{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Clear-cut at research center: \"We're running out of good choices to make\"","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"September 21, 2021 — PG&E’s failure to maintain its equipment and the vegetation around its infrastructure has led to massive conflagrations in the past few years. Now the company is trying to clear fire hazards around its lines in high fire risk areas. But are they going too far? And is the enhanced vegetation management program even effective? The program is exempt from environmental review and forest practices rules, so those answers won’t be available for some time. \r\nIn June, company contractors cleared about 100 acres at the Hopland Research and Extension Center, which has been the site of ag and forestry research since 1951. I took a tour of the western boundary of the property with director John Bailey earlier this month. \r\nThere are two sets of power lines, about thirty or forty feet apart, and he estimated that the overall cleared area on either side of those lines was about 150 feet wide. \r\nThere are some ongoing projects at the property that involve studying the movements of deer and coyotes, Bailey is anticipating some impacts. “But it’s going to be a while,” he predicted. “It wasn’t like taking out any of the deer themselves, or radio collars or anything like that, but with a big wide-open highway through oak woodland, you’re going to see some changes in how the wildlife behave on the property.” PG&E crews also left six to eight inches of wood chips in pastureland along the lines. That’s not a problem for HREC, with its vast acreage and small flock, but Bailey said that the amount of bare ground overlain with wood chips would “definitely pose a problem if you were a smaller scale owner who was really economically dependent on that pasture productivity.”\r\nErosion is also a top concern for him. There are ag ponds below the cleared area, which he expects will catch the inevitable sediment from some of the scars. “If the ponds weren’t there, then it would flow straight on into the river,” he concluded. \r\n\r\nA few days after my visit with Bailey, I hiked...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}