Month: March 2009

Juniper fire effects

The effects of the Juniper fire on the Ocala National Forest in Florida is evaluated in an article at Ocala.com. Here is an excerpt:

Fire will bring life back to forest

Large spans of charred black earth punctuated with scorched tree trunks eerily blanket more than 10,000 acres of the Juniper Prairie Wilderness where a wildfire started by careless campers has burned through the Ocala National Forest since March 10.

The landscape that looks like an ecological calamity is not truly one at all, U.S. Forest Service officials say.

“It’s kind of a mixed bag a little bit,” said Rick Lint, U.S. Forest Service district ranger for the Ocala forest. “It’s not necessarily great. It’s not necessarily bad. Fire, of course, has a role in the forest. Ecologically, it drives the forest. It has been there for thousands, and thousands and thousands of years. Fire has always been there.”

Of course, Lint would have preferred if the fire had been a “prescribed burn,” one that is planned by the Forest Service. It uses fire to manage the forest by mimicking natural blazes that create new growth and habitat and food for endangered species like the scrub jay. Those fires are set about every seven years or so.

But when this wildfire erupted, Lint and his staff looked for ways to maximize the good that fire does for the ecology.

Firegeezer has the story and a video about water in 8 miles east of Fort Lupton, Colorado that can be ignited.  There are several natural gas wells nearby and apparently some gas seeped into the water table.  You can actually use a lighter held next to the water coming out of a faucet to produce flames.  Don’t put that water in your fire truck!

On March 18 Senator Susan M. Collins of Maine reintroduced a bill that would make it possible for retired federal employees to work part-time for the federal government in some cases without it affecting their retirement annuity payment.

Under the bill, rehired retirees would be limited to working 65 days in the first six months following retirement and 130 days in any 12-month period. Retirees would only be able to work a maximum of 390 days in their lifetime. If they continue to work after that, their salaries would be reduced by the amount of their annuities.

The bill was originally introduced in 2007 but it died in committee. It was opposed by unions who said agencies would abuse the authority and rehire retirees instead of recruiting and developing a new generation of federal employees.

Currently it is possible for the Departments of Agricuture and Interior to rehire retirees with a waiver of dual compensation for emergencies such as ongoing fires.  The Interior Department has done this several times over the last 5-10 years, but the U.S. Forest Service has been loathe to use the authority.  This new bill appears to make it possible to rehire retirees without there being a fire-like emergency.