Sequoia hotels closed until May
Those late summer wildfires have closed several Sequoia and Kings National Park lodges putting a damper on visitation in 2022- long after the fires are out.The concessionaire for Wuksachi Lodge and in Sequoia and John Muir Lodge in Grant Grove say they won’t open their doors until May.
Detour heading to the coast next summer-thru March 2024
Now that has changed
The existing Kings River Bridge at Stratford was built in 1942 and widened in 1987. CalTrans says the bridge continues to deteriorate, and the columns that support the bridge continue to corrode. The bottom of the bridge’s widened portions shows signs of cracks about 5 feet long and spaced as close as 3 feet in the center. Studies found that replacing the bridge was required to address the structural and seismic deficiencies. Work on the bridge will start next August and last through March 2024, closing Hwy 41 – the most popular route to and from the Central Coast.
CalTrans was going to reroute traffic through the Avenal Cutoff, a report to KGAG said. But planned major reconstruction work by the county on the Avenal Cutoff road that links 198 and NAS Lemoore to Highway 5 – threw a wrench in that idea
A county engineer says no decision has been made over how to manage phased work to fix the eroding road base and whether to close the road or do one-lane detours over time along the 15 mile road. But in any case, CalTrans now plans to ask motorists to head to the coast along Hwy 198 and connect back back to Kettleman City along SR 269. It’s going to be a chore to head to Pismo for about 19 months!
Who will replant the forest?”
Under the last administration, H2-B guest workers from Mexico and Central America were barred from doing forestry work in the US. Industry sources say seasonal temporary workers, mainly from Mexico and South America, perform most of the reforestation work in the U.S., entering the country in October each year for a six-month planting season.
Now under Biden they are allowed again and indeed are in our own southern Sierra this fall helping to clear downed trees and preparing to replant all those millions of trees lost in the recent wildfires.The foreign workers are allowed in only if a contractor can attest to the fact they can find no Americans willing to do the work.In fiscal year 2019, the Department of Labor certified about 11,000 visas for forestry and conservation work. The entire program is capped at 66,000 workers across numerous occupations, mainly in landscaping and groundskeeping.
The program has been around for years with one employer noting he rarely sees Americans willing to take the type of jobs he’s placed in the last 22 years seeking foreign guest workers.
According to the Forestry Resources Association, there is an approximately three-to-five year backlog in replanting trees to restore forests that have been damaged by wildfire, hurricanes, and delays caused by the pandemic throughout the United States. Nearly 10,000 H-2B forestry workers plant approximately 1.6 billion trees each year, contributing to 85 percent of trees planted annually in the United States (8-9 percent of this acreage is on federal land).