Avery says . One of the organizations SNC partners with , Calaveras Healthy Impact Product Solutions , is working on precisely that .
Meanwhile , the grappling of issues in rural communities , beyond wildfires , has entered the national spotlight . In March , President Joe Biden announced his $ 2.3 trillion plan to transform America ’ s infrastructure that includes $ 16 billion to clean up abandoned coal , hard rock and uranium mines , and plug old oil and gas wells . According to the administration , “ Many of these old wells and mines are located in rural communities that have suffered from years of disinvestment ,” and these efforts will put hundreds of thousands of people to work .
A new economy
In 2004 , as Martin was taking the helm of The Sierra Fund and Covert was playing in her band , Steve Wilensky had just been elected Calaveras County supervisor on a platform of environmental restoration and economic development as symbiotic . “ This was , at the time , somewhat novel ,” says Wilensky , who held the seat through 2012 . “ The ‘ timber wars ’ around here were quite fierce .” The interests of environmentalists and logging companies were intensely pitted against each other .
Most of the area ’ s lumber mills had shut down by the early aughts . While environmentalists at first celebrated their legal wins , unforeseen consequences soon surfaced . “ We went from a relatively prosperous but resource extraction-based economy to a devastated mess that was an environmental disaster ,” Wilensky says . “ When you log heavily and then do nothing for decades , you wind up with a forest that is not a natural forest .” New tree growth was young and evenly aged , and the forest became overgrown with fuel , both factors that increase wildfire risk .
“ Despite that environmental groups had been successful at stopping bad stuff , they were not successful at getting good things to happen because it was primarily defensive ,” Wilensky says . Meanwhile , former loggers and mill workers wanted their jobs back , but there were none . “ Around here , there were communities that had been completely devastated — the social mayhem index was off the charts ,” he says . “ Meth and our children were our biggest exports .”
The time had come for a new strategy . Wilensky called a meeting of stakeholders to hash out ideas for achieving a triple bottom line that included forest restoration , wildfire risk reduction and job creation . “ Who else besides the 3 percent of the ( state ’ s ) people of the Sierra are going to do this ?” he says . “ We had the skills . We had the equipment . We had the tools . So who better to do restoration and stewardship ?” What this represented
The Nevada Irrigation District worked with several partners on a project to remove mercury and sediment in Combie Reservoir in Meadow Vista . PHOTO COURTESY OF NV5
May 2021 | comstocksmag . com 39