FIRE!

I like fire, specifically building one and tending to it. It offers a primitive satisfaction.

Big bonfire Fireday night eh

Gonna do that tomorrow night actually. Still got some big branches left in the trash pile as well as last year's bannanna plants. Man them bannanna plants burn forever. They never fully dry out.

Just think, in many drier states, you need a permit for building a fire on your property. We are lucky in some respects.

Marconius wrote:Just think, in many drier states, you need a permit for building a fire on your property. We are lucky in some respects.

Yeah, we're supposed to do that here...

Bryant wrote:

Marconius wrote:Just think, in many drier states, you need a permit for building a fire on your property. We are lucky in some respects.

Yeah, we're supposed to do that here...

Considering the wildfire danger, I understand. Is that a year round requirement or just during dry months???

Yeah we cant when theres a fire ban in place, but thats usually in summer more than not

I know dead palmetto fronds are gods starter logs. Crumble up two or three throw some twigs on there and ur good to go. Use that when i dont have any lighter knot

Marconius wrote:

Bryant wrote:

Marconius wrote:Just think, in many drier states, you need a permit for building a fire on your property. We are lucky in some respects.

Yeah, we're supposed to do that here...

Considering the wildfire danger, I understand. Is that a year round requirement or just during dry months???

Only idiots ignite burn piles during the dry months. During winter, when most of us do our brushing and burning, we're supposed to get a permit from the CA EPA due to air quality concerns. Few if any up in the mountains actually do. To the best of my knowledge there is no evidence that these small fires up in the mountains impact the Valley's bad air quality (this is a constant source of friction between the Forest Service and certain branches of the Cal EPA, with the Forest air people saying our small control burns have no impact on Valley air and the Cal EPA that says it does).

One does have to have a fire permit to build a camp fire on public lands outside of a campground. These permits are free and can be had online. If fire hazard gets really bad they'll ban camp fires, however in this part of California that is fairly rare.

Lmao air quality concerns...

We had to deal with that whole air quality thing many times over there.

We are required to run our fire pumps at least once a month. The pumps are driven by diesel engines that are exactly like what you find in a semi-truck. We had to stagger our tests and could not test the pump in Orcutt at the same time we tested the pump in Lompoc because of air quality concerns. Government pencil pushers really hated it when we pointed out that it was no different than a semi engine running in Lompoc at the same time as one was running in Orcutt and that they do not regulate how many semis could operate at one time in either town.

We also had to deal with fugitive emissions. Any time you have a flanged connection, you are gonna have trace gas escaping from that connection. You cannot escape it. California sets their level of fugitive emissions at such a low level it takes days to pass the test. We had to blow a 12 mile gas line down at least 14 times in 5 days to meet the levels for a new connection we installed. Once again the pencil pushers could not grasp that in blowing down that line, that many times, we put more 100X's more hydrocarbons into the air in that span than the connection would have during its entire life span.

Government and its representatives are incapable of reasonable thought processes. They are only capable of controlling thought processes. Everyone on that pipeline job was genuinely concerned about the environment, yet it was the government shill that was not. From my experience, that is the case more times than not.

Marconius wrote:We had to deal with that whole air quality thing many times over there.

We are required to run our fire pumps at least once a month. The pumps are driven by diesel engines that are exactly like what you find in a semi-truck. We had to stagger our tests and could not test the pump in Orcutt at the same time we tested the pump in Lompoc because of air quality concerns. Government pencil pushers really hated it when we pointed out that it was no different than a semi engine running in Lompoc at the same time as one was running in Orcutt and that they do not regulate how many semis could operate at one time in either town.

We also had to deal with fugitive emissions. Any time you have a flanged connection, you are gonna have trace gas escaping from that connection. You cannot escape it. California sets their level of fugitive emissions at such a low level it takes days to pass the test. We had to blow a 12 mile gas line down at least 14 times in 5 days to meet the levels for a new connection we installed. Once again the pencil pushers could not grasp that in blowing down that line, that many times, we put more 100X's more hydrocarbons into the air in that span than the connection would have during its entire life span.

Government and its representatives are incapable of reasonable thought processes. They are only capable of controlling thought processes. Everyone on that pipeline job was genuinely concerned about the environment, yet it was the government shill that was not. From my experience, that is the case more times than not.

Easy now, I was a government employee! I worked for the USDA Forest Service as a Hydrology Tech for about two-and-a-half years.

That said, some Cal EPA offices are ran by control freaks, hence the USDA/Cal EPA issues. Someone in the Fresno office of the Air Quality Control Board must have felt big and powerful bossing around the Forest Service (Cal EPA enforces Clean Air Act), even if the science contradicts their claims.

Pun wrote:Lmao air quality concerns...

