Forest Service, BLM about to revisit Trump's bad old days

One third of the Earth's tree species is at risk to extinction according to the United Nations.

Fuel treatments on the Santa Fe National Forest helped contain the Medio Fire in 2020 and were accelerated after President Joe Biden took the oath of office. But it’s probably a straight line from the Trump Organization's Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and crashes in morale within the US Forest Service to current conditions on the SFNF and others in the National Forest System. Extreme wildfire conditions caused embers from the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire to create spot fires some four miles from the main burn. 

Northern New Mexico doesn’t really have a viable timber industry and to this interested party the Calf Canyon/ Hermits Peak Fire was a blessing in disguise for hardwood release despite the estimated 62 million trees burned, the lawsuits and misery in its aftermath. A recent study revealed that heavy metals in the suppressants and retardants that the Forest Service and other agencies use against wildfires leach into waterways. Prescribed fire is used extensively by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service with few pushbacks from sawmills. But, take fire off the the Forest then listen to extractive industry guys like Frank Carroll saying public land management is broken.

The woman who headed the Santa Fe National Forest during the largest wildfire in New Mexico history and was given a temporary assignment in the aftermath of the devastating blaze will remain in Washington, D.C. Former supervisor Debbie Cress, who headed the Santa Fe National Forest for about a year and a half, has taken a permanent position with the U.S. Forest Service office in Washington, D.C. [Santa Fe National Forest supervisor not coming back to N.M.]

Some New Mexico ski areas opened after recent heavy snows and the aspen bowl above Santa Fe was white while everything that is covered in pine and spruce was dark. 

Remanding lands in the public domain to the tribal communities from whom they were seized can’t happen soon enough. But as much as this interested party would like to see a Forest and Land Management Service within the Interior Department a Trump administration consolidation will cause catastrophic damage to both agencies. Pending budget cuts are already putting essential recreation, conservation work and firewood going to tribal communities at risk.

When the Rio Gallinas flooded this June, a deluge of ash and chemicals used in fire retardants ran down Hermit’s Peak into the Rio Gallinas watershed, causing high turbidity in the drinking water in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In fact, the dreaded words “historic” and “unprecedented” were used to describe the wind in the spring of 2022 — which is to say, the Forest Service fucked up very specifically. Setting the stage were decades of settler-colonizer fire suppression practices, along with the rapid warming of the planet, creating a tinderbox of trees and undergrowth dead or brittle from disease, bark beetles, not enough water and too much heat. [The aftermath of the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon Fires]

Current BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning was selected as President of The Wilderness Society as the incoming administration threatens the agency's health again.

Learn more at Oregon Public Broadcasting. 

ip image of Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire captured 22 May, 2022.