No `if’ for Los Alamos

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says the National Park Service committed a “landslide” of mistakes in conducting a prescribed forest fire that set the city of Los Alamos ablaze. Faced with an internal report that read like a primer on poor planning, lax oversight and stunning mismanagment, Mr. Babbitt’s admission, though commendably straightforward, was more a statement of the obvious than refreshing candor.

With 200 destroyed homes only the most visible damage, Mr. Babbitt also says his department, the Parks Service or the government in general will make the victims of this calamity whole. “If we were negligent, we pay” is the right attitude, it sounds encouraging — it also needs immediate clarification.

That “if” already has New Mexico officials and residents worried. The report and the secretary’s comments would, in the everyday world, seem to eliminate any doubt that reimbursement will be swift and full. In court, under the broad protections the government enjoys under the Federal Tort Claims Act, that word and the strict legal interpretation of negligence — that a specific incident of damage must be traced to a specific action — and the fact that California victims of a rampaging USPS fire a year ago are still uncompensated, gives New Mexicans reason to worry.

President Clinton already has declared Los Alamos a disaster area. That is as it should be, but disaster relief can be slow, stingy and, as Maine learned in the aftermath of the Ice Storm of `98, subject to political shenanigans. The Park Service cannot pay — it doesn’t have enough money to keep its parks in order.

The quickest and surest way to put Los Alamos back together is an emergency congressional appropriation for a recovery fund — this is, after all, not the government helping people recovery from natural disaster, but the government helping people recover from government. And such an appropriation would not be a blank check — claimants would have to prove the extent of their loss, but once proven, the money would be there. The most obvious and pressing claims, such as the loss of a house, could be settled quickly; the less obvious and pressing, such as a full wardrobe replacement, could be settled later.

It’s been done before. In 1976, the Teton Dam on the Snake River gave way; 11 people were killed, more than 4,000 buildings were destroyed. Just a few weeks later, a preliminary investigation showed the government had built the dam on a geologically suspect site, just a few weeks after that Congress made a $200 million appropriation to satisfy claims.

The Clinton administration’s response to this man-made disaster has so far been appropriate. Conceeding mistakes, especially by the landslide, is not easy. Promising to make things right is the right thing to do. Now, the administration need to do it without the `if.’