Honesty or Loyalty

first published 6/12/2017, last updated 1/19/20, written by Mindy Block

I became a Port Jefferson firefighter with a purpose: to understand how to protect life, property, and the environment. I authored "Sunrise Fire," to tell this story in a young adult novel. I retired from active service around the time Sunrise Fire was published, but have researched and written more stories about the effects of wildfire since that time. The article below is a critical review of the effects of misplaced fire roads by the NYSDEC, and their impact to the Long Island Pine Barrens. Updates and detailed timeline can be found at Quality Parks: Rocky Point Pine Barrens State Forest

When an old fire road was upgraded to enable two prescribed fire brush trucks to pass side by side, the magnitude of the impact demanded that I take pen to paper. Many of the trees my friends and I had planted in the late nineties for erosion control purposes had been bulldozed as well. I called the NYSDEC and a fellow trail maintainer to speak out my pain. "Why? Can you believe this? It looks like a development project. And Whiskey Road is right over there. There's no need for this."

In 2017, Quality Parks had spent several months working out a plan that would either reroute or rehab an existing 100 feet of trail with minimum impact. What irked me more than anything else was that us trail maintainers were being held to a higher standard than public land managers. Volunteer trail maintainers take great pains to create sustainable trails that flow, guard against erosion, minimize illegal ATV opportunities, and are elegant.

The location was the yellow access trail to the Paumanok Path, leading away from Parking Lot #18. Heavier than expected usage by firefighting equipment, mountain bicycles, and illegal ATV's had severely eroded the foot trail.

	No matter what we discussed, the NYSDEC didn't allow for a reroute.

Instead, the option was to rehab 100 feet of trail which was estimated to require a 2 person crew for hauling several truckloads of soil to the trail, another 4 person crew for using a wheel barrow to bring and shovel out the soil onto the trail, and a two person crew to tap down the trail and install water bars. Additional equipment including a pickup truck was needed as well. We didn't have the resources.

President Trump asked Comey for his loyalty over honesty. Rather, my loyalty is demonstrated through my honesty. I speak of the need for improved standards of excellence that reduce the environmental impacts of fire roads as well.

My Uncle would say, "doing environmental good is doing good business too," and I add no matter what your business.