The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Public comment extended until July 31
By Alissa Johnson
This summer, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for its plan to treat forests affected by the spruce beetle epidemic and Sudden Aspen Decline.
Called the Spruce Beetle Epidemic and Aspen Decline Management Response, the plan is designed to actively manage affected Spruce fir and aspen stands in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests (GMUG), and help stands become more resilient.
Approximately 30 percent of the spruce fir and aspen vegetation in the GMUG has been affected by spruce beetle mortality (223,000 acres) and Sudden Aspen Decline (229,000 acres). The plan would treat up to 120,000 acres of national forest over 8 to 12 years.
According to the EIS, the goal is to reduce “hazards to the public and infrastructure, salvage dead and dying timber, reestablish forest cover and increase resiliency in green stands.”
For Spruce, both green trees and pockets of dead and dying trees would be harvested in areas of lower mortality. Known as uneven-aged management, the goal is to increase the resiliency of these stands. In areas of higher mortality, more trees would be harvested to salvage timber, reduce the threat of falling trees and manage wild fires.
“In Spruce fir stands, cuts that create a mosaic of more diverse stands with respect to age and structure typically create a stand more resilient to stressors like drought and disease,” explained Forest Service spokesperson Lee Ann Loupe. “It’s not that these treated stands wouldn’t suffer dieback from those stressors, but that the dieback would be less severe than in an untreated, even-aged stand. The key piece to remember is that we’re aiming to build resilience, not resistance.”
For aspen, cuts and/or prescribed fire would be used to manage affected areas. According to Loupe, getting into an aspen stand early can improve its chances of survival.
“In aspen stands affected by Sudden Aspen Decline, specifically, research has shown that if we get in and do cuts before the level of mortality reaches about 50 percent, then the cut will promote regeneration and survival of the stand,” Loupe explained.
Locally, the plan is garnering mixed reviews. At a July 28 meeting, the Board of County Commissioners approved a letter drafted by commissioner Jonathan Houck in support of the proposed actions.
“We feel that it allows the most opportunity while safeguarding important areas and species of concern,” the letter stated, acknowledging the agency’s consideration of public safety, the protection of existing utilities and recreation, and the protection of things such as lynx habitat, wetlands, wilderness and roadless areas.
The county’s letter also stressed that time is of the essence and made several recommendations, including asking that the agency treat all 120,000 acres in the plan and allow the public to have access to any resulting firewood that isn’t slated for commercial purposes. The county also pointed out that fire behavior within the GMUG has been “unprecedented” in recent years and asked the agency make sure fire buffers in the plan are sufficient.
Yet even as the county is supporting the plan, High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA) thinks the plan could do better. Alli Melton, HCCA’s public lands director, explained that the plan is so broad in scope it’s hard to know what the specific impacts will be.
“One of our big concerns is that the proposal is forest-wide for the entire GMUG. Multiple times throughout the EIS, the agency states that because it’s a big proposal, they don’t have site-specific information,” Melton explained.
That makes it difficult to assess what wildlife habitat will be affected, how many miles of roads will be built, and to understand the full impacts of the proposed actions. Although Melton thinks the draft EIS has been treated like a programmatic EIS—looking at the broad-brush impacts of treatment—she doesn’t see any indication that additional environmental analyses will be conducted once site-specific information is available.
Melton wonders if a forest-by-forest approach would have been better, with plans for each of the forests within the GMUG. She also said that HCCA would have liked to see the agency consider an alternative plan that concentrated treatment near communities and populated areas where safety is a concern, and leaving backcountry untreated.
“The proposal does stay out of roadless areas and wilderness, so that’s a good thing, but there are still a lot of acres that are backcountry and our position is that natural cycles should be left to do what natural cycles do,” Melton said. “To the extent that you need to take action to keep communities safe… why not focus where we know action needs to be taken?”
Melton also pointed out that aspen decline has slowed. “We haven’t seen further aspen decline since 2009 or 2010,” she said, suggesting that aspen may have been dying as a result of drought rather than disease alone.
Melton will be submitting lengthy and detailed comments for HCCA by the July 31 public comment deadline, which is an extension from the original date of mid-July.
When it comes to timing for the final EIS, Forest Service spokesperson Loupe said it will take a while to analyze comments and prepare responses.
In the meantime, comments may be submitted at
http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/SBEADMR_comments until July 31.
