Reply #56: if he really did want to lower the fuel load ...

[Lisa]

by thinning out the junipers, there are a bunch of more effective ways than hand-clearing -- even if he leaves out things like mechanical "chaining", or spraying of herbicides. Small controlled burns in the wet season, or "goating", would have the advantage of treating larger areas (and he's claimed he is doing this so Laura can seed wildflower meadows, which would require that size of clearings).

I talked with an ecologist in your part of the state, who trained at Lady Bird Johnson's research center -- and she figures that, as you say, it is mostly a photo-op. Besides, he doesn't seem to have done the types of basic surveying which would indicate where the "cedar" brakes should be left to stabilize slopes, and where their removal may increase available runoff (not just temporarily, but in the longer term -- the water resources angle you mentioned). I worked for awhile on a West Coast oak savanna project (oaks were being choked by blackberries, broom, gorse, etc. which unlike the juniper are exotic species), and we needed to consider soil erosion, microclimates, and changes in shelter/food availability for other species, before we broke out the brush-hooks.

Personally, I am all in favor of sending him out there -- with a pair of clippers or a Sandvik cutting tool perhaps, since I worry about him having access to power tools -- if it keeps him calm and distracts him from messing around in foreign or domestic policy! As you say, the brush regenerates so quickly that he will be at work for decades and decades.