Red Lodge Clearinghouse

While no bigger than the tip of a matchstick, the pine beetle has been a growing crisis for years in the West as the invasive pest proliferates, burrowing itself into mature lodgepole pines and destroying the trees while it produces even more beetles.

The beetle has already altered 1.5 million acres in Colorado alone, leaving mountaintops once thick with lush pine stands only with the dead and decaying remains the beetle leaves behind. Within the next five years, they are expected to eradicate all of the state's mature lodgepole pines.

"It's almost kind of scary to see. This is a really big problem," said Steve Wymer, spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), ranking member on the subcommittee.

Drought and warming temperatures have accelerated its advance across the West, with some infestations as far north as British Columbia, and the dead trees left behind are raising the risk of catastrophic wildfires in infected forests.

There is no singular solution for combating the beetle, but removal of affected trees and other thinning efforts have been shown to slow the spread in some cases. In states like Colorado where the infestation has more or less run its course, forest managers are now focusing their efforts on removing the dead trees to avoid damaging wildfires.

But the president's fiscal 2009 budget proposal for the Forest Service, which the subcommittee has jurisdiction over, is largely focused on fire suppression. Under the proposed budget, the Forest Service's fire suppression account would get a $148 million increase -- to just under $1 billion -- making it by far the largest part of the agency's $4.1 billion budget.

Lawmakers in both houses have been critical of the proposal because it places most of its resources of fighting fires rather than taking steps to reduce their occurrence.

The budget would provide $297 million for hazardous fuels reduction projects, down from $310 million in fiscal 2008. Also on the chopping block: state and private forestry, down to $110 million from $263 million last year. Fire preparedness would fall to $588 million from fiscal 2008's $666 million.

Allard announced in January that he had secured $12 million in federal funding to address the bark beetle epidemic in Colorado. Of the $12 million, $8 million will be used by the Forest Service in the Rocky Mountain region and $4 million will be provided in the form of grants for hazardous fuel reduction projects on state or private land.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) signed a bill last year that authorizes the use of up to $1 million a year over five years for a cost-share grant program aimed at community-based forest restoration projects in Colorado. The funding, which was provided by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, will allow 12 grant recipients to treat 13,420 high-priority acres to help protect watersheds, communities and other critical infrastructure throughout Colorado. The grant funds are leveraging more than $2.8 million of additional cash and in-kind matches (Land Letter, Jan. 17).

Schedule: The field hearing will be today at 9 a.m. at the Eagle County Courthouse, Eagle, Colo.

Witnesses: Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey; Rick Cables, regional forester; Barbara Bentz, Rocky Mountain Research Station entomologist; Maribeth Gustafson, White River Forest supervisor; Clint Kyhl, incident commander for the Bark Beetle Incident Command Team; Cal Wettstein, natural resource staff, White River National Forest; Jim Ignatius, Teller County commissioner; Nancy Fishering, executive director, Colorado Timber Industry Association; and Jim Roberts, vice president, Mountain Operations, Beaver Creek Resort.

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