A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2022
Ecologists say federal wildfi re plans are
dangerously out of step with climate change
IN BRIEF
Seaside signs agreement
with new city manager
SEASIDE — The City Council has approved an
employment agreement with Spencer Kyle, the new city
manager.
Kyle replaces Mark Winstanley, who had held the
city manager job since 2001.
Kyle will receive $150,000 a year, plus a car allow-
ance, relocation reimbursement, temporary housing
allowance and additional health and vacation benefi ts.
With Winstanley’s retirement last week, city councilors
unanimously appointed Assistant City Manager Jon Rahl
interim city manager until Kyle’s start on or before Aug. 1.
Kyle and his family are relocating from South Jor-
dan, Utah, where as director of administrative services,
he helped manage 16 departments, including emergency
management, parks and recreation and IT facilities.
— The Astorian
State report calls for more oversight,
accountability on school spending
and performance
It’s been three years since the Oregon Legislature
passed the Student Success Act, a law creating a new tax
to support K-12 education in the state.
With hundreds of millions of dollars going to Ore-
gon schools from the tax, a new report from the Sec-
retary of State’s Offi ce and the audits division released
last week outlines fi ve risk areas that could undermine
those spending eff orts and jeopardize student achieve-
ment going forward.
The report is not an audit, but an advisory directed toward
elected offi cials — including the governor and legislators
— who can then work with the Department of Education.
“I ordered this new style of report to provide proac-
tive support to state leaders,” Secretary of State Shemia
Fagan said at a press conference on June 28.
“While most audits look at the past, for past perfor-
mance, this systemic risks analysis and report is designed
to head off problems before they occur.”
Fagan said by naming these risks, the goal is for Stu-
dent Success Act funds to lead to real improvement for
students across the state.
“We need to not see a gap for students of color, we
need to not see a gap for students who don’t speak
English as a fi rst language, we need to not see a gap for
students who are in high poverty schools or high poverty
communities,” Fagan said.
Scientists discover ‘smoke taint’
compounds aff ecting wine fl avor
Wine made from grapes exposed to wildfi re smoke
can taste like ashes.
A research team of scientists in Oregon, Washing-
ton state and California have discovered a class of com-
pounds that contribute to that ashy taste – often called
“smoke taint” – in wine and grapes.
Tom Collins is an assistant professor of wine and
grape chemistry at Washington State University who
works on the project. Collins said now that the research
team has identifi ed the compounds, they’re going to
study how they end up in fruit and wine, and how to
remove them.
— Oregon Public Broadcasting
MEMORIALS
Saturday, July 9
McGAULEY,
Har-
old William — Cele-
bration of life at 2 p.m.,
91786 Akerstadt Road in
Svensen. Food and bev-
erages will be provided,
but those wishing to can
bring a favorite dish to
share. For questions, or
directions, call James and
Memorials
Carly Lemire at 503-338-
8826 or Vicki McGauley
503-741-0975.
Monday, July 11
McGAULEY,
Har-
old William — Military
service and interment at
1:30 p.m., Fort Stevens
National Cemetery, 1090-
1140 Russell Drive in
Hammond.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Seaside Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob
Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A.
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., 10 Pier 1, Suite 209.
Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m, 1131 Broadway.
Cannon Beach City Council, 5 p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower Ave.
Clatsop County Fair Board, 5:30 p.m., 92937 Walluski Loop.
Miles Crossing Sanitary Sewer District Board, 6 p.m., 34583
U.S. Highway 101 Business.
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway.
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
WEDNESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 10 a.m., work
session, (electronic meeting).
Cannon Beach Planning Commission, 6 p.m., special meet-
ing, City Hall, 163 E. Gower Ave.
Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., (electronic meeting).
THURSDAY
Cannon Beach City Council, 6 p.m., work session, City Hall,
163 E. Gower Ave.
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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By ERIC WESTERVELT
National Public Radio
The federal Govern-
ment Accountability Offi ce
is launching an investiga-
tion after U.S. Forest Ser-
vice-controlled burns that
escaped caused the largest
wildfi re ever recorded in New
Mexico.
The GAO is examining
controlled burn policies at the
Forest Service and other fed-
eral land agencies.
On May 20, Forest Ser-
vice Chief Randy Moore
halted all so-called prescribed
fi res on its land for a 90-day
safety review. The New Mex-
ico fi re has burned more than
340,000 acres and is still not
fully contained.
But many fi re ecologists
and forestry experts are con-
cerned that this pause is only
worsening the wildfi re risk.
Critics say it’s merely mask-
ing the agency’s danger-
ously incremental, outdated
and problematic approach
to intentional burns and fi re
mitigation, a policy that has
failed to adapt to climate
change and megadrought.
