As California burns, anger and pointed questions for caretaker of its vast forests [Sacramento Bee]
Ivo Dachev was among the first to lose his home to the Caldor Fire — and wanted to know why the fire wasn’t smothered in its infancy in the Eldorado National Forest. “I tell you what, the fire started one to two acres as a brush fire,” said the Grizzly Flats resident. As the Caldor Fire spills into the Lake Tahoe basin and threatens one of America’s most breathtaking locales, some folks back in Grizzly Flats — largely destroyed and still smoldering 40 miles to the west — are saying this disaster could have been prevented. This year, the criticism is piling up more frequently than usual — and is being directed at one government agency in particular. The Forest Service — caretaker of 20 million acres of California land, one-fifth of the entire state — is having to defend itself over its handling of a number of big fires. Among them: the Beckwourth Complex, the massive Dixie Fire and, most recently, the Caldor. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom groused that the agency took a passive approach to the Tamarack Fire, which sprawled across the border into Nevada earlier this summer. So did Republican Rep. Tom McClintock. In heavily Republican Lassen County, the Board of Supervisors dispatched a blistering letter to the Forest Service over the Beckwourth, Dixie and two smaller fires from previous years. In July, elected officials in the GOP stronghold of Siskiyou County were irate when the Lava Fire, which seemingly had been put to rest, reared up and devoured more than 25,000 acres of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article253688628.html
Caldor fire continues to rage outside South Lake Tahoe [Washington Post]
The Caldor Fire continued to blaze along the granite ridgeline above this abandoned tourist town on Wednesday, smothering the burger joints, Jet Ski rental shops, margarita havens and million-dollar homes in a thick acrid haze. Only emergency vehicles remained on the roads of this town of 22,000 people, stunningly quiet and vulnerable. The emptiness before the disaster is a rare sight here. Many recall the aftermath of the Camp Fire three years ago and the mangled city of Paradise it left behind, empty and ruined. A red flag warning — for critical fire weather combining high temperatures, dryness and strong winds — was in place until Wednesday night, but at midday, the air was stagnant, hard to breathe, with no breeze. As the afternoon wore on, the smoky breeze stiffened at upper altitudes. “One moment it’s like this, and within minutes it’s blowing 30 miles an hour,” said a CalFire crew member, outfitting his truck and filling it up with gas before heading toward the hill, clouded behind smoke behind the lake and town. “The briefing we get each morning is the best they have,” said the firefighter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “But it’s very hard to tell what it’s going to do.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/01/caldor-fire-south-lake-tahoe/
Will this California drought result in another expansion of water-thirsty orchards? [Los Angeles Times]
Will this be the year that California finally reckons with its past and climate changed future? You’d think so, as wildfires threaten Lake Tahoe and reservoirs dry up after two dry winters. Mark Arax, author of “The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California,” is not so sure: “Here we are, in the midst of the driest 10-year period in California’s recorded history, and we’re planting ever-more crops and trees on poor ground, which requires deep, deep extraction from the aquifer. At the same time, the sprawl of agriculture is matched by a sprawl of suburbia. We’re planting houses in the path of wildfire, even as wildfires are burning.”
City of Ukiah plans to defy state curtailment orders to deliver water to the coast [Ukiah Daily Journal]
The city of Ukiah announced Tuesday that it plans to divert water from the Russian River in order to deliver water to residents of the Mendocino Coast, actions that would be in direct defiance of the curtailment orders imposed by the California State Water Resources Control Board in early August. “We don’t agree that the water is not there, it is,” said Sean White, director of water and sewer resources for the city of Ukiah, describing the amount of water the city intends to make available to coastal residents as “very small amount” of water that is within the 1.4 cubic feet per second that the city describes as being allowed under its “water right that dates back to 1874.” The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors recently approved allowing qualified haulers to drive water from Ukiah to the coast — specifically the city of Fort Bragg, which coastal communities like the Village of Mendocino typically buy water from — but so far no qualified hauler as been identified as willing and able to perform the deliveries.
Controversial owners of Fiji Water just bought an esteemed Napa winery [San Francisco Chronicle]
The company that owns Fiji Water and Pom Wonderful juice has just bought yet another California winery — this time from a former professional race-car driver. Lewis Cellars, an award-winning producer of high-end wines, will be the first Napa Valley winery under the ownership of the Wonderful Company, joining Justin Vineyards in Paso Robles and Landmark Vineyards in Sonoma. Co-founder Randy Lewis, who started the winery with his late wife Debbie after retiring from a career in race-car driving, will continue to lead the winery’s operations, according to a statement. The Wonderful Company, owned by Steward and Lynda Resnick, has steadily grown its wine holdings over the last decade. The Resnicks have been controversial vintners. In 2016, their decision to clear 100 acres of oak trees near the Justin winery in order to construct a reservoir and new vineyard generated considerable pushback from the surrounding wine community. The Resnicks admitted to violating their use permit and apologized for the tree removal.
Beloved Napa goats face uncertain future [Napa Valley Register]
They don’t yet know it yet, but come Sept. 8, life for Cutie, Mellow, La Mancha, Dancer, Houdini and Agilina is going to change. A lot.
For more than 10 years, and maybe as long as 20, Robert Sellick has carefully tended to a small tribe of lady goats at his farm on Linda Vista Avenue. However, those goat days are coming to an end. Sellick and his significant other, Jean Hewitt, are moving to Florida. And the goats are not coming with them. In August, Sellick sold his two-acre farm for a reported sale price of $1.65 million. His family has lived at the farm for many decades, but he’s ready to move on. “I don’t like being cold,” said Sellick, who is 84. “I don’t like being dry and dusty.” And he’s fed up with California, Sellick admitted. He wants to live in a politically conservative state.
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