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Piute Mountain Fire G. Mathias Kondolf, Ph.D science fraud Stop Barbara Boxer Stop the insane policies that feed the Forest Fires of California After the fire there was nothing. Shadows and the dead, just dead, all shared the black ash. Animals large and small, trees of great size and all of the grasses and even stone cracked in the furnace were ash. It was hard not to get lost, to find your own way on land which you had lived and worked on for years. It so changed that without double checking where you were the mountain seemed like a new and terrible world. Today I read a statement given to Congress by a California Berkeley professor G. Mathias Kondolf, Ph.D about how logging and the grazing of cattle created erosion and sediment in the streams. His position was that no logging or grazing should happen on the federal lands of the Sequoia National Forest. The Sequoia National Forest followed this advice and the buildup of woods and grasses throughout the forest created a fire bomb that was ignited in July of 2008. The fire was fought by many but in the end was stopped by a rainstorm that the fire had itself created. This was a 44,000 acre fire which burned in California at a time when six other major blazes stretched the resources of the State to the breaking point. The rainstorm created a flash flood on two sides of the mountain. A lava like flow of ash and water came roaring down the mountain creeks and ravines filling streams with feet of ash and soil. The small amounts of soil that that the professor predicted may have worked into a stream from livestock watering was replaced by many feet of ash and mud. One fire fighter said to us that the fire started it's own weather, wind and dust to wind and rain.
(Please see the YouTube of the flood at the end of the fire. The truth speak for itself, please judge for yourself about the outcome of sediment in streams from fire vs the cattle and deer.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX4TFBAuL3s&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-DXYPuGrQs&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XilWvmVEaQM&feature=fvw The greatest irony was that the logging and clearing of logging roads that the Sierra Club and "Friends of the Forest' and the good professor had lobbied against started one month after the fire as a way to clear out the rubble and char by the National Forest. Trees five to eight feet in diameter were completely burned because grasses and dead tree fall in the National Forest were allowed to get so dense that the fire moved from the ground into the tree tops and then from tree top to tree top.
The forest was burned to the ground, the streams were silted deep in ash and mud and not a word from these groups that profess to be the defenders of the natural environment. They say this is the natural course and a periodic event but when six hundred year old trees burn down it is clear that this event is not normal or desirable it is catastrophic. There are smart ways to remove dead trees and trees which are strangling other trees in a forest which are far from the clear cut logging which these so called environmentalist point to as a representation of the logging plans that were proposed by the National Forest. In the end, salvage logging was done by the National Forest. Erosion of roads, streams and the mountain's steep sides today are far worse after the fire than anything that could have been envisioned by the political hacks that passed these policies to limit the reduction of fuel build up in the forest. If ever there were an example of "lose - lose" in a democracy regarding environmental policy this is it. Please remember who they are. Please stop the crime Piute Mountain Fire please see for yourself the outcome of policies proposed and voted on by these people. Piute Fire 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooFbY_-D6C4&feature=related
G. Mathias Kondolf, Ph.D. Now tenured Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. Summary of oral testimony before the house committee on Natural Resources USA Congress - March 9 1994 His testimony became a cornerstone of fraudulent policies that destroyed thousands of acres of forest land, public and private land. Please stop this fraud from continuing. Please help stop the policies that feed the California wild fires.
