Does anyone in California state and local government have a lick of common sense? From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
California’s eco-regulators halted a critical wildfire prevention project near Pacific Palisades to protect an endangered shrub – only for that same area to be engulfed in flames during the Palisades Fire, the most destructive blaze in Los Angeles history.
In 2019, the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) set out to replace aging wooden power poles – some nearly a century old – with fire-resistant steel poles and widen fire-access lanes in the wildfire-prone Topanga State Park. The $2 million project was designed to bolster fire safety after the area was deemed an “elevated fire risk.”
“This project will help ensure power reliability and safety, while helping reduce wildfire threats,” the LADWP stated at the time, the NY Post reports.
But the effort came to an abrupt halt when an amateur botanist hiking through the park noticed that some of the rare Braunton’s milkvetch shrubs – an endangered species with only a few thousand wild specimens – had been damaged during the work. Conservationists raised alarms, accusing the city of working without proper permits, and California’s Coastal Commission ordered the LADWP to stop the project, replant the damaged shrubs, and pay $2 million in fines.
Fast forward to 2024: Nearly 24,000 acres – including much of Topanga Canyon – have gone up in smoke, taking with them not only homes and wildlife but the same shrubs the project was supposed to protect.
The Palisades Fire has destroyed 12,000 homes, businesses, schools and other structures – and has claimed at least 24 lives, and left thousands displaced. Meanwhile, firefighters struggled with low water pressure and empty hydrants as they battled the inferno.
