Apparently, one really easy way to get the Utah Legislature to give you a lot of money, taxpayers’ money, is to come up with some hare-brained scheme to destroy some part of the natural world in the name of saving it.
Genuine scientists and real environmental experts need not apply.
As documented in a recent article for The Salt Lake Tribune and The New York Times, the Republican supermajority of the Legislature has allocated some $5 million to a software millionaire who claims to have built a better mousetrap for managing Utah’s forests. (So far, less than half of that sum has actually been paid out.)
He strings a chain between two bulldozers and knocks down trees. A lot of trees. Maybe 100 acres’ worth in a day.
That’s because the inventor, one Mike Siaperas, was apparently surprised that the 1,200 acres of forest land he bought in Utah’s West Tavaputs Plateau was full of trees. Imagine.
Siaperas’ pitch to the Legislature — accompanied by a lot of campaign donations to Republicans — was that fewer trees in the Utah forests would allow more water to flow downstream to places where it is in short supply, specifically the shrinking Great Salt Lake. A worthy goal.
But what little real scientific research that has been done on the subject doesn’t match up to Siaperas’ back-of-the-envelope figuring.
In more rainy climates, scientists have determined, removing a significant number of trees might really increase the amount of water that flows downstream. In a dry environment, like Utah, it doesn’t work out that way.
Fewer trees can mean more rapid snow melts and more debris and mud flowing downstream to foul both natural waterways and municipal water systems. It also threatens to disturb ecosystems that have formed over the centuries, threatening many species of wildlife.
Utah officials, of course, have established over the years that they care little about the natural world and know less. They have been an easy mark for crusaders who are out to eliminate wolves, even though as an apex predator they are key to a healthy ecosystem generally and herds of elk and deer specifically.
Lawmakers also came dangerously close to backing a cockamamie — and, as it turned out, unconstitutional — scheme to dredge Utah Lake and create an archipelago of islands for development.
There is some hope that Utah legislators are becoming more resistant to these flimflams. Individual lawmakers are more likely to express doubt and have asked for audits.
After-the-fact analysis is always good. But a lot more skepticism in viewing plans from people who evidence little knowledge about the natural world, and a lot more listening to the experts already on the payroll in state agencies and our universities, is what Utah needs.
