As highlighted by a recent resident, in the past two years, Lake County has lost a significant amount of trees. From Middletown to Upper Lake, brown branches fill the hillsides. Large sections of trees stand dead, serving as kindling to fuel Lake County’s already fire-prone environment. District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska recently flew over the affected areas and gave a presentation to her BOS colleagues. “I expected to see double mortality of trees,” she said. “And I can’t even quantify what I saw. But by the end of summer, it will be tenfold what it is now.”
That’s why we agree that immediate action is needed. “It’s a call for help,” Supervisor Pyska said. “We’re at a point right now where we can’t do this tree removal work that needs to be done with the resources we have in our county. Declaring it an emergency is necessary.”
This is a dynamic situation,” Kathy Andre, President of the Riviera Heights Homeowners Association, said. “You can look at a piece of property, and there’s nothing wrong with it. All the trees look healthy. And two weeks later, ten of them are dead, five of them are dead. And these are trees that are going to fall on homes, kill people, block evacuation routes when we’re trying to escape from a wildfire. This is a crisis and something that has to be done right now.”
“This is a spike in that emergency. We have built up a fuel load,” Magdalena Valderrama-Hurwitz, Program Director of the Siegler Springs Community Development Association, said. “It is an ecosystem. You have to have multiple strategies. You have to come at it with all the resources you have.” Valderrama-Hurwitz should know, like Pyska and many residents of the community of Cobb, she is a survivor of the Valley Fire and an active participant in various committees working on wildfire prevention.
However, options still exist to mitigate this crisis. “There are areas in our county we can protect, and we can do forest management in those areas affected,” Pyska stated. “A big strategy needs to be developed, and we can’t just piecemeal it. We have a lot at stake. ”
“We’re in a time where in the past 150 years, a lot of policies, actions, and initiatives have been taken without foresight of the future,” District 3 Supervisor Eddie Crandell said. “That’s why we’re in a time where we have so many emergencies and situations we have to take care of. The best thing we can do is start taking care of them.”
The issue was discussed at this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting where Pyska advocated for a declaration of a local emergency and where District 2 Supervisor Bruno Sabatier and Sheriff Brian Martin both appeared to be undecided on the issue. We say there’s no need for further discussion, the emergency is real and we believe the BOS needs to address it post haste.
A 4-0 vote is needed for passage of a declaration of emergency. Here’s how you can help: Write a letter to the board of supervisors expressing your wish to proclaim a local emergency so Lake County can get assistance with the tree mortality crisis. That will give the county access to resources to address this growing emergency. You can attend the next District Supervisor’s meeting May 10 at 9 am in the courthouse in Lakeport or via Zoom. Here’s the link to the agenda for more information.
—The Editorial Board, Lake County Record-Bee with contributed reporting from David Wakefield.