“A lot of the planning
tools that fi re managers rely
upon for planning prescribed
burns were built under a cli-
mate that no longer exists,”
says biologist and professor
Matthew Hurteau, who stud-
ies the intersection of climate
change, wildfi re and forest
ecosystems at the Univer-
sity of New Mexico. “That’s
a systemic problem,” he says.
Controlled burns are seen
by forest ecologists as per-
haps the most essential tool
for reducing the risk of cata-
strophic wildfi re and helping
to undo a century of fi re sup-
pression policy that has wors-
ened wildfi re conditions that
now annually wreak havoc
across large swaths of the
West.
Hurteau and others are
concerned that the Forest Ser-
vice — and other fi re agen-
cies — continue to fail to put
climate change at the fore
of decision making, despite
mounting scientifi c evidence
Mario Tama/Getty Images
A scorched structure and vehicles stand on a property mostly
destroyed in June by the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fi re in
New Mexico.
and the agency’s own stated
goals about reducing danger-
ously high levels of built-up
fuel in forests.
“We’ve seen pretty sub-
stantial changes to the cli-
matic conditions, particularly
here in the Southwest, but
across much of the Western
U.S. And we need to address
that by developing new tools
that account for the fact that
we’ve got these persistent
drying trends in a much
warmer and much drier atmo-
sphere,” Hurteau says.
The Forest Service’s
recently released internal
review of the New Mexico
burn only magnifi es those
criticisms, as it amounts to
a stunning admission by the
agency that it essentially
failed to take climate change
into account when conduct-
ing an intentional burn during
a historic drought.
Numerous sections of the
report underscore that point,
including noting that pre-
scribed fi re offi cials failed to
realize it was set “under much
drier conditions than were
recognized.” And it notes
that a better understanding
“of long-term drought and
climate factors versus short-
term weather events” would
have helped.
“Seems astounding,” fi re
ecologist Timothy Ingalsbee
told National Public Radio .
“Never again should we have
the excuse that we failed to
include climate conditions
DIGITAL
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Funding to prevent fi res
Leading politicians, too,
are frustrated.
In a letter, U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden, an Oregon Demo-
Study claims dam proposal puts region behind
on goals of ‘decarbonizing’ electrical grid
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The Pacifi c Northwest
region is behind on its goals
to “decarbonize” electri-
cal generation, and replac-
ing the lower Snake River
dams would cause further
costs and delays and car-
bon dioxide, according to a
recent study from Northwest
RiverPartners.
“For farmers, this is a
huge issue,” said Kurt Miller,
the executive director of the
not-for-profi t organization,
which represents regional
community-owed utilities.
“Tens of thousands of acres
of irrigated farmland will be
lost if the dams are breached.
Additionally, electricity is a
major expense for farmers,
especially for those who use
pumps for irrigation. Elec-
tricity rates could jump by
25% or more if the dams are
lost.”
Environmental groups and
a handful of politicians want
to breach the lower Snake
River dams, but the electric-
ity they generate would need
to be replaced.
“Decarbonizing”
the
power grid refers to elimi-
nating the use of coal, oil and
natural gas to generate elec-
tricity. Dams are a carbon
dioxide-free resource, Miller
said.
The study found it would
cost $142 billion to meet
Oregon and Washington
state laws that aim to achieve
decarbonization by 2040 and
2045 .
Removing the dams
would add at least $15 billion
Associated Press
The Ice Harbor Dam on the lower Snake River.
to the total cost.
The study, conducted
by Energy GPS Consult-
ing, considered the historic
paces in developing renew-
able resources for the West-
ern Power Pool, California
and Texas, and doubled them.
The study fi nds the capac-
ity required to achieve base
case requirements while
maintaining the dams would
not be achieved until 2057
in a best-case scenario, and
2076 in a worst-case scenario.
“It’s showing how far
behind the region is in
achieving its decarbonization
requirements under those
laws,” Miller said. “It is gen-
uinely shocking once you see
what it takes to get there.”
Miller thinks the extra
$15 billion cost of removing
the dams, “even in today’s
age, is still a lot of money.”
He notes that’s just the cost
of the power supply, at cur-
rent values, so it’s likely to
increase.
“Right now, it’s public
power customers who would
Subscription rates
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and climate data in our fi re
management actions. That’s
just the era we live in,” says
the former Forest Service
wildland fi refi ghter who now
directs the group Firefi ght-
ers United for Safety, Ethics
and Ecology. “I can under-
stand why people are upset.
It sounds like the ‘dog ate my
homework’ kind of excuse,’
he says.
