The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Priority areas will receive prescribed treatments
by Olivia Lueckemeyer
After nearly four years of consulting with various experts, stakeholders and the public, the Forest Service has developed a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) to respond to the substantial mortality of insect and disease-affected Englemann spruce and aspen stands in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests.
The multi-year project, known as the Spruce Beetle Epidemic and Aspen Decline Management Response (SBEADMR), identifies priority areas for various mechanical and prescribed fire treatments to reduce the threat of falling dead trees, to salvage dead and dying trees, and to improve stand diversity and resilience.
At a February 9 Gunnison County Board of County Commissioners meeting, Forest Service supervisor Scott Armentrout explained how priority areas were selected.
“Some of the priority areas have not yet been hit, but they are probable areas we will have to deal with over the next 10 years,” Armentrout said. “We can choose to treat those areas in several ways: if the beetle comes in and kills everything, we can do the salvage treatments; if there is spotty mortality, we can do different types of prescriptions by analyzing the best course, and then doing that in an adaptive way instead of always being behind.”
The priority areas are made up of 60,000 acres of commercial forest and 60,000 acres of non-commercial forest. Armentrout stressed that while 120,000 acres is not a small area, it constitutes only a small percentage of spruce overall. And even though a 2015 forest health aerial detection survey indicated fewer new acres were affected in 2015, Armentrout says Gunnison County is still the epicenter of the spruce beetle epidemic.
“It’s still continuing to spread and advance into the mature spruce, and it will continue until [the beetles] run out of food,” Armentrout explained. “It hasn’t been cold enough to kill them, even in Gunnison. When you have billions of insects, even if you kill a couple billion, it really doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just a massive amount, and older, more mature spruce can’t withstand this type of onslaught.”
Prior to the release of the FEIS, the public had expressed concern over the initial scale of the project area, which encompassed more than 700,000 acres of the forests. Prioritizing the landscape into meaningful treatment areas, and narrowing the project’s objectives to include human safety, salvage of merchantable timber, reduction of hazardous fuel in the wildland urban interface, forest regeneration, and increased forest resiliency, was the Forest Service’s way of addressing those trepidations.
“We have developed a good working relationship with a group of citizens, scientists and partners who have been highly engaged throughout this lengthy planning process,” Armentrout said. “We believe the end result showcases our commitment to continued public engagement as we move from planning to implementation.”
Limiting factors, such as terrain and road access, did influence the Forest Service’s ability to expand further into diseased areas. Armentrout predicts a 25-year peak in the amount of timber coming out of the forest; however that won’t hinder the agency’s dedication to furthering its objectives.
“We are trying to boost production across the whole region—treat more acres, do more work and get more done,” Armentrout said.
As of now the FEIS has moved into a 45-day objection period. Any objection resolution will need to be sent to the deciding official, Forest Service supervisor Scott Armentrout.
