Prince George, B.C. – The City may have to change its plans for wildfire mitigation plans.

The rules for accessing funds for the work to remove dead mountain pine beetle trees, have been changed.

 

Over the past 6 years, the City has leveraged over $7 million dollars from the “Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative”. That program has distributed more than $30 million dollars to communities and First Nations, but the current available funding is less than $10 million and there is no indication that funding pot will be topped up.

 

In the past, a community could apply for the amount of funding they needed to do the necessary work, now the funds are capped at $500 thousand dollars.

 

Other changes include:

-only those projects that can be completed in one year will be funded,

-only sites that meet a high, or very high fire hazard ranking will be funded.

-Project applications will be measured against others and only priority (wildfire threat rating of the site) projects will be funded.

-The criteria used will also assess the relative costs/hectare, so sites with lower costs will score higher

 

The changes will impact on Prince George’s   wildfire mitigation plan in several ways:

-the funding cap is 1/3 to  ½ of what the City has been receiving from the program

-costs per hectare are high because areas needing treatment require chipping rather than burning ( air quality issues ) and many sites are on steep slopes

-one year time limit does not allow for time lost through fire season closures  and spring break up

 

Although much of the funding needed for work this year has already been approved, a further half million (the maximum allowed under the new cap) will be needed for fall and winter work and that application will fall under the new rules. It is possible the work will not be approved because of the new rules.

 

If the City doesn’t get the funding, projects will have to be scaled back significantly.

 

Councillor Brian Skakun says he's upset because he  thinks the City of Prince George is going to be penalized for  all the good work it has already done "I see that Staff will be talking with the Ministry of Forests,  this is,  in my opinion, downloading and if we are going to continue with the good work we've done on wildfire mitigation it's going to cost us a lot more in the long run and I don't think its fair."

 

Councillor Murry Krause says thematter was on the agenda for the UBCM last month,  the  bottomn line being the UBCMM is tgrying to spread around as much money  as possible "But the challenge is there, there  is less money than there used to be."

 

Councillor Debora Munoz says with a cap at $500 thousand dollars, that will have a significant  impact on the City's  plans for  wildfire mitigation.

 

Councillor Dave Wilbur says this  is very troubling "It seems to me we have excellerating risk, as any community west of Tweedsmuir  will have because of the falling dead pine and the  risk  of  that dead wood  being touched off by lightning." Wilbur is also  concerned the  risk analysis was done  at least three years ago and the  risk has  increased since then.

 

There are still some 400 hectares of  forested area in the City of Prince George considered to be at high to very high risk  for wildfire threats.

 

Councillor Don Bassermann says  the City  may be wise to remind the Federal government of promised funding to deal with  the  impacts of the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation. Environment Manager Dan Adamson  says Prince George is recognized  as being right out in front when it comes to  dealing with  the threat of wildfire.

 

Council has agreed to send a letter to the UBCM asking for clarification on the  criteria, and will send letters to the two senior levels of government requesting continued and increased funding.