Pine Beetle Plague
on it’s Last Legs

State and federal forest experts agree that the bark beetle outbreak that devastated more than 4 million acres of forest in the Rocky Mountains has all but run its course in the mountains around Summit County — but not before killing about 75 percent of the susceptible lodgepole pines in the area.
“It’s slowed down to non-existent,” said Ryan McNertney, a forester with the Colorado State Forest Service. “They’ve just eaten most of their food supply,” he said. Along with that, wetter weather the last few years may have strengthened the remaining lodgepoles, helping them to resist insect attack.

Mountain pine beetles have always been here, but the most recent outbreak is the biggest in recorded history.
Forest experts blamed the rapid and pervasive spread to several conditions: Vast even-age stands of susceptible older trees, a drought in the early 2000s that weakened the forests and, long-term climate changes that have caused warmer temperatures and fewer severe cold snaps.
The epicenter of this outbreak was in Grand County in the late 1990s. Summit County watched as the infestation approached for most of the ‘90’s with no response from any branch of state or Federal government.
Long after it was too late for us, but when the Front Range of Colorado was finally threatened, the outbreak spurred widespread, expensive forest-health projects aimed at protecting homes, powerlines, watersheds and recreational areas.
The chronically underfunded Forest Service never had the resources to respond until our Congressional delegation finally noticed that all the trees were dead.
Now the only response left is to clean up the dead trees and that is being done on a large scale in Summit County bringing more forestry jobs and other benefits.
One very positive effect of the kill-off has been that many areas of Summit County such as Wildernest and Mesa Cortina now have spectacular views framed by new aspen and pine trees where none existed before.
Over the long term, this epidemic will benefit the County, but it could have been prevented with some early action by those we hire to administer what is, after all, a National Forest.
Parts of this report came from the Vail Business Journal November 10, 2011.




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