[PCA] NEWS:Invasive weed fire in Utah, may be missing part of story?

[penny at pinenut.com]

Craig and list members-
Craig, I very much apperciate your hard work and wish to echo your insight. 
For the last 13 years I have been participating in land planning via public 
comments. Whenever the pinyon trees are removed, cheatgrass invades. Yet, 
the reduction of fuels in the Great Basin always equates to treating pinyon 
trees, which cool the soil and helps hold moisture in the region. Poor 
science created a history of poor policy and we have yet to understand the 
impact of deforestation of the Great Basin.

Here is yet another example of continued misguided fuels treatment:
http://news.rgj.com:80/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070801/FERNLEY01/708010325/1306/BIZ01

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Carson City Field Office, has proposed 
a vegetation treatment project on 2,625 acres of public land in the Pine Nut 
Mountains southeast of Dayton and northwest of Mason Valley.

In 2001, more than 160,000 acres of pinyon fuels  treatment was planned for 
Nevada. This was stopped thanks to the hard work of many people. However, 
tree treatment continues just  in piecemeal projects like the one above and 
the 4,500 acre Winz Creek Wildland Interface project done via CX.

As an aside, the pinyon nuts I work with have no harvest this year. This is 
the first time in the 13 years I have been doing pinyon work that there were 
no nuts (hence no reproduction).

Penny Frazier

Goods From The Woods

www.pinenut.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Dremann" <craig at astreet.com>
To: "Olivia Kwong" <plant at plantconservation.org>
Cc: <native-plants at lists.plantconservation.org>; 
<apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>; <sos at lists.plantconservation.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 9:55 AM
Subject: [PCA] NEWS:Invasive weed fire in Utah, may be missing part of 
story?


> Dear Olivia and All,
>
> That article last week from USA Today, may not be completely accurate:
> --------------------------
>
> http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2007-08-29-cheatgrass_N.htm
>
> Invasive weed a fuel for West's wildfires
> By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY
>
> DENVER -- Cheatgrass, a wispy Eurasian weed accidentally brought to the
> USA in the late 19th century, has become a 21st century headache across
> the West, fueling some of this summer's most destructive wildfires.
>
> The largest blaze in Utah history, the 567-square-mile Milford Flat
> fire..."
> ---------------------------
>
> There's a map at http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,680197390,00.html
> of the fire.
>
> When I conducted my 1997 Great Basin/Rocky Mtn. vegetation megatransect
> that you can see at http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html --- my
> survey went right through that area, from the tiny town of Milford
> eastward along Utah 21.
>
> What the various Milford Flat fire stories might be missing, is that the
> fire might also have spread by an exotic perennial grass, that was
> intentionally sown by the Utah highway department and sown on BLM lands,
> the Crested Wheatgrass, which was seen during by 1997 survey.
>
> A 2005 report done by BLM, stated that of the 3.6 million pounds of
> seeds purchased that year for sowing on the public lands, 41% (or nearly
> 1.5 million pounds) were EXOTIC plant seeds.
>
> There's a very strange disconnect, when the  Federal government is
> sowing over a million pounds of exotic plant seeds onto public lands
> every year, while at the same time, has a policy to limit the spread of
> exotic plants on public lands?
>
> Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650) 325-7333
>
>
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