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Executive order from the president is needed to prevent catastrophe

I continue to have a very busy summer. I have been given the opportunity to discuss the legislative session with folks from Pagosa Springs to Gunnison, and I hope to see many more citizens between now and when the 2016 session begins in January.

I attended a tour, then a forum, spearheaded by Hinsdale County Commissioner Cindy Dozier regarding the devastation of southern Colorado forests by the spruce beetle. Speakers at the forum included experts in forest management from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Colorado State Forest Service.

The number of dead trees on Slumgullion Pass equal numbers on Wolf Creek Pass. The difference is, on Slumgullion Pass, the Forest Service has contracted with the sawmill in Montrose to remove dead trees along the highway corridor. This will help to serve as a fire break in the case of a catastrophic fire.

Young, living trees are left standing, which will hurry the reforestation of the area. The problem is, the Montrose sawmill would like to expand to two work shifts per day, and even with millions of dead trees, the federal bureaucracy hampers the ability to provide the trees needed.

I continue to agree with Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, that a presidential executive order is needed to hurry the federal permitting process in this emergency situation to get as many dead trees out of the forest as soon as possible and minimize the devastation of an inevitable catastrophic fire.

I have asked on numerous occasions why no work is being done on Wolf Creek. One of the answers was that there is a roadless area on one side of U.S. Highway 160. It is crazy to use that excuse when we have this emergency situation that is the prelude for a catastrophic fire of a magnitude that we have never seen. I will continue to press for action on Wolf Creek Pass. We also are beginning to see beetle kill in the Purgatory and Coal Bank Pass areas.

I am very impressed by the knowledge and expertise of our local USFS and BLM employees. These folks know what they are talking about and want to do the right thing. However, they are hampered by politics to say what they really think. Several of them did lament that our national forests have not been managed properly because of misplaced public pressure by certain environmental-activist groups. The result has been the destruction of the timber industry and a crowded and unhealthy forest that was vulnerable to the 2002 drought, which gave rise to the spruce-beetle infestation.

Our grandchildren will never know our national forests as we have known them. The trees are dead or dying. Nature will take its course, and in 200 to 300 years, there will again be a forest as we know it today. The damage has been done, and we cannot go back in time. We must learn from our past mistakes as we manage for the future.

J. Paul Brown represents House District 59 in Colorado’s General Assembly. The district encompasses La Plata, Archuleta, San Juan, Ouray and Hinsdale counties and part of Gunnison County. Reach him at jpaul.brown.house@state.co.us.



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