Ara Marderosian of Weldon California "Sequoia Forest Alliance" And "Sequoia Forestkeepers" Charlene Little of Kernville California Paul Hughes of San Francisco. "Forests are forever" Terri Middelemiss of Inyokern Kerncrest Audubon Society" Ronald J Wermuth of Kernville California Carla Cloer of Porterville California The following members of Congress signed letters supporting conditions which have put forests and private land at fire risk; Barbara Lee Tom Lantos Pete Stark Anna Eshoo Michael Honda Jane Harman Grace Napolitano Senator Dianne Feinstein United States Senate CA Senator Barbara Boxer United States Senate CA
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The Berkeley Daily Planet - Reader Commentaries Response to Prof. Kondolf on BRT By Roy Nakadegawa Thursday May 13, 2010 Matt Kondolf, a professor who teaches environmental sciences, wrote an opinion piece in a recent Daily Planet which shows that, though he may be an expert on hydrology and river restoration, he obviously does not have transportation expertise. Prof. Kondolf makes numerous distorted claims and facts. He states that the successful BRT systems of South America are grade separated from traffic. This is not true. I have visited Curitiba and several other BRTs in Brazil, examined their system and spoken with their staff, and I can assure you that they are not grade separated. Curitiba's renown BRT and integrated land development have increased transit use and helped promote overall prosperity. Along with increase in income, automobile ownership has increased in Curitiba to about the highest per capita in Brazil, but transit ridership has also increased. Kondolf also claims that BART already serves the natural market for BRT. This is also not true. BART is primarily for longer distance travel, and BRT would be for more local travel. Can you conveniently get from Berkeley to the various hospitals i.e. "Pill Hill" or Kaiser using BART, or to many local businesses, schools and parks? BART serves a very limited portion of these local destinations. The proposed BRT route serves the greatest number of these destinations within a half mile of any transit line in the East Bay. That is why the BRT is estimated to carry over 40,000 trips per day. Kondolf claims that the DEIR concluded that the proposed BRT might increase net transit ridership by only about 1.5%. This percentage is probably comparing the increase in transit ridership of BRT to AC's entire system. His saying we should not build BRT because it would increase AC entire transit ridership only 1.5% is like saying we should not insulate houses in Berkeley because it would reduce energy used in heating in the entire East Bay by only 1.5%. The relevant comparison regarding the BRT is not to the entire AC's ridership, but a comparison of the no-build alternative to the BRT Alternatives. The purported figures Kondolf used referred to Table (p3-28) of the DEIR, actually shows a considerable increase of 50-76%, whereas, there is no mention of the numbers Kondolf stated. The current 1R express bus provides poor service because it is often delayed by traffic. Though it should operate at 12 minute intervals, you often see two 1R buses entering downtown Berkeley in tandem or a few minutes apart, so riders often need wait over 20 minutes to use the 1R. Though the 1R has signal priority, the bus is often unable to clear the intersection in the short time signal time the priority provides before the light changes because it is in among a queued line of vehicles. As traffic increases, this problem will worsen. Regards to greenhouse gas emissions, the DEIR Kondolf cites (P4-152) only shows the fuel and BTU consumption which translating to emissions per bus mile. It did not consider the additional passengers the various alternatives will carry or the overall future land use pattern that is promoted by BRT. APTA's recent climate change recommendations, the FTA's Climate Change Report of April, 2010, and the ICFI's report "Reducing GHG Emissions with Transit" all consider these land use effects and all conclude BRT reduces GHG emissions. Most people do not know that heavily used commuter bus lines, like Greyhound intercity buses have very low GHG emissions per passenger mile, as low as heavy rail like BART or LRT according to the "Transportation Energy Book" published by US Dept. of Energy. Because the BRT would attract and increase in riders per bus, the BRT will also lower emissions per passenger mile over current operation. Also with higher ridership and speed, the cost per passenger mile would also decrease, allowing AC Transit to provide more transit service with the limited funds it has for operation. Roy Nakadegawa P.E. Lived in Berkeley over 60 years, served as a publicly elected AC Transit and BART Director 32 years, a life member of Institute of Transportation Engineers, served 20 years on Committees of TRB (A branch of Academy of Sciences), served on an oversight committees overseeing 4 Transit Cooperative Research Publication and have traveled extensively examining various modes of transit including Curitiba, Brazil's renowned BRT as well as several other BRTs from 5 trips to Japan, 6 trips to Europe. Contact The Planet |
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architecture landscape contractors engineering schools trades building products volume5 resources home listing in BTD eyespeak@earthlink.net Building Trades Directory - : Eyespeak. June 1998 c/w. 2012
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