WSJ Covers the Flint Hills Fire Dispute
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| In the Flint Hills, the dead brush of the previous year is burnt off each spring. |
Various Kansas cities have violated clean-air limits on a handful of days in the past few Aprils, around when the range fires are set. Wichita, Kan., exceeded clean-air limits on two days this April.
As a resident of Wichita, on the side of town closest to the Flint Hills, I don't have any problem at all with the current burning practices.
Decide for yourself by reading this coverage in The Wall Street Journal.
The grass fires of the Flint Hills have been occurring long before the EPA, Washington DC no less George Washington have been upon this continent. My grandfather working in SE Kansas worked the fields, and the pasture land back in the 1920's and 30's. He would tell me of the large fires they would start to clear the "scrub" as he called it to feed the cattle. His grandparents and earlier ancestors were "Native American" and would burn the grass as well to provide better grazing for the buffalo keeping the roaming herds strong. It doesn't take a PHD in applied underwater basket weaving to observe that the lands that had burned from a lightning strike attracted the herds, and made living much easier.
ReplyDeleteFire is a natural occurrence on the plains, just as it is in the forest. I am growing tired of all these NIMBY based requirements by a brain dead bureaucracy. To blame pollution for a city on emissions from such sources shows a lack of common sense, and a viewpoint inconsistent with reality. Too bad they do not have to live in the real world like the rest of us, maybe their viewpoint would change if they felt the affects of their regulations.