Fires

 

Again we have had another extraordinary summer — and it isn’t even half over — of fires up and down the state and smoke and ash filling our skies. When are we going to learn? And, more importantly, when are we going to insist that our representatives take a good hard look at the “environmental” policies that have produced this mess?

For the past ten years we have watched states all over the west, from Montana to New Mexico, burn for months with devastating impacts on forests, wildlife and humans.

Countless thousands of hours of manpower and millions of gallons of water have been expended trying to put these wildfires out. And for what? Homes are lost, people are injured or killed, and untold millions of wild animals either perish or lose their homes as well. The landscape is destroyed for decades, and now we have new problems when the rains begin.

 

I believe that we have enough evidence to convince even the most ardent admirer of the environment that we have made some bad choices in our policies regarding undeveloped lands. Obviously, those making the decisions didn’t bother to understand what they were voting on and chose to follow the party line to designate anything that grows to be of special interest or endangered. Santa Barbara County, having been dominated for thirty years by such people, is now suffering the consequences of those decisions.

There is worse to come. In recent years we’ve had the Painted Cave Fire, the Zaca Fire and now the Gap Fire. You don’t hear about all of the smaller fires that have been set around the valley by an arsonist who seems to elude capture year after year.

My ranch has seen the effects for years: last year a fire was set from Highway 154 near Hilton Creek in my bull pasture. I just happened to go by when it first started and the fire department got there almost immediately and put it out.

 

The year before, one Sunday at 2 p.m., a fire was started at the dam lookout road; the following Sunday at 2 p.m., another fire was started across the road on part of the ranch. A few years back, seven fires were set on a single day all along Armour Ranch Road.

Were these all set by an arsonist, or did someone drive around with some sort of car problem spewing out fire as they drove by? I don’t know the answer to that, but there are some things that I do know.

Whether the careless driver throws out a lighted cigarette from the car window, and I have seen that, or we have a firebug in our midst, we need to look at our regulations with an eye to fire safety. It makes absolutely no sense to me to “save the environment” by not allowing sensible techniques established by generations of farmers and ranchers to keep us all as safe as possible, only to watch and lament when our environment is destroyed along with wildlife, homes and people. This is preventable, at least to a large extent.

 

Rather than follow the failed policies extolled by the environmental faction, let’s use some common sense for a change. Why would one leave great heaps of dry material around to catch fire? On a trip two years ago to Yellowstone National Park, I was horrified to see dry, dead trees stacked six feet deep all around the living trees up and down the mountain slopes. Not only can the larger animals not traverse this mess, this is a bonfire of the most horrible kind in the making. What kind of idiotic policy would allow such a disaster to occur and then claim to be taking care of our national treasures?

It is time to put some common sense in our environmental policies and turn away from the untried and untrue assumptions that we have been handed by the radical agenda of which we have so much in this county and in our valley.

We will never convince those people that common sense is more valuable than theories, particularly theirs, but we need to make some fundamental changes. We need to make those changes now before more preventable disasters occur.

 

 

Attitudes

 

There are at least two types of people — those who say, “How do we solve this problem,” and those who are just opposed to everything and want to stop any project being proposed. This applies to most of life, but, in particular, I would like you to focus your attention on the current gas crisis.

I listen, as I am sure you do, to radio and television commentators constantly talking about how the price of gas has risen so dramatically and how it continues to rise.

There is a lot of speculation about how much higher it will go, when the price will come down because of a drop in the price of crude, or who we can blame for this happening in the first place.

I get a kick out of the politicians who insist that this is all the fault of the policies of the other political party and that it would be bad to start drilling for oil now offshore because it would take from ten to 15 years to make a difference in the amount of oil coming through the pipeline. Oh yes, and let’s not forget the local oil spill in 1969 that has tainted the argument in our area. Apparently, they must not think any advances have been made over the last thirty years to prevent this type of event. I guess that’s why this sort of thing has not happened since, with the exception of the drunken ship captain — and not drilling won’t cure that problem.

 

I just read a poll where the people of America think that we should start drilling now and people in Santa Barbara County in particular think that. What that means to me is that people are hurting financially, and whatever it is that the politicians are wasting their time talking about is not solving the problem.

Some politicians would have you believe that the oil companies are sitting on vast amounts of acres they have leased that they could be drilling on. What they refuse to tell you is, yes, they do have acreage leased, but it is not yet proven to even have any oil at all, enough oil to make it worth the effort or whether it can be taken to market feasibly, as there may not be any available infrastructure.

Continental shelf drilling, on the other hand, we already know has vast quantities of oil, and there is infrastructure already in place to move it to market. What we are still lacking is adequate refinery capacity, because the environmental lobby has managed to bring about so many lawsuits that every project has been tied up in court. So, too, the environment lobby — the largest lobby in Washington, D.C. — also has stopped nuclear projects, wind farms and solar projects.

 

So, when are we going to demand common sense and tell our legislators to get rid of those who would stop the progress of this great nation? I would suggest that we start right here in the valley, support those politicians who are NOT tied to the policies of the last thirty years, and start with someone new who knows and accepts that we need to use all workable resources at our disposal to keep moving forward lest we slip into the third world category, which is where we are headed if we don’t stop the backslide.

After all, do we really want to send all of our hard-earned dollars to the billionaires in the Middle East, by whom it could be passed into the hands of our enemies? Where is the politician with the backbone to do this?

 

 

Hatred makes you stupid

 

I have written, from time to time, on issues related to the casino in our midst in an effort to get a dialogue going on how to deal with the impact it has on our small valley. I have been vilified in the other press, I’ve been called a racist, and worse, and I have been the subject of cartoons showing me at a hearing with the board of supervisors when I was 2,500 miles away.

I guess the truth hurts some people and they feel they must try to discredit me in order to make themselves feel better.

The solution to this situation is actually so much simpler. Recent published reactions to the Federal Court’s decision on our valley’s groups’ standing regarding the fee-to-trust application for the 6.9-acre property in Santa Ynez totally ignore part of the decision, in which the judge states that the IBIA had not followed their own rules — not only in this case but in many others that are similar in nature. To try to claim that this is a negative for the local groups is simply ignoring reality.

 

I am certain that this scenario will not change as long as a minority group of so-called leaders of the Chumash continue arrogantly to deny reality and denigrate their neighbors. I know for a fact that many tribal members do not agree with the “leadership,” but are unable to speak out from fear of being disenrolled. How sad that those people are being disenfranchised by their own leaders, as they were similarly disenfranchised by others long ago.

All we can do is keep reaching out our hands and hope that someday we can live together as the community we are.

 

 

Postscript

 

Have you heard the rumors about lots of deals being worked between one of the candidates for 3rd District supervisor and the current holder of that office? I’ve heard that this is happening because the hand-picked would-be successor was repudiated by the electorate. What strange bedfellows we have now! Wonder what the deals are?