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ALERT!
WILDFIRE CONTROL
and the current
MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE OUTBREAK
Forest Service Announces Five Field Trips, Two Open Houses, and a New Comment Period.
Please Offer Comments by November 27, 2007
Why Attend and Comment?
The Forest Service is proposing a Forest-Wide action that could cause your favorite hiking or ski trail(s), hunting or wildlife watching area(s) and campground(s) to be logged, unnecessarily, and in the name of hazard tree removal (safety) or mountain pine beetle and wildfire control!
Please attend one or more of the following and tell the Forest Service that logging does NOT stop or even slow the beetle epidemic and that logging beetle-killed lodgepole pine stands does NOT significantly reduce the scope or intensity of wildfire.
FIELD TRIPS
All Field Trip Meeting Times are 2:00 to 5:00 pm
If possible, please RSVP to Melissa Martin at 307-745-2371
November 6, 2007
Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest Headquarters, 2468 Jackson Street, Laramie, WY 82070
November 6, 2007
Yampa District Office, 300 Roselawn Street, Yampa, CO 80483
November 7, 2007
Hahns Peak/Bears Ears District Office, 925 Weiss Drive, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487
November 8, 2007
Parks District Office, 100 Main Street, Walden, CO 80480
November 6, 2007
Brush Creek-Hayden District Office, South Highway 130/230, Saratoga, WY 82331
OPEN HOUSES
Locations
Howard Johnson (Virginia Room) in Laramie
(at the intersection of Snowy Range Road and Interstate 80)
Forest Service Office at 925 Weiss Drive, Steamboat Springs CO
(across from the Holiday Inn)
Both Open Houses are November 15, 2007 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm
The mountain pine beetle epidemic is real but
logging is not a solution to stop or slow the epidemic.
The Routt National Forest had nearly 1000 times more acres of mountain pine beetle damage to lodgepole pine stands in 2006 than in 1996 and, in the same time period, the Medicine Bow National Forest saw 7,500 times more acres damaged by the beetle. It is clear a mountain pine beetle epidemic is well underway in our mountain forests.
Less clear is what action(s), if any, can be done about the beetles and the damage they leave in their wake. Logging is often the Forest Service’s answer to perceived problems whether or not their perceptions are, in fact, problems in need of a solution.
Claiming necessary to keep forest visitors safe, the Forest Service proposes to fell dead and dying lodgepole pine, Engelmann Spruce, sub-alpine fir, and aspen trees along roads and trails.
The Forest Service's proposed logging methods will include clearcutting, patch clearcutting, overstory removal, thinning, and group selection!
None of these logging practices will stop the beetle epidemic. Only in isolated cases do these logging practices diminish wildfire risks. In even fewer cases do these practices truly enhance forest visitor safety.
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance recognizes the need to remove truly hazardous trees in high use areas such as campgrounds, parking lots, interpretive sites, trailheads, and administrative facilities. Our concern is that forest safety, the current beetle epidemic, and exaggerated wildfire risks are being used to justify logging that is largely unnecessary and harmful to recreation, wildlife, soil, and water quality.
A Few Facts About Beetle Epidemics
- Epidemics are natural and cyclical with major outbreaks occurring about once every 100 years
- Typically, cold winters kill beetle larvae
- Beetle larvae often survive warmer winters like those of recent years.
- Drought conditions, as prevalent in recent years, weakens lodgepole pine trees
- Diminished depth and duration of snowpack increases drought effects on trees
- Mountain pine beetles typically target unhealthy lodgepole pine trees. If the preferred food supply (lodgepole pine tree bark) is low, even healthy trees will be targeted. Lodgepole pine trees infested by beetles generally die over a 1 to 4 or more year period. Not all infested trees will die. Weakened trees, surviving initial infestations, may continue as a food source for the beetles in subsequent years.
- Beetles do their damage to the target tree before their presence is detected. By the time a tree is known to be infested it is usually too late to do anything about the infestation.
- Independent entomologists (insect scientists) and Forest Service studies have concluded that logging does nothing to control this current mountain pine beetle epidemic.
- Dead lodgepole pine stands present an increased wildfire threat but only for a brief time and depending on several environmental factors like temperature, humidity, weather patterns, and rate of needle fall. Once needles drop the scope and intensity of wildfire risks drop as well.
The Bottom Line?
Logging YOUR favorite places in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests will do nothing to change the primary environmental conditions that are driving this current mountain pine beetle epidemic.
Tell the Forest Service to remove only trees that:
1) 1) pose a true safety threat to Forest Service personnel and forest visitors in high use areas.
2) when removed, would clearly help protect private or public structures and property from wildfire within Wildland Urban Interface zones.
Please Offer Written Comments by November 27, 2007
Address Comments to
Melissa Martin, ID Team Leader
Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests
2468 Jackson Street
Laramie, Wyoming 82070
Submit Comments via EMAIL at:
FAX Comments:
307-745-2398
Please include your name, address, telephone number
Please title your comment letter:
"Forest-wide Hazard Tree Reduction Proposal"
Thank you for Helping Keep the Medicine Bow-Routt
National Forests Wild!
For more information contact Duane at
307-742-7978 or via Email
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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance P.O. Box 1512, Laramie, WY 82073 (307) 742-7978 - carmi@voiceforthewild.org |
