Just be glad you weren't crossing the border in about a month. For the 4th of July weekend, the Ag inspectors will be looking for illegal fireworks as well and the wait will be 2-3 hours longer than normal....
Mark
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Just be glad you weren't crossing the border in about a month. For the 4th of July weekend, the Ag inspectors will be looking for illegal fireworks as well and the wait will be 2-3 hours longer than normal....
Mark
I wasn't trying to scold so much as "educate loudly".
I hope you enjoy your visit, and I hope I haven't scared you off a return trip.
Any non-agricultural info I/we can help you with?
I don't think I've ever passed through on that weekend, but I can see where that would happen. For the non-Californios; my wife is an east-coast transplant, and her standard response to folk back in Rochester (or whatever) to "aren't you afraid of earthquakes?" is "no, we're afraid of fires".Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Sedenquist
And fireworks during the dry season in California is a recipe for disaster.
Side note: the SF Chronicle in the Sunday edition prints stories from 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Back in April they printed a story from the 3rd anniversary of the 1906 quake. Interesting thing; "earthquake" never came up in the story, "fire" did. The vast bulk of the damage to SF in the 1906 quake was due to the fire that followed. Three years after the event, it was known more as the 1906 Fire than the 1906 Quake.
State border inspections are common across Australia for all the reasons Cal mentioned above.
Fruitfly, common in the north of the country, desimates the soft and stone fruit industry in the south. Bananas need extra treatment to be brought from North to South, as they also have a natural pest/disease which would seriously damage the southern states' agriculture.
Then there is the canetoad, which is slowly travelling across the country... courtesy long haul transportation. Despite all inspections, fumigation and what have you, somehow this pest seems to make its way through. Common in Queensland, it has on ocassions been found as far south as Melbourne.
As others have said, natural barriers used to keep these pests where they did not do much damage. Mass travel and transportation has changed all that, and without border inspections, be it at the State border, or a regional border, a country's economy could be devastated.
It always irritates me when I hear someone boast that they got such-and-such through an inspection point.
I went through one of these after crossing into CA from AZ on AZ 95/CA 62 (Parker/Earp). I had never been to California before so I was puzzled, and I didn't have time to ask any questions because the guy just waved me through, didn't even have to stop the car.
They do the inspections on a random rolling basis -- mostly it's related to available manhours -- but they will certainly stop the column if there's something about a car/truck/SUV that looks odd.
One tip, avoid being in the same lane as recreational boat trailer -- California is trying it's best to stop any more invasion of Zebra mussels and they often cruise in a boat's bilge. Inspectors nearly always stop cars/trucks hauling ski and fishing boats!
Mark
While we don't have the inspection stations in Massachusetts, we are facing one of the pests that have been invading forests all over the country - the Asian long horned beetle. The city of Worcester has been particularly hard hit by this scourge. The city has enough problems without having to cut down more and more of its trees, but that is exactly what is happening. Federal authorities have been there for quite some time trying to determine a solution. Along with the Feds, smokejumpers from the West were also called in to help with the problem.
One of the ways in which the beetles travel is in firewood from other infected trees. At most campgrounds I've been to, there is a notice about not bringing in firewood from outside the area. Unfortunately, this has done little to stem the tide.
Worcester has such beautiful neighborhoods full of trees -- I didn't know about this latest problem. It's interesting that they are bringing in smokejumpers from Montana to climb trees though!
Mark
You'd think with all the bugs one gets on a car from driving on the highways, we wouldn't have these insect invasions. I had to wash my car in northern Arizona and wash my windshield in San Antonio, TX, and wash it again when I got home. With all those dead bugs smeared on thousands of cars, you'd think there wouldn't be any left to nibble the orange groves.
Normally when going further west than San Antonio, TX, I go by airplane and rent a car. This was my first trip across the west by automobile. I was floored when being stopped at an inspection station in California, but I totally shocked when I encountered U.S. Border Patrol 105 miles into Texas! I hadn't gone into Mexico, although I did exit the interstate to get a few snapshots of the Rio Grande and the Mexican mountains at Esperanza Rd, then got back on I-10, when just before Sierra Blanca, TX, I encountered Border Patrol. So this Espaņol-accented guy comes to my window and points toward my front license plate asking, are you a sheriff? I was so tempted to ask, "Wanna see my gun?", but I declined the impulse thinking it best not to be sassy. He was a bit amazed that a woman would be a member of the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association. Then with his thick accent, he asked me if I were a U.S. citizen. I thought I'd have to go digging in my trunk to find my passport, and thanked my lucky stars that I brought it even though I was sure I wouldn't need it since my travels weren't taking me across the Mexican border. Fortunately, he just waved me through. My attache case with the passport was buried under my camping equipment and plastic bags of dirty laundry.
I suppose they think they'll capture more "illegal aliens" on I-10 than they would at the border. I suppose vehicles could be waiting for them to transport them further into the country. hmmmm
Fireworks and fires, makes sense. I can see how they'd be timid about that in California.
My weekend local paper had a front page article on wildland fires in California (as opposed to your garden variety urban/suburban structure fires).
Now that we're entering the teeth of the fire season, and coming up on Independence Day with all the possibility for mischief that entails, I thought I'd share some of the statistics from the article.
Acres burned: 2008 1.6 million (estimate), 2007 = 1.5 million.
That's approximately the entire states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined; each burned two years in a row.
On average California burns about a Rhode Island sized chunk of territory annually (600,000-800,000 acres).
Structures lost in major fires: Oakland Hills (1991, Alameda) 2,900; Cedar (2003, San Diego) - 2820; Witch fire (2007, San Diego) - 1650.
On average, California loses a few hundred structures to wildland fires each year.
Major loss of life: Oakland hills - 25, Cedar - 15, Iron Alps (2008, Trinity) - 10
I wouldn't say timid, I would say concerned/cautious/worried/prepared (millions of dollars spent annually trimming back brush and grass just to provide protection around structures)... and perhaps a little bit resigned.