How we can start preparing to minimize future wildfires

The fires. On a recent weekend, the sky here in Snohomish had an unwholesome cast. Ruddy and thick. You could look directly at the sun and it was a sullen, metallic red.

The forests of Eastern Washington are burning still. The fires are three hours away by car, but the smoke here was so thick it was almost like fog. By the time you read this, 300,000 acres of timber and grass will have gone up in smoke. It’s not just the trees either, the animals are burning too.

This is a natural disaster of the first order. The Okanogan Complex broke records set a year earlier by the Carlton Complex fire. No one knows when the fires may go out.

I watched with alarm as the Cascades stayed brown almost the whole winter. If this year’s drought becomes our new normal, as California’s distress seems to presage, we must take some action, for every drop of water we drink comes from the skies and nowhere else — there is just so much, and no more. If we don’t get rain and snow in our mountains, it’s not just Eastern Washington that will suffer, Western Washington will be burnt to cinders like Eastern Washington and end up as a new Mojave Desert.

Here are some recommendations to husband this necessary resource that will let us survive catastrophic forest fires:

Put a hold on more development until we see what’s going on with the weather. After all, every new home draws on our finite supply of water, a supply that may well be shrinking. “Why,” asks my neighbor, “should I not be able to flush my toilet? Just to accommodate a California transplant?”

In deciding how many more hookups they can support (if any), water districts and municipalities need to plan for a worst case, i.e., perpetual drought. Water districts must put so-called “smart meters” on every customer’s hookup. Set a permitted amount of water based on the number of people and kinds of business. The first time customers exceed their allotments, fine the daylights out of them. The second time, the meter automatically shuts off and will only start again when the fine is paid. For ensuing violations, the meter shuts off for additional days. Metering must apply to agricultural lands too.

No watering of lawns. Lawns are, after all, a holdover from the British gentry’s vast estates. Plant moss instead; it’s native, it works with wet winters and dry summers and you don’t have to mow it. Sorry, golfing fans, you’ve got to reinvent your game and redesign your courses so they don’t require watering.

Stop sawing down the trees. They catch and hold water in the ground, preventing torrents of fresh, potable water from rushing pell mell to the sound.

Mandate the use of pervious pavement for all streets, sidewalks, driveways and parking lots. Porous pavement lets the rainwater soak down through the pavement to help keep our aquifers charged. Stormwater run-off is a total waste. If you want to find out more on pervious pavement, go to www.perviouspavement.org.

Mandate “green rooftops” for buildings with flat roofs. Plant any kind of vegetation as it will capture rainwater, putting it to good use (carrots, anyone?). A green roof will also dramatically reduce the use of heating and air conditioning. Go to www.greenrooftops.org for more information.

The county, probably with state aid, needs to build a bunch of new reservoirs to hold the winter rains, such as they might be.

Power companies, including our PUD, need to plan and build new electric power plants to take the place of hydro dams as the lack of rain and snow will shrink their reservoirs. I recommend atomic power as the optimum choice.

Arrange some kind of tax trade with the states and counties in the southern states. As they are sodden with rain and storms, they have plenty of water (at least for now) to drink and waste. With some sort of reciprocal tax penalties and credits in place, people and businesses will find it economically beneficial to move there. Or not come here in the first place. The states in Dixie are suffering economically anyway so they should appreciate the influx.

All this won’t change the weather and bring it back to the good old days, but we’ll have husbanded our water resources to where we can have clean, fresh water coming out of our taps and not dust.

I can still smell the smoke.

Tom LaBelle is a resident of Snohomish.