Mary Nuttall was not only attractive but equally resilient, poised and smart.

More here:
The Rise and Fall of William B. Nuttall A seven-part series - Part 3 & 4 of 7 - ECB Publishing

If youre buying a Greenworks chainsaw, youre already starting off on the right foot. They make excellent electric and battery-powered chainsaws, including some of the most powerful in the industry.

They also make a range of voltages to choose from. If you already have other Greenworks tools, chances are you can stick to the same platform and use batteries you already have. If not, well help you sort through and find the best one for your needs.

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Kicking the gas can to the curb in favor of electric power has several benefits. Theres no gas and oil to mix (or spill!), no gas engine emissions, far less maintenance, and theres much less noise. In some cases, they can rival the power of gas saws.

In general, we prioritize power and youll see that in our selections. Price and features come into play as well, but we believe youll have the best experience with the highest performing chainsaws. In our opinion, its worth paying a little more to get it.

Corded electric chainsaws arent as convenient as cordless, but theyre absolutely the way to go when you want to avoid gas on a smaller budget. Of the choices Greenworks has, we like their 14.5-amp saw as our top choice.

It has much higher power than the 10-amp saws and sports an 18-inch bar, matching the size of the best battery-powered chainsaws out there and giving you the most cutting versatility. Best of all, its less than $100!

Greenworks only makes one 24V chainsaw currently (theres a pole saw available, too) and its worth considering. Weighing less than 8 pounds and using a 10-inch bar, its a very manageable saw to use while sticking with a typical rear-handle design.

This model is an excellent choice for limbing trees and cutting larger hedge branches that are too thick for your hedge trimmer or loppers. Its also pretty affordable, coming in at $79.99 as a bare tool and $129.99 with a 2.0Ah battery and charger.

If you still need another reason, the battery is compatible with other lawn care equipment and is the only one that works with Greenworks cordless power tools.

The Greenworks 40V line in one of their broadest and there are several chainsaw options, including an 8-inch pole saws attachment and 12- to 16-inch traditional chainsaws. The 14- and 16-inch saws use brushless motors.

Wed go for the 16-inch model to get the best power and capacity. A 16-inch saw is really in the sweet spot for homeowner needs, tackling limbing with ease and giving you the bar length to fell smaller trees.

Its $199.99 as a bare tool and theres a kit that comes with a 4.0Ah, 2.5Ah battery, and charger for $289.99 that gives you the best value. The batteries also work across the entire 40V line.

Greenworks is on its second generation for their 60V chainsaw. The original was solid, but this updated model takes it to the next level. Sporting a brushless motor, its capable of producing more torque and faster cutting than a 42cc gas saw.

If youre looking for our top recommendation while youre buying a Greenworks chainsaw, this is it. Its the best balance of size, weight, and performance among the different voltages. While the 40V saw may score higher in value, the 60V Pro is a better bet if you have consistent chainsaw work throughout the year.

Available with a 16-inch bar for $199.99 bare and $249.99 with a 2.0Ah battery and charger, its a solid value as its performance level. Theres also a kit with an 18-inch bar and 4.0Ah battery for $299.99 ($199 as a bare with the 18-inch bar). Both sizes are a solid betjust go with the one that fits the type of cutting you do most.

The battery is compatible with the entire line of 60V Pro lawn care equipment and Greenworks battery-powered pressure washer.

Moving into the 80V Pro line, you have the choice of 16-inch or 18-inch Greenworks chainsaws and a 10-inch pole saw. Wed go with the 18-inch option.

The performance level matches up with a 45cc gas engine and it has a very professional feel with legitimate steel bucking spikes and a chain brake. If youre looking for the most powerful battery-powered Greenworks chainsaw on the residential side, this is the way to go.

As a bare tool, its $199.99 and $349.99 with a 2.0Ah battery and charger. Like the 40V and 60V Pro systems, theres a full line of compatible tools and these will all be at the highest performance levels without moving into the Commercial series.

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Greenworks Commercials 48V system actually has a dual-voltage 24V/48V battery design that runs both lawn care equipment and power tools. Theres a 16-inch chainsaw in the line, but we suggest you take a look at the arborist-specific 48V 12-inch top-handle chainsaw.

