Nearly 2 million acres of forests across the state are being killed by pine beetles, spruce beetles and other maladies, the Colorado State Forest Service said Wednesday in its annual report on forest health.
The report highlights the need to do something quickly to protect still-living trees and clear away the dead ones, lest the state become a tinderbox.
“I’ve never seen such interest in forest health and forests in general,” Rick Cables, the regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service, said at a morning legislative-committee meeting.
But state lawmakers quickly turned their anger on Washington for what they said was a lack of support on the issues. While the budget to fight fires continues to rise — nationally receiving an extra $148 million in the proposed 2009 budget — funding for programs to prevent fire risk and help the forests continues to drop. In that same proposed budget, state and private forestry programs see a 58 percent cut.
Sen. Jack Taylor, R-Steamboat Springs, said money spent on forest health is money saved later in firefighting.
“We’re in an emergency in Colorado,” he said. “And we’ve got to get through on the federal level.”
Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, suggested the state explore whether to sue the federal government over lack of funding for national forests in Colorado.
“The regional office and the state office are doing a good job,” he said. “But we just need some more support from our friends inside the beltway.”
Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, said the federal government should use some of the money it gets in mineral-lease royalties in Colorado to help the state’s forests.
“I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question that we ask they reinvest some of that money back into our forest health,” she said.
Colorado’s delegation in Washington already is doing its part, Cables noted. Late last year, they signed on to a letter that resulted in an extra $15 million in forest-health funds coming to the region.
Cables said the state and federal governments must work together, and with private industry, to heal the forests.
“The reality is appropriated funds are not going to solve the problem,” he said later. “There’s not enough money.”
