Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, says she hasn’t been able to carefully study the Highway 17 Fuel Reduction Project, a $2-plus million undertaking that will clear dead trees, underbrush and other flammable materials from a wide swath of roadside between Lexington Reservoir and Summit Road this summer.

Phillips has seen the one-sheet Cal Fire has made available, and she says it does not send up any red flags. Like many folks who don’t get to drive it every day, the Sacramento-based Phillips finds the road connecting Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz “terrifying,” and understands why protecting it is a priority. “I see that they need it as an escape route,” she says.

But she is much less sanguine about the 34 similar efforts initiated on March 22 when Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a State of Emergency, citing wildfire threats. And she has serious reservations about a related effort—a massive five-year, $1 billion campaign aimed at combatting wildfire by restoring California’s forests to ecological health. The effort is being undertaken under the aegis of a new entity—the California Forest Management Task Force.

The task force is providing land managers with two primary tools, calling for the increased use of prescribed burns and more aggressive forest-management practices such as the Highway 17 project. Both of these strategies have required that some elements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) be relaxed.

“As rule, Sierra Club doesn’t believe blanket exemptions from environmental review are appropriate,” Phillips says. “And they certainly aren’t appropriate in this kind of situation, where you have projects throughout the state, in all kinds of topography.”

The Sierra Club and other conservationists have expressed worries that without CEQA’s strict protections, next winter’s first rains could result in mud flows into drinking water supplies, or the disturbance of the range of an endangered or threatened species. They are concerned that controlled burns will create air pollution that will impact people in neighboring communities.

Ed Orre, head forester with Cal Fire’s South Bay Unit and supervisor of the Highway 17 project, said earlier this month that he was in the midst of preparing an email about fuel-reduction plans that have been negotiated with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. He said he’d be passing it up his chain of command that night, and that it would then be sent to the Department of Natural Resources, the agency partnering with Cal Fire on the 35 emergency projects.

If all goes to plan, the CEQA requirements will be suspended shortly, and the project will move forward. Orre vows the CEQA suspension does not mean natural and cultural resources will be threatened in any way.

“We have been embedded with our sister agencies, environmentalists and others,” he says. “This is not a waiver of any environmental laws, state or federal. We just don’t have to do certain bureaucratic steps that are typically required by CEQA.”

Patty Ciesla of the Santa Clara County Fire Safe Council, who has been working closely with Cal Fire, says she believes the spirit of CEQA will be honored even while some of its provisions have been relaxed.

“What this means is the documentation is almost nil,” she says, “but the underlying laws—the statutes for protecting listed species and for cultural resource protection—those remain. It’s by no means a license to kill.”

Ciesla says the fundamental CEQA process, which requires land managers to identify those resources and choose the least harmful options, is still being adhered to, as are requirements regarding public notification and feedback.

Lisa Lien-Mager of the natural resources department confirms that the governor’s proclamation “does not mean environmental protections will be discarded.”

“Cal Fire is seeking input from regulatory agencies, including regional water boards, to help safeguard natural and cultural resources while the work is being done,” Lien-Mager says. She reports that the agency will also “consult the California Natural Diversity Database and Historical Resources Information System to flag sensitive resources and avoid impacts.”

Science vs. megafires

For Ciesla, looking not just at the local project but at the statewide wildfire plan in a post-climate change world, the real threat of a wind-driven firestorm demands extraordinary measures.

“You don’t want a super-hot fire going through these majestic forests,” she says. “I know, fire is good; it’s a natural process. But the reality is, we want a fire that that leaves a limited amount of damage in its wake.”

Karen Mackey of the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta Chapter says members of her group met with Ciesla, and she did manage to quell some of their fears.

“She seemed to be very conscientious,” Mackey says., adding that members of the Loma Prieta chapter “believe the Cal Fire project should contain something for education about defensible space, about hardening structures to make them safe, and Patty is very interested in that. Still, it’s not part of the project.”

Mackey, Phillips and Ciesla agree that the very best strategy for people who live in the woods to protect themselves and their properties is “home hardening”— screening gutters, installing ember-proof attic vents, replacing wood-shake roofs and siding and similar efforts. Phillips believes such an effort should be part of the project that’s about to get underway.

She points to $54 million Newsom pledged when he declared the State of Emergency, which comes on top of $200 million that will be funneled this year through the Forest Management Task Force. She hopes some of that money will be made available to help low-income Californians create defensible space and harden their homes.

Having watched the task force since its inception, Phillips believes there is reason for hope. She recalls that when it was formed, it was called the Tree Mortality Task Force and seemed to be dominated by the timber and biomass industries.

“I think under this governor, with this a new approach, it’s less about taking advantage of the situation to get more wood out of the forests and more about protecting communities.”

She is also pleased that the task force seems serious about taking a scientific approach to forest health.

When then-Gov. Jerry Brown launched the rebranded task force with an executive order in May 2018, one of the key moves was the inclusion of a panel of scientists, many with academic affiliations and some from conservation groups.

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These healthy foods can help protect against the effects of smoky air this fire season John Battles, a forest ecologist at UC Berkeley, was appointed to co-chair the panel and assemble the team, along with Steve Ostoja of the USDA Climate Hub, headquartered at UC Davis.

Battles is convinced that the state’s leaders want the task force to place forest health at the heart of its mission, and to leverage the best available science to that end. “That’s why I’ve been able to convince 18 of my colleagues to join this advisory panel,” he says.

“Because of the urgency of the situation, they are pushing the envelope with regards to CEQA regulations. The question is, how do we balance the need to get this done without relaxing CEQA too much? How can we do this without putting too much smoke in the air, threatening endangered species in any way?”

Battles’ answers to these questions sounds like a real-world application of the scientific method itself: Come up with a hypothesis; run an experiment; test the data; repeat.

“Remember,” he says, “this is the beginning of a five-year plan. As we implement, we will monitor each project for effectiveness, and we will assess the consequences. If we find a problem, we will be able to change course.”