Also compatible with 10-inch and 14-inch bars, this lightweight saw comes in at just 7.5 pounds without the battery. Its brushless motor runs the chain at 64 fps, making quick work of the branches youre trimming at height.

Its a professional tool with a solid build that runs $499.99 with a 4.0Ah battery and charger. Theres also a less expensive 40V arborists saw withing the Greenworks Commercial family, but we prefer the 48V.

There are a couple of Greenworks Commercial 82V chainsaws to choose from and the GS181 is the one wed go with. This beefy saw improves the power, boasting 50cc gas engine power and putting it in a class all its own.

Its the most capable saw across the entire Greenworks line and is appropriate for trimming and felling, land clearing, and general forestry. If youre looking for something that can be a primary replacement for gas power in the farm and ranch class, this is the best there is.

It runs $349.99 as a bare tool and youll need to grab your batteries and charger separately. Theres a full range of compatible lawn care tools designed to meet commercial needs.

The rest is here:
Greenworks Chainsaw Reviews 2020 | What to Know Before You Buy! - Pro Tool Reviews

Hang on: Berejiklian is widely regarded as a competent manager? How can we overlook land clearing under this government? The Crown casino construction; the stadium and Powerhouse debacles; the sale of the Lands and Titles office; mining under dams; plans to raise the Warragamba Dam wall; people living through winter in caravans after losing everything in bushfires; the proliferation of brumbies in the Snowy Mountains; the decimation of native fauna and particularly the koala population; the neglect of staffing in national parks, which exacerbated the bushfire disaster; the cracking in houses near motorway constructions; hundreds of demountable classrooms and the understaffing in schools; and the freezing of emergency workers pay. These are all failures of this government. Im just warming up with this list. We are so complacent. Why do we accept these failures by this government? No compromise Gladys would be a more appropriate description. Kate Broadfoot, Bulli

I wonder if its possible for our leaders to learn from Jacinda Ardern. Pam Corkery (I want a hug from Jacinda too, October 19) sums up Ms Arderns leadership style this way: She counters false claims with facts and logic and often a devastating smile, but she never humiliates opponents. When asked what the key requirement for leadership is, she says kindness. With positivity a close second. I think that is worth quoting and repeating. We want and need this style of leadership. And, despite those who believe you need to get stuck into your opponents, it wins elections. Philip Fitzgerald, Lapstone

I want what shes having. Kindness for others, a sense of obligation to uplift the standing of others through respect and empathy, co-operation and the need to think ahead should be imprinted on every leader when reaching office. It is time to emulate a new order. It is not only sport where New Zealand shines. Janice Creenaune, Austinmer

How good is Jacinda Ardern! Words like kindness, positivity, respect and empathy are not those usually used to describe the qualities of our politicians or those in the US, who instead choose rudeness, obstinacy, inequality, secrecy and division. New Zealand people have watched her daily COVID briefings, rather than commercial news, to gain information. Here we get political spin. Her wellbeing budget, introduced last year, emphasises happiness over capitalist gain, and their economy is not judged by how well rich people are doing, or the size of their deficit. Her core objectives that everyone deserves a job, somewhere to live, someone to love and something to hope for would be branded as radical left policy here and in the US, but encapsulates the recipe for a unified and harmonious country. Alan Marel, North Curl Curl

The criticisms of Ardern having not delivered are invalid because she consciously aimed at the most difficult, unachievable and beneficial goals. To fail in fully achieving the noblest target is superior to succeeding in achieving anything lower. Failure like that, persisted in, will reach the stars. Bev Atkinson, Scone

Jacinda Ardern has shown that politicians do not necessarily have to make popular decisions to win support. Actions and positive outcomes speak louder than words. Brian Jeffrey, Gunnedah

Reading NZ politics is more interesting than reading US politics. I am fatigued with Trumps stunts every day. Jacinda is providing some solace to people, not just in NZ but around the world. Mukul Desai, Hunters Hill

