By Timothy B. Hurst •
February 8, 2008
[
This is the second of a three-part story about the pine beetle epidemic in Colorado and what is being done to prevent catastrophic wildfire while taking advantage of a clean energy opportunity.
Any solution is proving to be politically sticky. Part one can be found by following this link to sustainablog.]
Residents of Colorado are witnessing a rapid destabilization of the forest around them, and they can do very little to stop it. The spread of the mountain pine beetle epidemic is now considered of ‘catastrophic’ proportion. Most foresters agree that the beetle will essentially run its course by eliminating its favorite food - the lodgepole pine. The most one can hope for is to mitigate fire risk by pursuing aggressive thinning programs. However, thinning forests does not come cheap: it is labor intensive, resource intensive, geo-politically awkward, and the end product is not held in very high regard by the market. But the economic viability of large-scale thinning projects is changing, and it is doing so almost as quickly as the trees themselves are changing from green to red.
This week, several stories hit the newswire that, taken collectively, hint at the growing conditions for a perfect storm for cellulosic ethanol. The ‘virgin’ biofuel industry got a kick in the seat yesterday when a study published in Science confirmed many environmentalists belief that ethanol from corn and switchgrass could actually worsen
By Timothy B. Hurst •
January 22, 2008
[This piece is the first of two parts addressing the pine beetle epidemic in Colorado and what the mountain communities are doing about it. While the situation may seem bleak at the outset of this story, I promise some good news before all is said and done.]
Colorado has 1.7 million acres of lodgepole pine forests. Though, if you have any desire to see any of those trees alive, I’d suggest you move rather quickly. State and federal officials recently announced that the mountain pine beetle epidemic grew by a half a million acres in 2007, bringing the total infestation in the state to about 1.5 million acres. Foresters indicated that the epidemic would virtually eliminate every acre of lodgepole pines in the next three to five years.
Up until quite recently, the pine beetle epidemic in Colorado was limited to a five county area along the Continental Divide. However, recent forest surveys indicate that the beetle has crossed the Divide and is moving eastward. The Forest Service’s annual surveys that are produced by ’stitching’ together aerial photographs have enabled the forest service to illuminate the rapid acceleration of the beetles’ northeasterly march. Once restricted to high country hamlets like Breckenridge, Fraser and Steamboat Springs, the hungry beetles are quickly moving into the foothills and front range near Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins. According to Kyle Patterson at Rocky Mountain National Park, the pine beetles have reached “epic proportions.”
