Wildfires like the Flagstaff fire from 2012 are going to happen, but mitigation might prevent them from damaging property or becoming too serious. {Photo from Dave Dugdale.}
Boulder County Ballot Issue 1A would, at its simplest, create a new 0.1% sales and use tax throughout Boulder County for wildfire mitigation efforts. This tax does not have a sunset date, meaning it will continue in perpetuity unless another action is taken. The 0.1% tax works out to one cent on a $10 taxable purchase, and is expected to generate about $11 million annually. The ballot measure would pass with a simple majority of Boulder County voters.
Directly from the ballot measure language, the revenue could be used for general purposes including:
- Strategic forest and grassland management projects to reduce the risk of catastrophic
wildfire, protect drinking water and water supplies, and foster resilient ecosystems. - Community partnerships and programs to help residents prepare for wildfires, create
defensible space around homes, make homes more fire resistant, and provide technical
assistance and rebates to homeowners. - Fire mitigation staffing.
- Other projects and services to proactively address the increasing risk of climate-driven
wildfires. - Expenditures related to the above activities may include but are not limited to
planning, design, operations, maintenance, and administration.
Boulder County already has a program called Wildfire Partners, described as “a Boulder County program to help homeowners mitigate their properties and prepare for wildfire.” Some of the money from 1A would be used in the Wildfire Partners program. It’s currently funded by a $1.2 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Boulder County government.
Boulder County also intends to spend some of the 1A money on strategic “Fireshed Partnerships,” to evaluate large areas of land to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, protect drinking water supplies, and create more resilient forest and grassland ecosystems.
Why Is Wildfire Mitigation Spending Needed?
Coloradans and Boulder County residents live in a semi-arid climate, and serious wildfires have always been possible. Mitigation efforts such as creating defensible space around homes, clearing flammable debris, and managing grasslands won’t prevent all wildfires, but they can minimize property damage and potential threats to life or physical safety when wildfires inevitably flare up. Mitigation efforts can also involve hard physical labor and/or use of machinery, and in theory tax revenue can help make sure resources are available to tackle these jobs.
Though wildfires in Colorado are indeed as old as the hills, Boulder County was rocked by the late 2020 Marshall Fire. Money isn’t everything, but county estimates say there was about $513 million worth of residential property damage between Louisville, Superior, and areas of unincorporated Boulder County. About 1,087 homes were destroyed, 149 damaged. I personally knew Robert Sharpe, who lost his life in the fire (RIP Roberto).
It’s not easy to look back in time and say mitigation would have prevented damage in the Marshall Fire, but it’s fair to say that it served as a wake-up call to pay attention to the potential for extreme grasslands fires into the future. A large percentage of western Boulder County is in or near forested area and in rugged terrain, and people have long accepted the wildfire danger in the foothills. We’ve had several fairly recent severe foothills fires in Boulder County (examples: Olde Stage, Fourmile, Calwood), along with catastrophes elsewhere in Colorado such as the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire (346 homes lost) and the 2013 Black Forest Fire (486 homes lost).
Mitigation efforts are typically directed toward wildland-urban interfaces, where physical development like homes or businesses are located near open spaces. It’s estimated that about 3 million Coloradans live in some type of interface, and that certainly includes homes in the western parts of the City of Boulder.
Isn’t There Wildfire Mitigation Already?
The need for wildfire mitigation is no secret, and there are a number of federal, state, and local programs already in place. Boulder County includes federal lands, state parks, locally controlled open spaces, and developed cities and towns – all of which might need mitigation efforts tailored to the jurisdictions and specific areas.
The State of Colorado has had an interim Wildfire Matters Review Committee since 2013, formed in part in reaction to major fires like Waldo Canyon and Black Forest. This committee discusses issues related to wildfires and makes recommendations for bills to be introduced in the Colorado General Assembly, and many of the bills passed recently had some element of mitigation planning support or grant funding. Just for perspective, the state has passed in recent years House Bills 16-1286, 19-1006, 20-1057, 21-1208, 22-1007, 22-1011, 22-1012, and 22-1132, plus Senate Bills 20-1057, 21-054, 21-221, 21-258, and 22-007. And I’m sure I’ve missed some.
The Colorado State Forest Service offers a mitigation webpage with contact information at https://csfs.colostate.edu/wildfire-mitigation/. The Colorado Department of Natural Resources has a Strategic Wildfire Action Program, at https://dnr.colorado.gov/divisions/forestry/co-strategic-wildfire-action-program.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has Wildfire Mitigation Grants available to qualified applicants. And of course, I’ve already mentioned Boulder County’s Wildfire Partners program.
I’m definitely not including this section to make it look as if these programs already have everything covered. Boulder County has a huge amount of land mass that includes rugged terrain. It’s not always easy or time-efficient to be awarded a state or federal grant, so having local funding and programs in place might help minimize future localized damage, since it’s basically inevitable that wildfires will happen.
1A Pro:
- Even though this is a new tax, wise spending on mitigation might save county residents more than the cost of the tax if it minimizes wildfire damage.
- Many people expect climate change to contribute to greater wildfire danger into the future.
- Wildfires produce air pollution and can contribute to water pollution, and minimizing a fire’s spread can minimize its environmental impact.
- The Marshall Fire created real problems for housing availability in a tight housing market, and we don’t need further damage to housing stock.
- Boulder County has lots of beautiful open public lands, and good wildfire mitigation might help protect this investment for residents and visitors alike.
1A Con:
- It is a new tax, and the argument is always made that an entity could look to cover costs by examining existing budgets and reallocating funding.
- Wildfire mitigation should be a core function of government, and we should not need a new tax to cover this core function.
- The tax does not sunset.
- Some people say sales taxes are regressive, costing lower-income people a higher percentage of their income.
Richard’s Take
I’m going to support this measure, but not completely without comment. I’ve lived through enough fires over the last decade or so that I’m not certain about my lung health anymore. Boulder County is very largely made up of open lands that could be prone to wildfire, and fire mitigation should be a top-tier priority for our government and the people who live here. People might squeal over another new tax, but this is a relatively small tax and it’s clearly in the interest of public health and safety. Our risks have almost certainly increased with climate change, so I’ll say it’s time for us to acknowledge our current reality and plan for prevention.
That said, I’d like to remind any county officials who might be reading that I’ve looked through the 2022 county budget for areas that we might have been able to tap for what I believe should be a core function of Boulder County government. County voters passed a sustainability sales tax in 2016 that lasts through 2034 and was budgeted for about $10 million revenue in 2022; we have an Office of Sustainability, Climate Action, & Resilience; and our Parks and Open Space department was budgeted at $60,320,992 for 2022. I’m not going to go all hard-core libertarian or tax rebel right now, but we’ve had enough serious wildfires in Boulder County alone over the past decade to make me at least check into why we need a new tax for something that’s clearly been a core concern since long before the Marshall fire.
But I have little reason to fundamentally doubt the following sentence from the ballot measure text: “The estimated total cost of mitigating only some of the potential effects of climate change across the geographic area of Boulder County through 2050 is conservatively placed at $96 million to $157 million for the median- and high-impact scenarios.” Let’s pass 1A and get to work.