Your editorial (Victorias missteps created a harder, longer lockdown, October 19) primarily lays the blame for our comparatively larger number of deaths from COVID-19 than New Zealand in the hands of Daniel Andrews, despite the fact that 80per cent of the deaths in Victoria were in aged care homes, for which the federal government is responsible.While quarantine failures in Victoria were part of the problem, the NSW Ruby Princess issue was an equally egregious failure. Despite these transgressions, if one looks at the cases of COVID-19 around the world, there are few countries that have been more successful than Australia and for this we owe a debt of gratitude to all of our governments and health employees. Peter Nash, Fairlight

Congratulations to Daniel Andrews and Victorians for valuing lives over money. Yes, it has been tough, but through grit and determination, they are getting through this outbreak.Shame on federal ministers who criticise this plan because it has an effect on the economy. These ministers should instead support the Victorian economy through direct grants to certain businesses instead of wasting money on such things as $30 million overpayment for land at Badgerys Creek, or at least by re-directing sports grants and other unnecessary grants at this time. Ken Pares, Forster

Over the past 10 days, two national parks have been seriously damaged by failed so-called hazard reduction burning (Rain helps extinguish bushfire, October 19). Why arent those in charge consulting Indigenous experts in the management of small fires? All the wildlife can escape the fires with gentle starts and the land is cleared with trees saved and views protected. Lets stop this careless approach to clearing scrub and weeds and start using an intelligent and age-old approach that we understand works. Molly King, Mosman

North Head scorched, plants and animals damaged, a wedding reception ruined by back-burning getting out of control on a second weekend near Sydney.What, if anything, have the fire services learnt from Aboriginal peoples bush management knowledge and skills? After the last disastrous summer, it is way past time. Four years ago, the Herald published an important article Prevent bushfires the Aboriginal way: Indigenous peoples deep knowledge of the bush and their use of fire to manage the land is the key to modern bushfire management (February 15, 2016). Same again this year. Weve had more than enough time to respect, learn and apply Aboriginal knowledge. Judy Cashmore, Glebe

Bushfire smoke is poisonous. The royal commission into last summers bushfires made that clear. Lets not forget, either, that Sydney had already been cloaked in smoke twice from hazard reduction burns before those genuine bushfires happened.Sydney is a big city with inherent air pollution. Quite apart from the actual dangers of the fire escaping, as has occurred twice in the past 10 days, why are these burns allowed to happen in metropolitan Sydney at all?Surely having mechanically created, compulsory firebreaks around all structures is more sensible, or the closely monitored, Indigenous-style so-called cool burns, leaving the main bush be, except at its perimeter. It seems to me the mega burns the authorities are so fond of are not sustainable, in metro Sydney at least. Tim Egan, Mosman

The Prime Minister doesnt think his government needs to take responsibility for the bursting of the travel bubble when travellers fly on to another state (More New Zealanders could go to Victoria despite objection, October 19). The question here, as with the Ruby Princess, is what does Border Force do? Judy Sherrington, Kensington

Illustration: John ShakespeareCredit:

An approximate haiku for Scott Morrison: PM, you can be sure/travel bubbles will burst/when they hit the ground. Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale (Vic)

If Peter Duttons Border Force cant stop planeloads of Kiwis invading Victoria and Western Australia when it already has their names, addresses and forward travel details, how is it going to stop more boatpeople? Jeremy Cornford, Kingscliff

The Liberal Party has eased up on its koala protection bill (Liberals back down on koala bill, October 17-18), giving their National Party coalition partners what they wanted. The timing is interesting as this has happened when the Liberals would have needed the Nationals support to stave off a vote of no confidence in the Premier from the opposition. It seems keeping the Premier in her political habitat far outways the importance of protecting our native animals in theirs. Tina Butler, Bilgola Plateau

Its terrific that Australia Posts departing executives receive large payouts (Top dollar, CBD, October 19) while an eight-year-old Birchgrove girl waits two and a half weeks for a now-past-the-date birthday card from her grandmother in Lane Cove. Sally Spurr, Lane Cove

There are surely Sydneysiders paying more in road tolls than income tax (Where it hurts: tolls drive wedge though city, October 19). High private tolls are trickle-up economics. The toll distribution is quite striking: the better public transport services are, the lower the average toll paid. The figures show that a radial rail structure helps a small proportion of the metropolitan area: well-off Sydney city residents pay the least tolls.The state governments plan foresees decades of expenditure on radial railways, to achieve the same effect for Parramatta. Our transport priority should be a rail grid that allows people to commute east-west and north-south. Peter Egan, Artarmon

