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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is moving to chop down 22,000 trees in Berkeley's historic Strawberry and Claremont Canyons and over 60,000 more in Oakland. This destructive plan is rapidly moving forward with little publicity, and FEMA cleverly scheduled its three public meetings for mid and late May while UC Berkeley students were in finals or gone for the summer.
UC Berkeley has applied for the grant to destroy the bucolic Strawberry and Claremont Canyon areas, claiming that the trees pose a fire hazard. The school has no plans to replant, and instead will cover 20% of the area in wood chips two feet deep. And it will pour between 700 and 1400 gallons of herbicide to prevent re-sprouting, including the highly toxic herbicide, Roundup. People are mobilizing against this outrageous proposal, which UC Berkeley has done its best to keep secret.
This is odd - it not hard to prevent a lot of fire danger by clearing the areas close to the home and buildings. Also, fire is part of the natural process, clearing out debris and allowing seeds to grow. FEMA? what the heck?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is moving to chop down 22,000 trees in Berkeley's historic Strawberry and Claremont Canyons and over 60,000 more in Oakland. This destructive plan is rapidly moving forward with little publicity, and FEMA cleverly scheduled its three public meetings for mid and late May while UC Berkeley students were in finals or gone for the summer.
UC Berkeley has applied for the grant to destroy the bucolic Strawberry and Claremont Canyon areas, claiming that the trees pose a fire hazard. The school has no plans to replant, and instead will cover 20% of the area in wood chips two feet deep. And it will pour between 700 and 1400 gallons of herbicide to prevent re-sprouting, including the highly toxic herbicide, Roundup. People are mobilizing against this outrageous proposal, which UC Berkeley has done its best to keep secret.
This is odd - it not hard to prevent a lot of fire danger by clearing the areas close to the home and buildings. Also, fire is part of the natural process, clearing out debris and allowing seeds to grow. FEMA? what the heck?
Having too many trees in certain areas is also not a good thing. Indigenous peoples have been cutting forests down to mitigate wildfires for thousands of years, especially in Australia. This is not new
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is moving to chop down 22,000 trees in Berkeley's historic Strawberry and Claremont Canyons and over 60,000 more in Oakland. This destructive plan is rapidly moving forward with little publicity, and FEMA cleverly scheduled its three public meetings for mid and late May while UC Berkeley students were in finals or gone for the summer.
UC Berkeley has applied for the grant to destroy the bucolic Strawberry and Claremont Canyon areas, claiming that the trees pose a fire hazard. The school has no plans to replant, and instead will cover 20% of the area in wood chips two feet deep. And it will pour between 700 and 1400 gallons of herbicide to prevent re-sprouting, including the highly toxic herbicide, Roundup. People are mobilizing against this outrageous proposal, which UC Berkeley has done its best to keep secret.
This is odd - it not hard to prevent a lot of fire danger by clearing the areas close to the home and buildings. Also, fire is part of the natural process, clearing out debris and allowing seeds to grow. FEMA? what the heck?
The trees do pose an extreme fire hazard. Where were you in October of 1991? I was up in the Broadway Terrace area watching the fire consume home after home, the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire was exacerbated by all of the non native pines, cypress, eucalyptus and Acacia trees that were in dire straits because of a three year drought and two record breaking cold spells. The residents had been advised to remove the dead and dying eucalyptus trees and to thin out other trees, but they neglected to and the result was a 3400 acre fire that consumed 3400 +- homes in just 24 hours. I moved up here to Humboldt county after losing nine yards that I maintained in the Broadway Terrace and Ocean view neighborhood and when I have gone back, most of those dangerous and flamable trees are still there. I feel it is better to err on the side of caution and remove those trees and avoid another calamity as the 1991 fire. Fire is a natural control of brush and debris and is good for the forest, but the forest is not the same as it was before fire suppression tactics allowed an excess of undergrowth, now a fire would not clear out the forest for regrowth and do it kindly, it wiil be a conflagration and destroy many homes and take lives with it. I applaud what they are doing, even though I am against herbicides, but too many people live in the hills above Berkeley and Oakland to ignore this likely hazard.
Of course wood chips burn, but it is only the top layer that burns, unlike a grass or wood vegetation fire that has a huge volume of fuel and air spaces that add oxygen to continue its burn. I went up into the Oakland fire a few days after the fire of 1991 and at Lake Temescal the grounds had wood chips on all the beds. All the land and all the trees were scorched right to the earth, but where there were wood chips, the wood chips were still there and only scorched, not burnt.
The trees do pose an extreme fire hazard. Where were you in October of 1991? I was up in the Broadway Terrace area watching the fire consume home after home, the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire was exacerbated by all of the non native pines, cypress, eucalyptus and Acacia trees that were in dire straits because of a three year drought and two record breaking cold spells. The residents had been advised to remove the dead and dying eucalyptus trees and to thin out other trees, but they neglected to and the result was a 3400 acre fire that consumed 3400 +- homes in just 24 hours. I moved up here to Humboldt county after losing nine yards that I maintained in the Broadway Terrace and Ocean view neighborhood and when I have gone back, most of those dangerous and flamable trees are still there. I feel it is better to err on the side of caution and remove those trees and avoid another calamity as the 1991 fire. Fire is a natural control of brush and debris and is good for the forest, but the forest is not the same as it was before fire suppression tactics allowed an excess of undergrowth, now a fire would not clear out the forest for regrowth and do it kindly, it wiil be a conflagration and destroy many homes and take lives with it. I applaud what they are doing, even though I am against herbicides, but too many people live in the hills above Berkeley and Oakland to ignore this likely hazard.
Perhaps the solution isn't dumping toxic chemicals and killing trees, but getting rid of the houses.
Oh well, this gives the womyns studies majors something useful to do after they graduate....treehouse party time!
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