Lahontan, Forest Service plans for Angora burn area
Click on letter to find out more about Lahontan Water Quality Control Board’s plans regarding work in the stream environmental zone in the Angora burn area.
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Burning causes air pollution. Chipping is the better option. Burning destroys the nutrients in the wood; chipping puts the nutrients back in the soil.
The nutrients belong in the ground to help grow the trees that will replace the dead ones.
Burning sends pollution into other counties who don’t want our smoke.
The smoke is not good for our lungs and eyes and it is not good for our children.
Burning a woodpile is cheaper than chipping a woodpile.
Please do not cut corners in this area; chipping is worth the added costs.
It is my understanding there are grant monies available for chipping and for preserving our air quality.
Besides, with the recent volcanic activity, our fragile atmosphere is now being filled with millions of pounds of air pollution everyday with no end in sight.
Why would we want to help the volcanoes pollute our air?
Ernie, in many (even most) places that have not been treated for years, the thickness of wood chips that would be left behind would be too thick to allow native plants to grow. And they are far better at decreasing erosion than anything we can build.
fpogen, the CCC, Lake Valley Fire and The USDA Forestry all chip back onto their lots in large piles which would cause the plants to not grow as you need approx 6-8 inches of thickness for that to happen. If you spread out the chips to a thickness of approx 3 inches they will act as mulch as well as hold the soil in place. The key is in the labor required to spread out the chips as a chipper will only do so much. We don’t need the piles of slash anymore. Glenbrook got a grant a couple of years ago to manually haul all the debris 200 feet from the road as well as thinning in the process. There were 25 workers on that job all paid for through grants. The main problem is Lahotan will not allow mechanical chipping to take place so everything is to be done by hand which is very costly. It’s all about the money and has nothing to do with saving the environment.
Just a note. I am a Tree Service Contractor so I have to deal with this all the time and it’s frustrating that homeowners have 15 days to clean up and haul the slash or chips away and the Government has forever plus they can have piles of slash to burn.
Everyone is almost right – as there may be another option that has not existed before now…
The main reason they “stockpile” at all is over concerns for their own causing of a forest fire, and because it is a ‘dealbreaker’ to take them anywhere. . .not to mention what Skibum asserts.
There now exists a composting pilot program, which makes regular trips to the compost site, probably with room for chips. This is important as food waste is overall alkaline, and needs the acidic balance of forest waste to make a truly balanced compost.
Truly balanced compost uses half the water to grow the same yield, so this in itself is consistent with Lahontan’s charge of water quality, both in quality and quantity, as more produce grown with less water is a ‘win,win, win’ in the Triple Bottom line sense. Very sustainable. . .
Our website is http://www.composttahoe.org, for further information, or for further contact info to forward to Lahontan.