Kate McClymont details the convoluted processes undertaken by witnesses to destroy incriminating evidence: a computer program called Evidence Eliminator, plus hammers, shredders and other means (Ex-Newtown cop tangled in USs largest tax evasion case, October 19). So much easier in NSW; just take the tractor for a spin around the paddock. Rob Venables, Bermagui

Its not about direction (Letters, October 19). Its just that one has to be energetic around prepositions in case one is called on, passed over, shut down, railed against or snowed under while roaming around, having pushed through and got over coronavirus restrictions. Megan Brock, Summer Hill

Closed up. Opened up. Tucked up. Should we add signed up? Even signed off on. A document can be approved or signed, but physically, literally and metaphorically it cannot be signed off on. Richard Barraclough, Chisholm (ACT)

English uses lots of phrases that end in prepositions for various reasons. UP is often used to indicate the completion of an action, as in he locked UP the store. Of course we can also lock DOWN, lock IN and lock OUT. These constructions can really confuse people learning English as a second language. Keith Russell, Mayfield West

Not everything ends bottom-side up. Some go out with the bath water, thrown out, put out, shut out, tired out, shout out, sing out, called out, flew out, sent out, etc. And then there are the ins and outs of all the other prepositions. Joy Cooksey, Harrington

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Daryl and the pork barrel are an insult to taxpayers - Sydney Morning Herald

For much of the past few decades, an outsiders image of an explosive ordnance disposal sailor would likely evoke a brave soul conducting the dangerous but vital task of disabling an improvised explosive device, be it a crude fertilizer jug array in Afghanistan or something more complex on a road in Iraq.

But within the ranks, the 1,800-strong community has always been sea-based, and every EOD tech is also a certified diver tasked with clearing the way forward, no matter the domain.

Now, as the rest of the military continues to pivot toward preparing for a conventional war as part of the so-called great power competition, the EOD force has released a new strategic vision for the coming decade, and how it will contribute to that fight.

With the huge demand across the military for their kind of expertise in recent decades, the Navys EOD sailors were called upon to serve the vital role of clearing roads in Iraq and Afghanistan from IED threats, Capt. Richard Hayes, the commodore for Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2, told reporters Thursday.

Now that we have less capacity dedicated to those land missions, we are spending a bit more time in the maritime domain, Hayes said. The water is our primary domain.

At the same time, the mission of clearing the way for other parts of the joint force in Iraq and Afghanistan is informing the EOD community as it again refocuses on the water, and the undersea domain in particular, Capt. Oscar Rojas, the commodore of EOD Group 1, added.

We make sure there is not a single waterway that we are not able to gain access to, Rojas said.

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While new efforts laid out in the strategic plan touch on everything from advancing the communitys cyber capabilities to fast-tracking the acquisition and development of new systems and a bevy of goals aimed at looking after the physical, social and mental well-being of EOD sailors, the pivot largely focuses on the Expeditionary Mine Countermeasures program, where EOD sailors deploy Mark 18 underwater drones from ships in order to clear areas of water.

The EOD force has had unmanned undersea vehicles, or UUVs, dating back to 2001, but the use of such vehicles really took off with the establishment of the ExMCM effort in 2012.

I think its pretty safe to say that no one is operating UUVs to the volume we are, Hayes said. Im talking globally we have elements of our commands putting UUVs in the water every day.

That program is also a big driver behind the EOD forces aim to expand its ranks and bring in new ratings not traditionally associated with the community.

To help beef up those ranks, the Navy announced earlier this month new rating conversion opportunities for sailors ranked E-1 to E-5 who are interested in joining the Navys diver and EOD programs.

The new strategic plan also acknowledges that, like the rest of the U.S. military, the EOD is entering an age of rapidly evolving technology and unknowns.

