Battle Ground property rights activist Chuck Cushman has jumped into the debate over the closure of Larch Corrections Center.
He’s fired up his fax machines and is urging his followers to flood the governor’s office with thousands of letters urging her not to cut fire suppression and recreation access by closing Larch and sending its inmate crews to McNeil Island prison.
Cushman, who runs the American Land Rights Association out of his Battle Ground home, urges followers to fax or e-mail Gov. Chris Gregoire by Feb. 5 with a form letter and a “testimony questionnaire” warning that moving the inmate fire-fighter crews based at Larch will increase fire hazards in Southwest Washington.
He said his office sent out about 21,000 e-mails and faxes to supporters across the state and asked each one to forward the letter to five others.
The letter calls the closure decision, made by the governor, “ill considered and even dangerous given the natural propensity of local forests in Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties to catch fire each summer.”
“Prior to 1956 when Larch Camp was built, forest fires ravaged our communities, destroyed timber value and even killed citizens,” the letter says. “The largest fire, known as the Yacolt Burn, consumed 350 square miles of forest land and raced 36 miles across Skamania, Clark and Cowlitz counties in just 36 hours, killing 38 people. In 2009, a similar wind-whipped fire erupted from state land and grew to 70 acres in just four hours, reminding our community once again that catastrophic fire remains a serious threat to public safety and infrastructure.”
If Larch is closed, Cushman said, rural volunteer fire departments that are unprepared to respond rapidly to a forest fire will have to pick up the burden.
The Department of Natural Resources, which operates Larch Camp at the minimum security prison, deployed Larch inmate crews to fight 21 fires last year. DNR officials say it costs them $3,000 per day to deploy an inmate crew; hiring a private contract crew runs from $9,000 to $15,000 per day.
Corrections Department spokesman Chad Lewis told The Columbian last week that inmate crews from the Cedar Creek Corrections Center in Thurston County would be deployed to fight fires in Southwest Washington. That minimum security prison is about 90 miles north of Vancouver.
The DNR told the Longview Daily News that Cedar Creek is too long a commute to be useful to the agency in Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties and that it would have to contract out its firefighting and other natural resources work there.
Last week, all 12 state legislators who represent Clark County sent a letter to Gregoire urging her to study the full effects of closing Larch — and accusing her of moving up the June 30 closure date to render the issue moot. No new prisoners are being sent to Larch, so its population already is dropping, and the first wave of layoffs or transfers is scheduled for April.
Cushman said his fax and e-mail blitzes proved effective last year when the Lands Alliance campaigned to stop Columbia River ports, including the Port of Vancouver, from using their powers of eminent domain to acquire 105 acres of wetlands on a family farm north of Woodland. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sought to acquire wetlands at the Colf farm as mitigation for the destruction of wetlands by dredge spoils from the Columbia River channel deepening project.
In the end, Gregoire blessed a negotiated settlement that left the farm in private hands. “The governor did not want anything to do with the Corps condemning private property,” a Department of Ecology official said at the time.
Cushman, a veteran of property rights wars across the nation, said he’s not unsympathetic to the dilemma Gregoire faces as the state confronts a $2.6 billion budget deficit.
“She is in a tough spot,” he said. “Everybody thinks their program is important. But the fire issue is such a big issue. This one doesn’t look like it passes economic muster. Right now, they aren’t going in with full information. I bet money once they apply the cost comparisons, Larch looks pretty good.”
State budget office spokesman Glenn Kuper said Wednesday that his office is working with DNR on an analysis of the extra costs the agency will incur with the closure of Larch and would have no information “until at least the end of the week.”
