Posted 8/28/2012
According to Clint Didier, candidate for Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands, current lands commissioner Goldmark may have sacrificed forest health in Washington State to gain political advantage. Didier explains the remark saying, “When commissioner Goldmark took office in 2009, the Department’s annual report on forest health for 2007 had described pine bark beetle populations as continuing …at epidemic levels with 255,376 acres of mortality mapped statewide.” The 2009 report charted ever increasing numbers of acres suffering tree mortality. Action to begin to combat the epidemic should have been taken immediately.” “Instead,” Didier continued, “The Commissioner waited until early this year to convene a panel of experts regarding the epidemic, knowing full well the panel’s results would not become available until the primary election season. Hearings on the forest health hazard, accompanied by suitable, self-serving announcements about the emergency, and the need to act, are only now coming from the department’s media center.”
According to Didier, the commissioner’s delay in taking appropriate action is inexcusable. “We already knew, when Commissioner Goldmark took office, that entire forests across the west were being destroyed by the pine beetle,” Didier commented. “A near four-year delay in aggressively addressing the problem may have put Washington’s forests at risk of the same fate. How can that look like anything less than playing politics with the health of our forests and the overall health of our environment?”
“As Commissioner I will immediately move to put every resource possible into the effort to control the further expansion of the pine beetle epidemic. I consider it especially important to work with the tribes on this issue. From what I’ve seen, the tribes appear to take this dire situation more seriously than either the Federal or State governments have. Their expertise and cooperation are essential to any successful effort to reduce the impact of the epidemic on Washington’s forest health.”
NOTES: Reports on forest health can be found at www.dnr.wa.gov/ResearchScience/Pages/PubReports.aspx
The first of several election time-frame press releases regarding the Forest Health Hazard announcement can be found at www.dnr.wa.gov/RecreationEducation/News/Pages/2012_06_29_foresthealth_ma.aspx