We can expect to encounter weapons that are more difficult to detect and locate, more dangerous to render safe and recover, more complicated to exploit, and for which we have no EOD technical manuals, the plan states. Meeting the challenge of networked munitions, interconnected sensors, and programmable electronics that can be controlled from anywhere in the world via the internet will require new EOD skills, equipment and procedures.

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After decades of ground war, Navy EODs are getting back to the sea - NavyTimes.com

ROSLYN With a wildfire burning out of control just five-and-a-half miles north of this Central Washington mountain town, Chris Martins neighbor came to him with a seemingly unorthodox proposition: Lets burn your woods. On purpose. Itll be a good thing.

Reese Lolley, whose employer, The Nature Conservancy, owned the parcel next to Martins property, was not proposing the awesome, awful sort of fire then sweeping over 36,000 acres on and around Jolly Mountain and threatening to torch Roslyn in the summer of 2017.

Lolleys fire would be small. It would creep across the dry brush and downed branches packing the understory of Martins woods on a ridge above Roslyn, the 959-person town just over the Cascade crest from Seattle that is best known for standing in for a fictional Alaskan town in the 1990s hit television show Northern Exposure.

Fire gentle, controlled fire is exactly what experts say is needed to address the huge wildfires tearing through parched forests east of the Cascade crest. Filled with dead wood and brush, many forests are growing more combustible by the year because of climate change and a century of misguided fire suppression. Those conditions now put communities at risk of annihilation by fire. This year saw half a dozen towns destroyed in Washington, Oregon and northern California.

In Washington, about 951,000 homes sit near forests threatened by wildfire. The most endangered communities lie in a swath extending from Spokane southwest to the Columbia River, and then running north past Wenatchee into the Methow Valley. Much of Central and Eastern Washington, in other words.

The state says the number of threatened homes is only set to grow.

Washington State Department of Natural Resources

Top 25 places most likely to be exposed to wildland fire in Washington.

Intentional burning of underbrush and dead trees prescribed fire to those who practice it is increasingly regarded as the key tool in making combustible forests fire-resistant and heading off megafires. But the technique is rarely used in the West, and prescribed fire rates actually decreased in the Northwest over the past two decades, one study showed.

Bucking the trend, Martin said yes to Lolley and, as the Jolly Mountain fire smoldered, foresters burned 12 acres of his land. In the years since, Martin has increased that amount ninefold and prompted the city of Roslyn to use fire to clear the underbrush in its municipal forest.

Honestly, that Jolly Mountain fire, to use a technical phrase, it was a change of underwear moment here in Roslyn, said Martin, who serves as Roslyns emergency management coordinator. I think our community had not really thought about fire. It was a big wake-up call.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

Chris Martin sits among charred trees caused by a prescribed burn on his Roslyn property.

Planned burning down as wildfires rage

Aggressive firefighting has left forests across the western United States primed for megafires like those that devoured 1,600 square miles of Washington timberland in 2015, leaving an ashy gray moonscape where they flourished. Prescribed fire starves those apocalyptic burns while returning combustion to a biome built for it.

Following the U.S. Forest Services lead, land managers spent most of the 20th century extinguishing as many wildfires as they could, as fast as they could. On the dry slopes east of the Cascades, brush, branches and snags that wouldve burned then are burning now in forests packed too tightly for trees to stay healthy.

Dry forests like those surrounding Roslyn used to be seared every five to 10 years. Low-intensity fires, those that dont reach the crowns of trees, found ample tinder in the underbrush, saplings and fallen trees littering the forest floor. An ecosystem grew up around fires set by lightning and Native people, who used fire to cultivate staples like camas and to clear hunting ground for elk and deer.

Bold plans put forward by state leaders in late 2017 call for the intervention in 1,950 square miles of Washington forest. Prescribed fires would be set on hundreds of thousands of acres annually. The state governments leading evangelist for prescribed fire, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, has been pushing state lawmakers for years to create a dedicated tax to fund the plan.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

A firefighter watches a prescribed burn as it approaches a forest road that will be used to contain the fire in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty in May 2019.

