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Posted on November 6 at 1:15 a.m.

Responding to the somewhat tea-baggish previous comment, from New America Media: "stories about businesses relocating to other states are anecdotes, correct in their individual stories, but not a contradiction to the Public Policy Institute quantitative research that out of state relocations are negligible compared to overall job changes in California."
While the cost of living certainly is a factor in the moderate number of people leaving California, taxes play little role in that, and more importantly, manufacturing jobs that support our state are moving overseas more than to other states, and because of labor costs, not taxes. Taxes are the cost of having a 'state', but the proportion of the University budget coming from the state has declined substantially in recent years, leading to the erosion in quality correctly noted in KRichard's comment.

On UC Campuses Dominate Rankings

Posted on December 29 at 6:25 p.m.

Very intresting and important article! I look forward to the Bot Garden talk.
A couple of comments: I'm glad you made the point that repeat fires, especially prescribed fires, do indeed promote invasive non-native grasses and other weeds. It is important to add that these are also much more flammable than the native chaparral plants they are replacing, so there is a greater risk of ignition and subsequent widfire.
The second point is that the hydromulching done after the Gap fire may stabilize soils to some extent, as you noted (and we have been lucky that the rains so far have not been intense enough to promote major erosion), but that heavy layer of ground up recycling material tends to inhibit growth of the native seeds 'waiting' in the ground. This may have sealed the substrate, trapping potential seedlings and perhaps increasing future risk of erosion if vegetation does not re-establish adequately.

On The Chaparral Is Not Our Enemy

Posted on October 17 at 8:09 a.m.

The concerns expressed above don't fully address the real issue: does hydromulching on a chaparral slope actually provide the intended results? This is a technology for re-vegetating strip-mines and highway borders, and the scientific evidence to show that it is beneficial, and not detrimental, to chaparral slope protection is not available.

This is, 'my friends', another case of doing SOMETHING because doing nothing makes agencies appear irresponsible, regardless of whether it may actually make things worse. Typically hydromulching includes a mix of seed and fertilizer, but fortunately these were not included in the emulsion being spread across the hills burned by the Gap Fire. However, if you were able to take a close look (LP-NF is not allowing access, even for researchers desiring to study the effects of land treatments), the emulsion forms a dense layer over the soil surface. We've seen elsewhere it inhibits germination by native plant seeds already present in the soil; presumably it can also interfere with stump-sprouting by chaparral plants which are already probably doing a good job of holding soil in place with their root systems. The burned area is/was largely healthy chaparral, which is evolved to recover rapidly following fire - interfering with that process may mean that recovery is less successful, and thus there will be a significant delay in recovery to conditions in which vegetation protects soil against erosion.

Regarding erosion, perhaps we will be lucky and the first rains will be gentle, gradually wetting the hard mulch layer sprayed on the slopes. But, there is also a chance that infiltration by rain water will be inhibited by this surface armoring, leading to other forms of erosion when heavy, wet material overlays dry, ravel-prone surfaces. Again, we can hope the effects are more positive than negative, but the data are not there to support the contention that these are millions of dollars well-spent.

On Hydromulching Nears 50 Percent Coverage in Forest; Private Lands Next

Posted on August 6 at 1:22 a.m.

Responding to the previous post, while greater amounts of dead plant material can increase flammability, there are some misconceptions about chaparral fires, as opposed to forested systems. Studies of historical fire in the Californian chaparral region show that there has been no increase in fire intensity nor in the amount of area burned annually, and there has been no effect of 'suppression' on either of these factors. In coniferous forests suppression may have had a role in increasing understory vegetation volume and has resulted in higher intensity wildfires due to crown burning (but historic clear-cutting has also played a role in promoting dog-hair forests), but this is not the case in chaparral vegetation. Fire intensity has been shown not to increase with chaparral age, and whether it's 8 years old or 80, it will burn essentially in the same manner during 'fire weather'.

Thus, prescribed burning, which many accept on faith is needed to reduce fire risk, in reality does little or nothing to protect us from wildfire (as Ray Ford pointed out in a previous article based on discussions with fire scientists like Jon Keeley). Furthermore, efforts to create so-called fuelbreaks are largely ineffectual, as the serious fires readily send embers far beyond the edges of these strips, creating spot fires several hundred meters away. And these bulldozed areas can even increase, rather than decrease, wildfire risk because they often fill with invasive weeds that ignite far more readily than does native chaparral vegetation. Nearly all wildfires in southern California are human-caused, and nearly all start in the weedy/grassy areas that invade land that's been cleared for various purposes. Using bulldozers, masticators, and other methods to create these erosion-prone weed patches squanders our tax dollars far more than they provide any protection from fire. We really should manage our surrrounding environment based on science, rather than hearsay.

On First Look at the Gap Fire's Aftermath