[R-G] Fire, Water and Denial

[Richard Menec]

Fire, Water and Denial

by Neal Peirce

Could there be a pattern here?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003990903_peirce05.html

The San Diego and Los Angeles areas are hit by a raging series of 
high-impact wildfires - the worst in the state's history. Many of the blazes 
coincide with areas already scorched in 2003 by fires that themselves were 
declared California's worst ever.

But is there any move to get away from the areas where a century of 
firefighting has left many forests choked and overgrown, thick underbrush 
creating tinderbox conditions? Apparently not. Most homeowners vow that 
they'll stay in the fire-prone areas, or return to rebuild on the charred 
foundations of their former homes.

Across the continent, "exceptional drought" - the National Weather Service's 
worst category - impacts Georgia and its neighboring states. Water levels in 
Lake Lanier, the 38,000-acre reservoir that supplies water to almost 5 
million people, fall so drastically that the lake may dip into its storage 
capacity dregs in less than four months.

But Georgia limps along without a state water plan. No one wants to talk 
about water rationing. In suburban rings around Atlanta, planned new 
subdivisions don't have to prove a long-term water source before developers 
plunge into construction.

A stiffer assessment comes from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.: "Georgia has 
been sleepwalking. The Atlanta region has the most rapid growth rate in the 
history of urbanization. But Georgia's never done an assessment of its water 
capacity."

In California, there's praise for the professionalism of last week's 
firefighting effort. President Bush rushed to send federal firefighters, 
aircraft, grants for temporary housing and repairs, plus funding to clean up 
debris.

But the myopia about the future seems profound. Climate change is already 
having an apparent impact, with a 1-degree Fahrenheit temperature rise 
across the West. "Megafires" are sprouting; fire seasons are far longer than 
just 20 years ago.

Natural watersheds, warned California Forestry Director Ruben Grijalva last 
June, are being seriously encroached. With baby boomers and others buying 
large houses up and over the canyons, man-made structures and paved surfaces 
are expanding rapidly, increasing surface runoff during storms. That leads, 
in turn, to more soil erosion and less water for trees or vegetation. The 
inevitable result: more fires, whether intentional or accidental.

Smarter land-use planning for the fire-prone areas tops Grijalva's list of 
solutions. But instead, notes Bill Fulton of Solimar Research in Ventura, 
Calif., "We Californians are trying to fireproof ourselves" by building 
houses with buffers and fire-retardant construction materials. Media 
attention last week focused on how that tactic actually protected some 
subdivisions. Though Fulton notes the obvious: Smart land-use planning is an 
infinitely superior solution; "subdivisions in highly flammable forests 
don't make much sense."

And it's not just a California problem. This year, Idaho and Utah have seen 
their largest wildfires in the last 50 to 100 years; Arizona, Colorado and 
Oregon registered their record years in 2002, and Texas in 2006, Tom 
Swetnam, a University of Arizona scientist, told a congressional hearing 
recently. More than 8 million acres have burned this year, the 
second-largest number in history, behind 2006.

There's now a "flame zone" of states suffering persistent drought and 
susceptibility to faster, hotter, more erratic wildfires, intensified by 
global warming, says Blumenauer.

And it's all but sure to get worse, he notes, with rising temperatures and 
an expected 100 million more Americans by 2043.

Assuming Blumenauer's right, what to do? One possible idea: Congress could 
create a new set of federal watershed basin authorities, not to dictate to 
state and local governments but rather to sit down with them to balance risk 
and investment - negotiating, perhaps, reasonable levels of federal 
construction funding in return for state and local agreement to focus on 
prevention, careful planning, adaptation to the immutable forces of nature 
and climate change.

Including, Catherine Ross of Georgia Tech suggests, accords on critical 
infrastructure.

Easy to do in a complex federal system? No. But there has to be a better 
formula than we have now. It's obvious: This century is already too 
dangerous to keep sitting on our hands.

Neal Peirce's column appears alternate Mondays on editorial pages of The 
Times. His e-mail address is nrp at citistates.com

(c) 2007, Washington Post Writers Group