But Washington, like the rest of the West, has been slow to invest in prescribed burning. Trained fire workers are in short supply in the region, which has seen the acreage intentionally burned shrink even as a consensus for prescribed fire has formed. Ardent proponents note that, while burning could immediately protect towns and homes, decades will pass before prescribed fire has a meaningful impact on the growth of large fires.Returning to something approximating a natural fire cycle where less destructive blazes prune fire-prone forests would be the work of generations.

Prescribed fires burn low to the ground, removing combustible debris. It is a matter of physics: if flames can be kept short enough, fire on the forest floor doesnt climb the branches to the top of the trees and destroy them. Thinning treatments, which see people cut down, carry away or chop up detritus to clear the forest floor, have a similar impact at a significantly higher cost.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

Savannah Herrera of the Roslyn Fire Departments Fuels Crew cuts the lower branches of a tree in the Roslyn Community Forest in August 2020. Herrera was part of a crew thinning the forest for wildfire management.

Whether that current political will and shift in public sentiment will succeed in returning fire to the forest, though, remains an open question.

Support for prescribed fire is climbing, but the actual practice is not, said Crystal Kolden, an assistant professor at University of CaliforniaMerced specializing in fire science. Reviewing fire records for a study published in April 2019, Kolden found the use of prescribed burning in the West hadnt increased from 1998 to 2018 and actually fell in Washington and Oregon.

Trends aside, the total number of treated acres remains tiny compared to the apparent need and proffered goals. According to the National Interagency Coordination Center, the federal governments fire hub, only 191 square miles in Washington and Oregon were treated with prescribed fire in 2019. While state-specific tallies were not available, experts agreed most of that fire burned in Oregon, where the state leaders recently relaxed restrictions on smoke created by prescribed fires.

When were talking about the forest that needs treatment and the amount of forest that weve treated, theres an order of magnitude difference between those numbers, Kolden said. Land managers, she continued, are struggling to keep up, and every year they fall farther behind.

At present, Washington lacks the capacity to return fire to the forest in force.

The state, like its West Coast neighbors, is short on trained fire practitioners and burdened with regulations formed decades ago when forest management almost always meant fire suppression. Regulators can deny a burn permit even after the crew has gathered on a remote site, making prescribed burns a chancy, expensive proposition.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

A downed tree is engulfed in flames during a prescribed burn in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty in May 2019.

Extreme fire seasons becoming the norm

Climate change is expected to intensify the frequency and severity of megafires across the United States, particularly in the dry western interior. Widely relied upon estimates predict the average summer will resemble extreme fire seasons like 2015, 2017 and 2020, when Seattles smoke-soaked air was at least briefly among the worst on the planet. By the 2080s, the acreage of Washington forest burned annually is expected to quadruple from the 20th century average as temperatures rise and snowpack shrinks.

The climactic shift will find Washingtons forests filled with debris left to pile during a century that saw naturally occurring fire heavily suppressed on most lands. With fire gone, a fire deficit deepens each year in the dry pine woods east of the Cascades.

In a recent study, Nature Conservancy researchers found that in Washington and Oregon just one-tenth of the forestland that should see fire each year does. Forest Service researchers estimate that the debt in unburned acres grows 140 square miles annually in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, which blankets 2,711 square miles on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. At current restoration rates, it would take 53 years to revive Washingtons federal lands, which comprise about 44% of Washington forestland.

Were trying to fix issues that took 100 years to get there, said Steve Hawkins, a fuel program manager now in his 40th fire season with the Forest Service. Its going to take a while to get that rectified.

Prescribed burning coupled with thinning createsconditions that can better accept fire, which is inevitable, said Paul Hessburg, aresearchlandscape ecologist with the Forest Services Pacific Northwest Research Station.

For five years, Hessburg has been traveling the Northwest giving talks onwildfirescience. He describes the effort as an experiment, a successful one, to determine whether a better understanding might encourage people to address the problem.

Hessburgs takeaway was that public perceptions around fire are changing for the better but tragically not fast enough to get ahead of the changing climate. His hope is that targeted interventions may prevent the worstoutcomes.

As Hessburg explains it, the question isnt can we regulate the size of the fires? Any influence will be modest the climate and weather mostly determine how much land is burned.

The question is, he said, Can we moderate the severity so that we can maintain more forest or habitats for the future? I think the answer is prettysolidthat we can.