The Central Valley and LA basin are both known for very severe air pollution issues. Our poor air quality has been linked to a slew of respiratory problems. I know I'd never raise a child in either area. While you might laugh at air quality regulation, try coming to Fresno (or worse Bakersfield or LA) during summer. The smog gets so bad that not only can you not see the Sierra Nevada (Fresno is at the foot of a 14,000 ft mtn range), but you can't even see the towers in downtown Fresno from North Fresno (only a few miles away). On good air days Fresno is a really beautiful place, but most of the time the air makes it really nasty.

In my experience, all EPA officials are idiots. Big difference between what you did for the government and what they think they do. As your career progresses you will see what I mean when I say the EPA needs to go. There are much better ways of doing it.

So Bryant, why the massive amount of air pollution in the central valley??? Does it just collectthere with no way outta the bowl???

Gov employees arent so much the problem as the bureaucratic ticks that dig into the system. The US governments problem isnt too many FBI agents or forestry crews, its all the bureaucracy that only slows down the process, adds cost, and breeds inefficiency. You know, all the people that have papers land on their desk from somewhere else, and then go to another place once theyre done with them. People who have no real sord experience in the field theyre regulating.

And the EPA is one of the worst purveyors of this

And thats not even counting multi-agency projects

And ur thinking of it wrong marc. Just think how many jobs were created by redoing that pipeline lol

Marconius wrote:In my experience, all EPA officials are idiots. Big difference between what you did for the government and what they think they do. As your career progresses you will see what I mean when I say the EPA needs to go. There are much better ways of doing it.

So Bryant, why the massive amount of air pollution in the central valley??? Does it just collectthere with no way outta the bowl???

I've never had the pleasure of dealing with Federal EPA. You are certainly correct in noting that what I did has little in common with what they do (I helped insure the Forest Service remained compliant with CWA, amongst many other things). The only time I did anything that directly impacted a private companies ability to do business was when I was sent out to check soil moisture in a logging site. They aren't allowed to log on certain soils when soil moisture in excess of a predetermined level. Some of our clays get really nasty when wet, and operating on them can cause boat loads of damage.

As for the air pollution in the Central Valley, its a combination of what you observed (hence Bakersfield, which is situated at the end of the valley, has the worst air) and the volume internally generated pollution. Between all the diesels hauling goods up and down the I5/CA99 corridor, particulate pollution generated from agricultural activity (dust from plowing dry fine soils, smoke from burning), industrial emissions, and car emissions, even if the Valley didn't trap the smog, our air quality probably wouldn't be great. Our bad air exists at the intersection of geography and human activity.

Pun wrote:Gov employees arent so much the problem as the bureaucratic ticks that dig into the system. The US governments problem isnt too many FBI agents or forestry crews, its all the bureaucracy that only slows down the process, adds cost, and breeds inefficiency. You know, all the people that have papers land on their desk from somewhere else, and then go to another place once theyre done with them. People who have no real sord experience in the field theyre regulating.

I know what you're talking about, I've dealt with our HR department!

Precisely, and the bigger the entity (government/business/charity), the bigger the budget, and the more waste and inefficiency you have, and the bigger the bureaocracy gets.

What i dont understand is why the air is so bad in cali, when it cant be any more developed than the east coast corridor.

Oh, and as for fire ants, ive noticed theyre much more scarce here than further west in the panhandle, where i would say theyre the prodominant ant species. Guess they havnt made it this far east yet in large numbers. Btw its formic they inject with their stingers while clamping down with their mandables. Oh, and those cow ants marco showed a pic of that i said were wingless wasps. You cannot crush those things unless ur on concrete. You can take your foot and grind it into the ground as hard as possible, and theyll just crawl away when ur done. We do have a lot of wood boring bees here tthough. I think theyre stingless though. Still, they like to eat privacy fences and whatever else.

I ever tell you guys about the big ass blue crab i found in my yard once? Thing was like 8-9 inches across, and creepy fast with their sideways walk.

Pun wrote:What i dont understand is why the air is so bad in cali, when it cant be any more developed than the east coast corridor.

Dust and wildfires play a big role. Another is the lack of people who use public transportation. Yeah they have public transportation infrastructure, but I noticed that not that many people use it comparatively.

I sat up on Lompoc hill one day just looking down at the town. There is a diatomaceous mine up on the hill just south of town. The wind was blowing a cloud of white dust down across the town all day long. I didn't even go down there for lunch that day.

Us in the gulf area have to put up with high winds(>35 mph) only during tropical weather......for the most part. Californians deal with that on a weekly basis.

Pun wrote:I ever tell you guys about the big ass blue crab i found in my yard once? Thing was like 8-9 inches across, and creepy fast with their sideways walk.

You live really, really close to the Gulf.

Gimme a dozen of those, and I'll make a killer au gratin.