Months after receiving photos of sediment being dumped into Longmont’s drinking water supply from “wildfire risk reduction” logging carried out by Boulder County Parks and Open Space, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) admitted it had let the accused violator investigate—and exonerate—itself.
A new study debunks industry/agency claims of “unprecedented” high-severity wildfires across “overgrown” western forests, revealing how U.S. Forest Service-funded scientists omitted evidence to push a narrative currently being used to justify proposals to log tens of millions of acres of public lands across the west, including 3.5 million acres in Colorado’s Front Range.
Continue reading “Peer-Reviewed Study Exposes “Falsification of the Scientific Record” in Agency-Funded Wildfire Narrative”“California’s historic wet winter risks making wildfire season even worse”
Today’s News Herald / Havasu News by Tribune News Service, April 16, 2023
SYNOPSIS
California’s heavy rain and snow will increase vegetation growth that some claim may increase the likelihood and severity of wildfires.
Continue reading “ENVIRONMENTAL MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT #1: “California’s historic wet winter risks making wildfire season even worse””After pushback from local residents on clearcutting and old-growth logging in Open Space parks, Jefferson County is hosting a “Community Conversation” Town Hall on wildfire on Saturday, April 8 @ 9 a.m. at Evergreen Fire Protection District (1802 Bergen Parkway), without a single scientist or meaningful public engagement.
Jefferson County, Colorado Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper (who also sits on the Colorado Fire Commission) lying about the logging of hundreds of fire-resistant mature and old-growth trees up to 129-years-old at county parks under the phony guise of “wildfire risk reduction” during a public town hall in Evergreen, Colorado on February 4, 2023.
Dahlkemper had been provided photos of the trees via email several days prior with a laminated version of the same photos sitting on the table in front of her.
At a public “town hall” in Evergreen on Saturday, February 4, Jefferson County Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper falsely told a small group of citizens in attendance and hundreds more via livestream that the county was not logging old-growth trees in Open Space parks, despite photographs of dozens of such logged trees—up to 129-years old—on the table in front of her.
Continue reading “Jefferson County, Colorado Commissioner Dahlkemper Falsely Denies Logging Old-Growth Trees at Public Meeting”
Right now Jefferson County Open Space is cutting hundreds of fire-resistant mature and old growth trees up to 129 years of age and 2.5 feet in diameter at Elk Meadow Park in Evergreen off Route 74, under the phony guise of “wildfire risk reduction.”
Continue reading “Jefferson County, Colorado Logging Old-Growth Trees for Contested “Wildfire Risk Reduction””
We, the steering committee and membership of Eco-Integrity Alliance, are writing in hopes of urging you to protect and preserve Buffalo Springs in the Hoosier National Forest for the invaluable benefits of carbon sequestration and storage to fight climate change, fish and wildlife habitat, clean air and water, and flooding and erosion control.
As you know, logging public lands—some of the last biodiverse ecosystems on the continent—provides an inconsequential amount of forest products. Not only that, but the Forest Service, by commandeering the tax dollars of struggling Americans, is essentially operating a welfare state for a handful of corporations, making it impossible for small, independently-owned selective forestry outfits operating on private lands to compete in the free market. Meanwhile, on a purely economic level, recreation and tourism are far more valuable to local economies
Of course, this isn’t just about Buffalo Springs, Hoosier National Forest, or Indiana. The concept of “multiple use” on 191 million acres of National Forests and 265 million acres under Bureau of Land Management is itself an oxymoron, in that the goal of watershed protection, fish and wildlife, and wilderness is, in every instance, negatively impacted by extraction.
The only sound ecological and economic choice for National Forests is to end all extraction, including logging, drilling, mining, and grazing. Indeed, preserving every acre of our public lands in the U.S. is a crucial part of protecting “Half Earth,” which the late biologist E.O. Wilson believed to be the only way to stave off ecological collapse.
We ask that you stop coming up with convoluted excuses to continue to degrade our natural ecosystems and instead do your jobs as stewards for the benefit of local communities, Americans, and citizens of the world, from present to future generations. Canceling the Buffalo Spring project is a good place to start.
Eco-Integrity Alliance Steering Committee & Members
Join Eco-Integrity Alliance on a short and easy guided hike (3 miles, no hills) at Flying J Ranch Park (40 minutes from downtown Denver, 9661 County Hwy 73, Conifer, CO 80433-4008) to enjoy the splendor of ponderosa pine forest, tallgrass meadow, and 150 acres of clearcut devastation courtesy of Jefferson County Open Space, Denver Mountain Parks, and your tax dollars.
Why hike through clearcuts when there are so many beautiful intact forests left in Colorado? Because the U.S. Forest Service is spending billions of our taxes to LOG UP TO 3.5 MILLION ACRES of our Front Range public forests—on top of Jefferson County’s misguided plan to log up to 25,000 acres or 40 SQUARE MILES of parks—under the phony guise of “wildfire fuel reduction.”
While wildfire is a natural and essential part of western forest ecosystems, the large wildfires we’ve been experiencing lately threaten our communities while risking—and all too often, taking—the lives of residents and firefighters.
Scientists studying the phenomenon, including those at CU Boulder, know these big fires are the result of HOT TEMPERATURES, LOW HUMIDITY, AND DROUGHT exacerbated by climate change and coinciding with HIGH WINDS.
The good news is that making homes “Firewise”—tending an area up to 100 feet around a structure, installing metal roofs, and other simple measures—can PROTECT 95% OF HOMES FROM BURNING, according to studies from USDA’s Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Laboratory.
Not only won’t this logging (and no matter what they try to tell you, it is LOGGING, as you’ll see with your own eyes) prevent the fires that menace our communities, studies show cutting trees can actually DRY OUT FORESTS by opening stands to sunlight and wind, SPREADING FLAMES FASTER.
For instance, the Marshall Fire outside Boulder—the most destructive in Colorado history—burned almost entirely through grasslands and residential neighborhoods, with hardly a forest to be found.
The truth is, logging forests for “wildfire risk” does more harm than good while distracting us from the actions that would actually save homes and lives, plus cutting carbon-storing trees is one of the worst things we can do for climate change, the main driver behind these large fires.
Come see what the Forest Service has planned for your National Forests and Jefferson County is proposing for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE COUNTY’S 32 PARKS, and find out how to stop this before it’s too late.
After the one-and-a-half hour guided hike, we’ll gather together under the picnic shelters to write public comments for the upcoming public hearing on the unscientific Jefferson County Open Space Forest Health Plan, which has yet to be approved by County Commissioners.
Attendees can also write letters to our Congressional district—Senator Bennet, Senator Hickenlooper, and Rep. Neguse—the biggest cheerleaders in the country for this misguided logging—or write a letter to the editor to your local media outlet (none of which have chosen to write a single article alerting the public to this impending logging).
Afterwards, folks can continue hiking on their own or as a group.
The hike will be led by Josh Schlossberg, Colorado Steering Committee member of Eco-Integrity Alliance, an all-volunteer organization with the mission of uniting national environmental movement through common campaigns of mutual support (Eco-IntegrityAlliance.org).
(DISCLAIMER: Citizens who want to log our parks have a right to their opinion. However, this hike is for those who wish to preserve our public forests from destructive logging. Any attendees seeking to disrupt the hike will be asked to leave the group.)
Eco-Integrity Alliance 