A4 Saturday, May 24, 2014
OPINION
Fire prevention new chapter, even for Smokey
Ruidoso and Los Alamos have become the poster child for fire preparedness, although both communities probably aspire to other distinctions. And Albuquerque last year gained the corporate headquarters of an air tanker service, although it probably wasn’t chasing this kind of economic development. It tells us that wildfire is part of living here. Most of us accept that, and we’re getting better at trying to reduce the impact. The Greater Eastern Jemez Wildlife-Urban Interface Corridor was the first New Mexico member of Firewise Communities USA in 2002. Ruidoso was second in 2003. Other members are scattered around the state, from Reserve to Angel Fire. Our rising awareness is just in time for Smokey Bear’s 70th birthday on August 9. Even the iconic New Mexico native has changed his message. It’s now, “Only you
SHERRY ROBINSON
ALL SHE WROTE
can prevent wildfires.” (For a public event, I once spent an afternoon in a furry suit as Smokey. All the children from Acoma and Laguna pueblos hugged Smokey. It was lovely.) Today, Smokey has 180,000 friends on Facebook and his own website. We’ve learned that the fires are bigger and burn hotter, and fire season is longer. Experts who predict fire seasons build worsening drought into their models and have come to expect increasing severity. The experts have also gotten better at amassing information
Roswell Daily Record
and making its data and predictions available. Check out nmfireinfo.com. So far, the Southwest Coordination Center predicts a normal year for New Mexico, keeping in mind that “normal” isn’t good, and above normal for southern New Mexico, especially the southwestern quadrant, where the Signal Fire is still burning. Here’s one part of the picture that doesn’t make sense: Because fire fighting costs have exceeded their budgets in eight of the last ten years (last year it was $500 million over), the federal agencies are spending money set aside for forest thinning and other preventive measures to fight the biggest fires. So the fires will get worse. Legislation introduced in Congress would allow agencies to treat wildfires like natural disasters — which they are — by using funding for such natural disasters as hurricanes and tornadoes when firefighting costs reach 70 percent
of the 10-year average. Meanwhile, the Forest Service is doing some thinning but not nearly enough. The forests are still overgrown, and drought-stressed trees are less able to withstand parasites and fire. Ruidoso isn’t waiting for the federal government. To avoid another Little Bear Fire, locals have cut down sick trees, cleared brush, and made property more defensible, although there are still people who either don’t want to part with the pretty trees around their houses or just haven’t gotten around to it. We’re not just talking vacation homes here. As cities and towns have expanded, we’re hearing the term “urban interface” more often, and it refers to everything from coyotes eating Fifi to homes destroyed in wildfires. In New Mexico, 35,000 homes (value, $5 billion) are at high or very high risk, according to CoreLogic, of
Irvine, Calif., which analyzes real estate trends. The company has pointed to Bernalillo and Los Alamos counties but warned that the problem is growing in Lincoln and Otero counties. Utilities will also have to up their game. The Thompson Ridge Fire north of Jemez Springs in 2013 and the 150,000-acre Las Conchas Fire in 2011 started with downed power lines. Owners of two ranches in Pecos Canyon have sued the Mora-San Miguel Electrical Cooperative for neglecting to remove a dead tree that was blown into power lines and started the Tres Lagunas Fire last summer. Prevention offers no guarantees. Fire experts explain nervously that they’re seeing fire behaviors never seen before. So, like residents of the Gulf Coast and Tornado Alley, we do what we can and hope.
EDITORIAL
Unending search for Sept. 11 closure
The line “never forget” has often been used as a way to ensure that catastrophic, cataclysmic events aren’t just stuffed away, out of mind, in history books, encyclopedias or, in the digital age, Wikipedia. It’s certainly applicable to what happened in New York, Washington, D.C. and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001. And it’s being taken seriously when it comes to bringing closure to the families of 1,115 people who died that day in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center (out of the total death toll of 2,753), whose remains have never been identified. On May 10, the Saturday before last Thursday’s dedication of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, 7,930 pouches containing bone fragments that have yet to be matched to any victim were transported in flag-draped caskets back to the World Trade Center site. They will be stored in a repository, 70 feet underground, in the museum, which will open May 21. The only people who will have access to them will be the victims’ families and forensic scientists who vow to continue the identification process as long as it takes, even though current methods are about exhausted. Some family members are furious about the plan, to the point they staged a protest during the May 10 procession. They want the remains in a place of honor above ground, not stashed away “in the basement,” as one of them protested. After 13 years, we can only remain respectful and understanding of the feelings of people whose anguish hasn’t dimmed; and praise the commitment to keep this process going, even if it means waiting for technology that doesn’t exist to be developed. This is not a pointless exercise. Four victims have been identified in the past year. As for the expense: The forensic team’s annual salaries total $230,000, and there have been costs for outside follow-up work. That’s a significant amount for the average person, but is picayune for government. A good, tight audit of New York’s finances probably could erase enough waste to fund this work indefinitely — and that’s how long it should go on. The families may not get the closure they seek, but they deserve the effort. Never forget. A version of this editorial first appeared in the Gadsden Times, a Halifax Media Group newspaper in Alabama. REPRINTED FROM THE NEW BERN SUN JOURNAL