Washington beginning to burn

Washingtons advocates for prescribed fire see the megafires that swept Washington in 2014 and 2015 as catalysts for the shift in public opinion they hope will enable them to do their work. Taken together, the fires burned 2,330 square miles of forest and rangeland and, along with fires in British Columbia, blanketed the Puget Sound in smoke for weeks. The cost in firefighting expenses alone topped $527 million.

The fires drew a vigorous, if standard, response from policy makers and shapers in the state. Committees coalesced, studies aimed at driving future legislation and funding launched. Training for so-called burners who conduct the prescribed fires, as well as community engagement initiatives, were created or expanded.

And, in a limited way, prescribed fires started being set.

Kara Karboski caught what she calls the fire bug setting fires for the Defense Department at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Karboski, now a coordinator with the Washington Resource Conservation & Development Council and a leading booster for prescribed fire, learned how burners go about their work while clearing brush on the military installations ample open spaces.

Before a fire, burners draw up a prescription a set of judgments on what weather and forest moistness is required for the burn to be safe and effective, as well as a staffing and equipment list, and detailed emergency plans. Hose lines are set and test fires lit before a crew of 10 or 20 workers set the fire in earnest.

Ive seen burns called off because its just not burning well enough, maybe theres too much moisture, Karboski said. Ive also been there where fire behavior has been too high, too much, too hot, and theyve said, Wow, this is too much for us to handle.

Weather conditions are assessed to attempt to ensure the fires smoke clears. Practitioners point out that prescribed fires rarely smolder for weeks or months like wildfires, and that the smoke is lighter and less hazardous. Research has shown prescribed fire also helps tamp down climate change. Thats because thinned forests with fewer, larger trees sequester more carbon dioxide, and are less likely to burn to ash if a wildfire reaches them, releasing all that CO2.

On the prescribed fire line, workers building black with drip torches char a box of burned ground around the area slated for fire, Karboski said. Once the fire is set inside, they keep watch for any embers that cross that line.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

A firefighter uses an ignition tank to set underbrush on fire during a prescribed burn in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty in May 2019.

Afterward, its not like its a blackened wasteland, Karboski said. The intention is to leave most of the trees still standing, so those are still there. And youll have spaces where the fire can get into, so you get more of a mosaic.

To Karboskis eye, prescribed burns in Washington have been kept too small.

Hundred-acre burns, she said, arent really getting us where you want to be.

Smoke regulations barriers to controlled burning

One of the few tangible actions taken following the 2015 firestorm, the worst fire year in state history, was a $1.7 million pilot project meant to assess Washingtons ability to use prescribed fire.

While proponents describe the project as a learning exercise crucial to expanding the use of fire in Washington, those lessons were hard won.

In the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017, fires were planned for 15 sites, 13 of which were in national forests. Tellingly, no privately held lands could be found to include in the pilot; private landowners have been put off prescribed fire by the bureaucratic hurdles, cost and liability concerns. Bringing fire to private lands is seen as a significant challenge to reviving Washingtons forests.

Although land managers selected the easiest spots, just one-third of the 13 square miles slated to burn during the project actually saw fire. One that did demonstrated a key argument against prescribed fire smoke.

For a week in the fall of 2016, smoke from prescribed fires hung in the semiarid, V-shaped valleys north of Leavenworth, the faux Bavarian tourist town west of Wenatchee that has moved into the forest, where glassy, loudly rectangular second homes increasingly share sight lines with the squat chalets built a generation before. Air quality fell to levels hazardous to people who are particularly susceptible to smoke.

Controlling smoke rivals containing the fire itself for the top spot on the to-do list of any prescribed fire manager, known as the burn boss. Washington law requires that a state meteorologist sign off on any burn the morning it is set to begin; crews gathered for the burns are sent home if that permission doesnt arrive.

The aging regulatory scheme governing smoke was drawn up at a time when industrial forestry filled Western Washington with smoke. The Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Ecology and the federal Environmental Protection Agency have been working on more permissive framework for years, but it is unlikely to receive a federal review until 2022 at the earliest.