Human-caused climate
change is driving ever drier
conditions, extreme weather
and megadrought. That’s
turning live vegetation into
fuel even faster and making
the forests’ old built-up fuel
more explosive.
Ingalsbee and other
experts in the fi eld say the
pace and scale at which the
Forest Service is implement-
ing intentional fi re is danger-
ously insuffi cient. He hopes
the agency uses this 90-day
burn pause to start to make
good on its stated goal of
making a fundamental shift
away from prioritizing wild-
fi re suppression.
“If we were to shift those
resources and funding into
prescribed burning, have as
many crews as possible to
manage prescribed burning,
that would be a big help, ” he
said.
crat, recently chastised the
U.S. secretaries of Interior
and Agriculture for not mov-
ing fast enough to hire more
fi refi ghters amid a staffi ng
crisis and to boost pay. And
he implored them to answer
basic questions about wildfi re
mitigation strategy and spend-
ing despite a record infusion
of new federal money. The
Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act, passed last Novem-
ber, provides some $8 bil-
lion for states to help mitigate
wildfi re risk and $600 million
to raise fi refi ghter pay.
“Your
departments
received this much-needed
support. Now, more than six
months after being given
this new fl exibility, we are
past time for action,” Wyden
wrote.
The people who fi ght
wildfi res are often the same
ones doing the controlled
burns. So there are growing
calls for the Forest Service
to do more to help develop
a dedicated, prescribed fi re
workforce with training acad-
emies and recruiting. Experts
have long called for creation
of a professional corps dedi-
cated to expanding prescribed
fi re — experts who can move
swiftly across geographic and
political boundaries the same
way wildfi res always do.
“What we need to do as a
society is make a fairly sub-
stantial investment in train-
ing and developing a profes-
sionalized fi re management
workforce,” says the Univer-
sity of New Mexico’s Hur-
teau. “And, you know, that’s
going to take some structural
changes to our federal land
management agencies.”
“For the United States
Forest Service to say they fol-
lowed their policies and pro-
cedures does not take into
account that those policies
and procedures themselves
were fl awed,” says U.S. Rep.
Teresa Leger Fernandez, a
New Mexico Democrat who
pushed for the Government
Accountability Offi ce investi-
gation. Large parts of her dis-
trict were devastated by the
historic fi re.
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be stuck with the bill if they
were removed,” he said. “For
them, the rate impact would
be tremendous.”
Northwest RiverPartners
presented the study’s fi nd-
ings to consultants working
on Washington Gov. Jay Ins-
lee and U.S. Sen. Patty Mur-
ray’s federal-state assessment
on dam breaching. Murray
and Inslee are slated to make
their fi nal recommendation
this summer.
“As the governor and sen-
ator noted when the draft con-
sultant report was released,
they take public feedback
very seriously,” said Jaime
Smith, a spokesperson for
Inslee’s offi ce. “The gover-
nor will be considering that
feedback when he makes his
recommendations.”
Miller said the organiza-
tion will present the study
to the Northwest Power and
Conservation Council and
other groups.
Northwest
RiverPart-
ners’ membership is primar-
ily made up of electric utili-
ties, he said.
“They are experts in this
space, and I think this will be
eye-opening even for them,”
he said. “I think this is going
to change the discussion.”
Stakeholders need to
understand the importance of
hydropower to clean energy,
and fi nd ways to get more
production from them if pos-
sible, Miller said.
Miller called the study
a “wake-up call” and
“major warning” to peo-
ple concerned about carbon
reduction.
“It shows we really can’t
get there, especially without
the lower Snake River dams
remaining in place,” he said.
According to the study:
• Existing state laws to
decarbonize the electric sys-
tem require 160,000 mega-
watts of new generation and
batteries.
• An additional 14,900
megawatts of new generation
and batteries will be required
to make up for the loss of the
lower Snake River dams in a
zero-carbon future.
• More than 7,600 mega-
watts of renewable and bat-
tery storage additions is
needed every year from 2023
to 2045 to meet the state laws
and replace the capacity of
the lower Snake River dams.
This signifi cantly exceeds the
average build of 1,500 mega-
watts per year from 2007 to
2021 in the Western Power
Pool, putting achievement of
state policy goals at risk.
• Even if the Western
Power Pool region doubles
its historic pace of renewable
build, it is unlikely that state
goals would be met before
2076, and emissions in the
region are likely to increase
by 132 million metric tons.
• The additional 14,900
megawatts of resources
needed to replace the existing
carbon-free capacity of the
lower Snake River dams puts
further stress on the ability
to achieve state policy goals,
potentially adding an addi-
tional 5 million to 8.5 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide
released into the atmosphere
in the Pacifi c Northwest.