Vol. XII No. 5
Sept /Oct 2018
Serving Soil, Mulch, Compost & Wood Pellet Producers www.SoilandMulchProducerNews.com
NEWS
Attention Readers !
Are you looking for Products, Equipment or Services for your business? If so, please check out these leading companies advertised inside: Bagging /Palletizing Equipment Amadas Industries – pg 7 Hamer-Fischbein – pg 27 Mollers North America – pg 24 Nova Packaging – pg 12 Premier Tech Chronos – pg 5
Buildings & covers ClearSpan – pg 8
Compost Equipment/spreaders HCL Machine Works – pg 3
dust & odor control Buffalo Turbine – pg 20
Grinders, Chippers & Screening Systems Amadas Industries – pg 7 Apollo Equipment – pg 23 Bandit - pg 17 CBI – pg 14 Diamond Z – pg 21 HogZilla – pg 15 Peterson – pg 9 Precision Husky – pg 6 Premier Tech Chronos – pg 5 Rotochopper Inc – pg 22 Vermeer – pg 13 West Salem Machinery – pg 11
California’s Fires:
Public Policy Failure Hidden Behind the Guise of Climate Change By Kathleen Marquardt
Mulch Coloring Equipment/ Colorants
California is in the middle of yet another recordbreaking fire season with 820,000 acres across the state already burned — more than twice the area that burned by this point last year. NY Times
Trommel Brushes
The Mendocino Complex Fire burned more than 290,600 acres (nearly 454 square miles) as of Tuesday morning. It is the largest wildfire in the recorded history of California, beating out the Carr Fire still raging in Shasta, which is now the sixth most destructive fire in state history. Brock Keeling, SF Curbed
LoaD MeaSurINg SySteMS Loadscan – pg 25
AgriCoatings – pg 10 Amerimulch – pg 4 BASF - pg 2 Britton Industries – pg 16 CMC – pg 19 Milagro – pg 20 Prism Corporation – pg 28 TH Glennon – pg 8 Duff Brush – pg 3
truck measurement & ticketing systems Walz Scale – pg 18
wear parts
ArmorHog – pg 3 Grinder Wear Parts – pg 23
C
alifornia is on fire this summer. What else is new? Yes, California burns in the summer. Why? Because it doesn’t rain in California in the summer, and much of the rural land is forested or covered by grasses that have turned into dried brush by late June. On top of these factors, due to the lengthy drought
and infestation from bark beetles, California has more than 100 million dead trees that are a formula for the perfect firestorm. But, the long drought is only one of the factors behind the fact that four of the five largest wildfires in state history have occurred since 2012. What are the other factors? Much of mainstream media (MSM) attributes global warming/climate change as the leading factor. How does global warming cause wildfires, other than maybe by exacerbating drought conditions? The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says, “Wildfires in the western United States have been increasing in frequency and duration since the mid-1980s. Between 1986 and 2003, wildfires occurred nearly four times as often, burned more than six times the land area, and lasted almost five times as long when compared to the period between 1970 and 1986.” (Understand that UCS Continued on page 3