Analysis: US plays down warming China-Russia ties BY MATTHEW LEE AP DIPLOMATIC WRITER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is playing down an increasingly warm relationship between its main global rivals, China and Russia, that it may have inadvertently encouraged. U.S. officials maintain there is nothing to fear from the growing alliance between Moscow and Beijing, even as each throws its weight around in neighboring regions like Ukraine and the South China Sea and at international forums like the United Nations, where on Thursday they double-vetoed the latest in a series of Security Council resolutions on Syria. Yet when coupled with growing cooperation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in other areas — notably, a new $400 billion natural gas deal and apparent agreement on the crisis in Ukraine — many believe Russia and China
Silence is not always golden
There are few members of the American Civil Liberty Union in the conservative communities this column appears. They might well conduct their meetings in a phone booth. (Note to younger readers: “Phone booth” is an ancient call box invented in 1889. It was a glass-enclosed contraption just wide enough and tall enough for your grandpa to stand and put a dime in the coin slot so he could dial grandma to tell her the bus was running late. It did not provide texting and stuff like that. Your grandpa thought he had to go to Newport Beach to surf.) The balance of this column will unfortunately make just everybody mad, so we might as well get it over with. To my friends who lean right: The ACLU is a valid, essential organization devoted to protecting civil rights, standing up for immigrants, fighting for free speech. The right is fond of painting these folks as heathens endorsing such things as gay marriage, but these same critics like to forget the ACLU fought hard
NED
CANTWELL LOOKING ASKANCE
and won a battle to protect the First Amendment rights of two preachers who were arrested for proclaiming the gospel on Roswell streets. To my friends on the left: Please, ACLU, take the afternoon off. Go golfing. Forget this idea of filing a lawsuit on behalf of the knucklehead Albuquerque protesters who staged a silent protest when each, turn by turn, stood mute at the city council podium. We are all well too aware of what is going on in Albuquerque, the state’s metropolis that has become a New Mexico embarrassment. Her police department’s mow-‘em- down culture inflamed, as it should have, legitimate outrage among Duke City citizens. Well-reasoned protests mor-
phed into nutty buddies who stormed city hall and actually took over a council meeting, occupying the city council chairs when council members logically vacated the area. Having thus captured the arena, the protesters began acting exactly like eighth-grade boys when the teacher is called from the classroom. It became clear to the protest organizers this type of behavior was going to be squashed. The next gambit, then, was to disrupt the upcoming council meeting with a silent protest. When given the chance to address the council, protesters used their allotted two minutes at the microphone to remain mute. Security officers escorted seven of them from the building. The ACLU says there is no distinction between verbal and symbolic speech. Lawsuits could be pending. Oh, kiss my ever-loving cheek. It is pure foolishness to defend this silent treatment which is nothing more than a disruptive tactic designed to impede reasonable discourse
aimed at solving a problem. Think of the consequences. Imagine a city council meeting in Farmington, Portales, Alamogordo, Silver City, Las Cruces. Suppose council policy permits 20 citizens three minutes each to talk on any relevant issue, water, police, library, playgrounds. If each of those persons were allowed to remain mute, there would ensue one hour of pure silence. How stupid. It would be no different than allowing me to take my three minutes at the podium and begin reading Moby Dick. Free speech, baloney. I would be disrupting the process and I would be legitimately removed. New Mexico’s smaller cities and rural areas have a hard time as it is finding smart, energetic people to serve. They get little if any pay, they take a lot of guff from disgruntled townspeople, and their only perk is throwing out the first ball to launch Little League season. Allowing disillusioned dissi-
ing enough without my adding to the mayhem, so I pulled over and asked número una to repeat herself, for I certainly must have misheard her. Auricularity with yours truly wasn’t an issue. My at the time 18year-old son Daniel and his 17year-old girlfriend Christy were going to be parents and give his mother and me an out of wedlock grandchild. The favorite ex, the not so favorite ex and a few select friends know how I responded to that news. Suffice to say, I regret saying to Daniel what was on my mind at that time, especially so when I think of my now amazing and beautiful 16-year-
old granddaughter. It’s the statistics in regard to teenage unions brought about by pregnancy that had my immediate concern; they rarely last. In the failure of those unions, children from such are faced with dire and life-threatening circumstances. With my granddaughter’s early well being, she was no exception to those dreadful statistics. Six months after my granddaughter’s birth, Daniel and Christy called it quits. A month later, I get another call from número una. I hear, “Daniel has been unable to reach Christy to
Granddaughter Heather’s fickle fate
‘Twas the start of a great day that Saturday morning back in May of 1997. The favorite ex and I had just motored off on a birding venture to the Texas Hill Country when my cell phone rang. It was the not so favorite ex calling. Such calls are never a good thing. Calls from exes are never invitations to come by with the new wife, sit down for a sip of tea, tasty scones and conversation. You know, be all detente! With teenage children involved, calls from exes are almost always bad news. I braced myself for the inevitable. “Daniel and Christy are going See TIES, Page A5 to have a baby,” esposa número
DENNIS PALMITIER THIS JUST IN ...
una uttered over the phone’s speaker. Hearing such, I spewed forth an eruption of choice invective while increasing foot pressure on the car’s gas pedal that brought immediate concern and reaction from my then wife, Tina. Houston traffic is frighten-
See CAMTWELL, Page A5
See PALMITIER, Page A5