Drawn up in the 1970s to satisfy requirements of the federal Clean Air Act, the smoke regulations last revised in the 1990s did not weigh the benefits of prescribed fire against its costs, said Lolley of The Nature Conservancy.

It really was focused on the reduction in emissions, but didnt really consider forest health, Lolley said.

Washington smoke regulations limit even the Forest Services prescribed burning. Though Oregons forests draw federal attention because they are more primed for intense, destructive fire, its also simply easier to burn in Oregon.

In the final report drawn from the pilot project, Department of Natural Resources researchers concluded that the regulatory framework keeps prescribed fire small and expensive by making larger burns impractical. Its a view shared by Karboski.

The system itself, she said, is set up to disincentive using fire.

Adam Bacher

Close-up image of Ponderosa pine bark burned in a 2015 megafire south of John Day, Oregon.

Incremental progress as concerns mount

Karboskis tempered frustration, one shared by many concerned for the forests and their neighbors, stems in part from fear.

While the intersection of urban areas and wildlands has long been a concern for those who worry about fire full time, the 2018 fire that destroyed Paradise, California, a town of 26,200 before it burned, laid bare the danger. Embers thrown miles by an intense fire in the neighboring forest set the town ablaze.

That the same could happen to Leavenworth, Roslyn or a host of other Washington mountain towns is beyond question. In Washington, homes and wildlands mix across more than 4,500 square miles, an area almost the size of Connecticut. Millions of acres of privately held timberland could be converted into subdivisions.

In Olympia, state land managers are drawing up watershed-centered plans to prioritize forest restoration in areas where fire is most likely, and most likely to be destructive. The idea is to shape the landscape and secure better options for firefighters when fire does break out.

State Forester George Geissler, of the Department of Natural Resources, describes the forthcoming plans as a granular examination of each watershed, looking at land ownership to find areas where intervention would be most successful.

The Forest Service, too, is considering a new targeted approach to prescribed fire. Prescribed burning would be used to create spaces that would slow large wildfires, increasing the likelihood that some could be allowed to burn while providing firefighters a safer space to work from when they intervene.

In an interview, Geissler ticked through the efforts underway. Assistance programs for landowners. Training initiatives to build a workforce. Changes in law to reduce restrictions on prescribed fire. The dialogue with the EPA to revise the smoke rules. His own appointment; Geissler, who had been serving as Oklahomas state forester, said he was hired two years ago specifically for his background in burning.

With each incremental change, we are making the opportunity to utilize prescribed fire greater, Geissler said.

Acknowledging that prescribed fire has been underused in Washington, Geissler cautioned that it is not a magic Band-Aid that can immediately fix what generations of fire suppression broke. He said he believes the public supports the work, and hopes Washingtonians including those in the Legislature will stay engaged.

We live in a society that if you cant get [something] done in two years you probably failed at it, and yet in forestry I was taught that 30 years is a short time, Geissler said.

The Nature Conservancys Lolley offered a similar view.

Were moving in the right direction, said Lolley, whose organization has been instrumental in training fire practitioners and bringing fire to privately owned lands. And I think we are getting smarter about how to prioritize the investments of money to have bigger gains.

But, Lolley allowed, at our current rate of treatment, it will make a difference, but its not near what we need.

The costs are substantial, and the benefits distant.

Advances in plywood manufacturing and heaters that burn pelletized scrap wood could conceivably make thinning less costly in some forests, but the forest restoration wont pay for itself. And while proponents contend restoration will save millions over the long run, firefighting costs will continue to rise even as the restoration work takes shape.

Behind the curve

Fire gently burns in the hills above Roslyn again, this time on the city-owned land bordering Martins property. The fire makes the town an exception, frustratingly so in Martins view.

Martin is enthusiastic about fires effect on his forest, which he bought to visit and protect from development. Since the fire, elk have returned to the newly open forest, as have turkey and bear. Hes proud that it may protect Roslyn the next time fire rises in the forests that surround it.

And yet he stops short of encouraging others to burn. The bureaucratic roadblocks, he said, are still too large for landowners without an abundance of money and energy to overcome.

In Washington state, we are far behind the curve on this stuff, Martin said.

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With nearly 1 million homes at risk, Washington is losing the wildfire fight - InvestigateWest