State acts to protect infrastructure from pine beetles

Colorado Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass, lives smack in the middle of the state’s high mountain region, an area known for its spectacular beauty.

But over the last several years, much of Colorado’s high alpine zone and Western Slope has been devastated by the steady advance of the mountain pine bark beetle. The tiny bugs have been chewing up millions of acres of pine forests, literally transforming green, healthy hillsides into dead-brown, fire-prone eyesores.

It’s a problem that’s taking on huge dimensions across Colorado, as vast swaths of forest lands now lie vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire and high-wind blowdown that could wreak havoc on recreational areas and damage water supply facilities and other costly public infrastructure.

Those concerns led Schwartz, along with fellow legislators Don Coram and Millie Hamner, to sponsor Senate Bill 267, signed by Gov. Hickenlooper last month. The bill, dubbed the Forest Health Act of 2011, is focused on convening a task force of natural resource and energy experts to figure out a strategy that could, if not turn the tide against the beetles, at least find ways to create jobs by pumping new life into Colorado’s ailing timber industry and protect the state’s infrastructure from the insect’s ongoing depredation.

“I really wanted to try to shape a comprehensive conversation about our forests,” Schwartz said. “The concern is this is moving so rapidly, with 2 million acres affected last year and now 4 million. We’re not prepared to go in and manage these forests.”

The first meeting of the 13-member Colorado Forest Biomass Use Work Group was held in Breckenridge on June 29, after the Business Report went to press. But Joe Duda, Forest Management Division supervisor with the Colorado State Forest Service, said the group will look at a variety of possible ways to help invigorate the state’s foundering forest industry and create jobs while finding uses for the beetle-killed wood.

“The goal is to establish something that is in balance with the land so we can have some use of the wood and preserve local jobs,” he said. “Right now, the timber market and the economy is depressed and the forest industry has really struggled to make it through these times.”

Duda said well over 90 percent of the forest products used in Colorado currently come from outside the state, with a large part of it from Canada where the government subsidizes the timber industry.

“Why not replace some of that with Colorado forest products?´ said Duda. “We’ve got a large area that’s been devastated. The feeling is why not manage it to create some healthy forests for the long-term.”

Schwartz said the Forest Health Act aims to find ways to remove barriers to the creation of a sustainable, market-based model for active forest management and ecosystem health.

One possibility is to work with the state’s Air Quality Control Division to explore producing heat and electricity by burning beetle-killed wood.

The act also suggests targeted business incentives – including tax credits and exemptions – for harvesting, transporting and using the wood.

Schwartz said the state is under threat from the beetle invasion and could be severely damaged economically without some proactive measures taken soon.

“The cost to the state, should there be a catastrophic fire, would be absolutely enormous,” she said.

Schwartz said the benefits of any solutions to come out of the task force would be statewide and not just for those living in or near the mountains.

“It is a threat to the entire state and we all have something at stake here,” she said.

But any solutions to the problem won’t begin this year, other than getting the biomass group recruited and discussing what might be possible. The task force is charged with providing an initial report by Nov. 1 and a final report to the legislature by Jan. 1, 2012.

Steve Porter covers agribusiness and natural resources for the Northern Colorado Business Report. He can be reached at 970-232-3147 or sporter@ncbr.com.

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