Natural causes: Pine beetles are ravaging forests

FRISCO - In the mountains of north-central Colorado, death is everywhere on the landscape, a kaleidoscope of orange, brown and gray in trees that are supposed to be evergreen.

The mountain pine beetle, a destructive native pest that kills a tree within a year of burrowing into its bark, has infested more than 660,000 acres of forest, up from 500,000 a year ago.

The stands of dead trees have become a fire risk to some of Colorado’s most stunning scenery and most expensive real estate — not to mention an eyesore — and the beetles are encroaching into the state’s premier ski resorts.

This summer, with dead trees more evident than ever, many are asking what can be done. The answer: very little.

“This is a natural event. There is no doubt about that,” said Don Carroll, in charge of beetle mitigation in the area for the U.S. Forest Service.

It’s a rare case in which environmental groups, forest managers, the timber industry and mountain residents agree — there is not much to be done.

“The impulse is to do something,” said Sloan Shoemaker of the Wilderness Workshop, a conservation group in Carbondale. “Everyone wants something to be done.

“I want to make sure that what is done is the right thing.”

BIPARTISAN BACKING FOR MONEY

Mountain pine beetles have always been present in Colorado’s high country, and outbreaks happen every few decades.

They began attacking lodgepole pines in Grand County in the mid-1990s. The drought of 2002 to 2004, though, allowed their population to explode and spread to elevations where they’d never been seen. Lodgepoles grow between 8,000 and 10,500 feet, and are the main tree species in many ski resorts.

The current epidemic is the worst recorded in Colorado, but experts attribute it to warm weather, and, to a lesser extent, a lack of natural fires to thin the forests.

Experts say the infestations happen regularly, that the forest depends on the lodgepoles dying, followed by a fire that melts open the cones so seedlings can sprout.

“What we see in the ecosystem of the Rocky Mountains is one shaped by large, infrequent disturbances, like we’re seeing now,” said Dominik Kulakowski, an ecologist at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

This summer, the beetles have reached Interstate 70 and Summit County in large numbers, bringing a new visibility to an epidemic that was largely unknown outside mountain communities.

Colorado’s entire congressional delegation, in a rare show of bipartisanship, backed a bill to award $22 million to help communities deal with the infestation. The state has also made $1 million available for local projects.

In the Arapaho/Roosevelt, White River and Routt national forests, officials are treating 14,870 acres of the beetle-killed area this year, and plan to do 21,218 next year.

Wednesday, a media tour by environmental groups and local officials on the beetles

drew 20 journalists from a dozen media outlets from across the state.

The message of the tour was that the infestation is a natural part of the forest’s cycle, and that, forestwide, there is nothing that can or should be done about it.

Said Kulakowski, “If the outbreak is just left alone, the forest will regenerate like it has always regenerated.”

In a region that has some of the most valuable real estate in the West, not to mention more than 100,000 residents and many others with vacation homes, that’s not likely.

DAMAGE CONTROL

In Winter Park, a ski town at the heart of the infestation, officials first thought they could contain the beetles.

A few years ago, voters approved a tax increase to pay for removing infested trees.

The town removed 1,000 the first year, then 3,000 the next.

“We were constantly doing a delaying action, hoping Mother Nature would give us a severe enough winter to kill the bugs,” said Winter Park Mayor Nick Teverbaugh.

But last year, crews tagged 14,000 trees for removal — which would’ve cost the town of 717 people $750,000, Teverbaugh said.

So they switched to damage control, removing trees that posed a risk to homes and other buildings in case of fire.

Winter Park ski resort, meanwhile, spends $500,000 a year spraying and removing trees to deal with the beetles, to keep the slopes looking green.

“It doesn’t impact the actual trails,” said resort spokeswoman Darcy Morse. “The skiing will always be great. It’s more of the look of the trees.”

In the town, Teverbaugh said, 50 percent of the trees are dead, and many more probably will die.

“It’s a natural cycle, which shouldn’t be a problem — except we keep building houses in the way,” he said.

In Eagle County, home to Vail and Beaver Creek, officials have reached the same conclusion.

“People move to Colorado and they want to have those houses right up against the trees and that creates a problem,” said county emergency management director Barry Smith.

Because of the development, officials can’t just let wildfires rage through beetlekilled areas.

But, they caution, with dry conditions in the area, made worse by the dead and dying trees, fires will occur.

The yards and forest edges of the area have become the front lines of the beetle battle. Officials have put the emphasis on getting people to clear space around homes, and prepare.

“It’s got to be a partnership with the homeowners,” Smith said. “They’ve got to take steps to protect their homes from the flames.”

PONDEROSAS VULNERABLE?

For forest managers, spraying to kill the beetles isn’t an option for stopping the outbreak.

It costs from $10 to $20 a tree, and must be repeated every year, so federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service can only focus on certain areas, such as campgrounds.

Removing the trees is another imperfect option, because after a year, they can’t be used for lumber.

“Right now we don’t have a use for a lot of these trees,” said Rob Davis of Forest Energy Colorado, who wants to create stove wood pellets from the trees. “A large amount of the wood is going to be unusable. It’s not going to have a lot of value.”

Tom Troxel, executive director of the Colorado Timber Industry Association, said timber companies are eager to take contracts to clear the trees, though he also said there isn’t yet a market for uses beyond lumber. Plus, much of the devastated area is roadless and too rugged, or is designated as wilderness, so logging is not allowed by federal law.

So far, for every acre of lodgepole that timber companies have harvested, the Forest Service has had to pay to have 2 acres of trees — too small or damaged - removed.

Only two things will stop the beetles’ march: Four days or a week of temperatures 40 degrees below zero, or the destruction of all the lodgepole pines in Colorado.

They have already infested 44 percent of lodgepole terrain.

Even running out of food isn’t a certainty, because experts are unsure what will happen if and when the beetles begin to cross into the lower elevation ponderosa pine of the Front Range.

In the Pikes Peak region, foresters occasionally remove a ponderosa pine for the same beetles, or order a private owner to remove one, said city forester Dennis Will.

“In all the territory I look at, which is about 12,000 acres, I haven’t seen a problem,” he said. “But in Ute Pass, which is just up the road, I am getting a little concerned.”

To the north, especially in Grand County, mortality in some stands has reached 90 to 95 percent. The forests in Summit County also could reach that level.

“We’re going to have to get used to a different way the forest looks,” said Kulakowski.

660,000 acres are infested by bark beetles in Colorado, up from 500,000 last year.

44 percent of state lodgepole terrain is infested.

$22 million is the amount the state’s congressional delegates wanted for communities.

14,870 acres in the Arapaho/Roosevelt, White River and Routt national forests were treated this year.

$10 to $20 is the annual cost to treat one tree.