Mayor To Feds: You Caused Mud, You Pay

La Canada Flintridge - The mayor of La Canada Flintridge said the National Forest Service caused this weekend's disastrous mud flows in her city, by mismanaging last summer's big brushfire, and should pay to remove thousands of truckloads of muck.

Mayor Laura Olhasso joined Los Angeles County supervisor Mike Antonovich in blaming the 250-square-mile Station fire on U.S. Forest Service decisions not to call in helicopter tankers early in the fire's spread last August. The mudslides that crushed nine homes Saturday are a direct consequence, they said, of catastrophically-bad firefighting strategies.

"I call on the federal government to take the responsibility to help our residents pay for cleaning up the mud," Olhasso said at a news conference in a mud-filled Paradise Valley street, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stood next to her. "The federal government must take responsibility for their mud, that is coming out of their hills."

Olhasso has said U.S. Forest Service officials have compounded the threat to constituents living below the fire-denuded Angeles National Forest by refusing to let city crews onto federal property this winter to clear debris.

Arriving at the scene today, Schwarzenegger promised to "appoint a blue ribbon commission to look into" the local claims.

"It's important for us to come out, right now, and say `what can we do to help?"' Schwarzenegger said. The governor pledged to cut red tape to find disposal sites for thousands of truckloads of debris that must be removed from houses, yards, streets and catch basins.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich blamed the U.S. Forest Service for failing to commit more resources to the Station Fire in its infancy.

The August-September wildfire, which scorched about 250 square miles of forest land, ranks as the biggest on record.