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By Lyle Hillyard
Utah State Senator, District 25

Last Wednesday during interim, Senate leadership heard from the Commissioner of Agriculture, Leonard Blackham, and the Governor’s office about the urgency to respond to the damage caused by the wildfires this summer. Normally, the Governor would be able to address the problems with an emergency fund that he is given. However, the sheer size of these fires has proven too much damage for the fund to cover. If we wait until the next session to approve funds, it would leave our current problem unresolved. In the past, to deal with such problems, the Governor and the Leadership would decide on a direction and then the Governor would act in reliance that the money would be appropriated as a supplemental fund when the session began. In this case, I was told that much of the land belongs to the Federal Government or is privately owned so the State must coordinate with them to save money and effort by working together. Replanting must begin by this fall to be effective next spring. I don’t think many of us realize how damaging these fires have been to the land, the owners and the air. This string of fires has reminded me of how important it is that we have state leaders who not only care about their positions but live with the people who are affected by this tragedy so the response is not just monetary but compassionate to unify the people to help to mitigate everyone’s damages.

I left interim and drove to Sun Valley for the annual meeting of the Utah State Bar. It was humbling to see all the burnt areas along the road. In fact, you could see a fire burning in the mountains just south east of Burley. The fires were not close enough to the road to interfere with traffic but the air was quite smoky, even in Sun Valley. A hard winter with lots of snow combined with the drought and fires we have had could potentially cause problems for animal producers, not only in Utah but the whole West.

3 Comments:

 F. Ted Nugent said...

Gov. Huntsman has taken a courageous and principled stand against wildfires. They are bad for the state.

No wonder his approval ratings are so high.

7/25/2007 4:27 PM  

 steve u. said...

Good post, Sen. Hillyard.

Another environmental factor to consider is the destruction to watersheds caused by these unnatural cheat grass-fueled fires. The exposed soils can erode and, then, the runoff can choke streams.

If you'll recall the factors that led to the devastating floods in So. Utah, one factor was that the surrounding lands had recently burned. Because the lands didn't have vegetation to hold water, all of the water quickly went to the Santa Clara River.

7/25/2007 7:18 PM  

 Anonymous said...

Maybe the state legislature needs to quickly plan another trip to China to see how they deal with wildfires there.

7/25/2007 9:49 PM  

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