Entries Tagged 'Forests' ↓

Federal fire officials will be holding a public meeting Dec. 10 at the Bureau of Land Management office in Silt about a proposed prescribed fire planned 14 miles south of Silt in Reservoir Gulch.

BLM and the White River National Forest and Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre national forests are working together on the proposed project, which is designed to reduce hazardous build-up of brush and other wildfire fuel, reduce the risk of fire to adjacent private property and improve ecosystem health.

The burn could take place as early as this spring if the right combination of weather conditions and moisture in the vegetation occurs. Fire officials hope to burn about 1,000 acres on BLM land and about 1,300 acres on national forest lands.

The U.S. Forest Service, Pike National Forest and Colorado Springs Utilities are seeking public comments regarding a proposed 25,000-acre fuel reduction project that aims to reduce fuel loads in Teller County to make the forest less susceptible to catastrophic wildfire.

A public meeting on the proposal will be held on Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Leon Young Service Center in Colorado Springs. Additionally, a meeting will be held on Nov. 18 from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Ute Pass Cultural Center in Woodland Park.

The Forest Service noted that the compounding effects of large-scale fires, historic logging and aggressive fire suppression efforts over the last 150 years has resulted in unnatural forest conditions prime for catastrophic wildfire in Teller County.

The Catamount Fuels Reduction Project aims to address this situation by identifying priority areas that are suitable for fuels reduction activities to improve forest conditions. The 2008 Catamount Landscape Assessment Report will be used as a guide for the desired forest conditions and prescribed fuel treatments.

The goals of the project are to:

* reduce the risk that a wildfire will negatively affect the municipal watershed reserves for the cities of Colorado Springs, Green Mountain Falls, Cascade, Chipita Park and Manitou Springs;
* reduce fuels in the wildland-urban interface;
* improve forest health, vigor and resistance to fire, insects and disease;
* improve riparian health; and
* reduce the risk of severe flooding and sedimentation for the protection of public safety, water system infrastructure and other natural and developed resources.

Colorado Springs Utilities, through its cooperative agreements with the USFS, is participating as a partnering agency along with the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS). Springs Utilities will be assisting with the funding for the environmental assessment, as well as supporting the development of fuel mitigation alternatives and eventual implementation of
fuels reduction projects on the watershed lands of interest.

Springs Utilities is also contracting professional services to conduct watershed assessments within and around the Catamount project area to identify critical watershed areas subject to high wildfire risks, flooding, and sedimentation specific to utility water supplies and infrastructure. Results from the contracted assessments will be incorporated into the environmental review process as supporting information to assist with the development of fuel mitigation alternatives.

City-owned watershed lands will also be included in the environmental assessment for the purposes of evaluating potential impacts of forest management activities around or near the city-owned lands. At the time the Catamount project moves to implementation, Springs Utilities will coordinate with the U.S. Forest Service and CSFS to accomplish fuels
mitigation activities as planned for both Forest Service and city-owned watershed lands.

Removing beetle-killed trees in Summit and Eagle counties has required clearcutting some campgrounds in the White River National Forest, but such drastic measures won’t need to be taken in other parts of the forest with more diverse stands of trees, the Aspen Times reports.

The Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit is planning to use prescribed burning this fall to treat about 500 acres of aspen stands affected by sudden aspen decline and to regenerate aspen within the Battlement Mesa area north of Collbran.

While aspen generally are not treated with prescribed burns because of the higher moisture levels in aspen stands, BLM officials said prescribed fire may be a potential tool for regeneration in some areas and under certain conditions.

Plots of land in the treatment area will be monitored to help determine the effects of the treatment and the long-term effects of reintroducing fire into the ecosystem.

Aspen forests in many areas of western Colorado have experienced widespread, severe, rapid dieback and mortality.

This phenomenon, termed “sudden aspen decline,” has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2008, 553,000 acres of damage were recorded, which is more than 17 percent of the estimated acreage of aspen cover in Colorado.

Officials representing the U.S. Forest Service, the National Forest Foundation and Vail Resorts unveiled a $4 million plan yesterday that is intended to help Colorado recover from the 2002 Hayman Fire, the worst in Colorado’s recorded history, the Aspen Times reports.

Federal fire officials from the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit are planning several prescribed burns this fall in Mesa County in an effort to reduce hazardous fuels and improve wildlife habitat.

Crews from the Bureau of Land Management and the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests will be conducting the burns when weather, moisture and fuel conditions allow in September and October.

The first of those prescribed fires, the 100-acre Black Ridge burn, is scheduled for next week, conditions permitting. The burn is primarily in sagebrush and pinyon-juniper forests on BLM lands 13 miles west of Grand Junction in the Glade Park area.

A second prescribed fire, the Pine Mountain Prescribed Burn, is planned for sometime between Oct. 1 and Oct. 7. It will include about 290 acres of ponderosa pine and brush on the Uncompahgre National Forest, about 8 miles southeast of Gateway.

State Sen. Dave Schultheis (R) said today that the recent arrest of illegal immigrants plying the drug trade in Colorado’s national forests should sound the alarm for state officials about the growing role illegal immigration plays in expanding international drug cartels into the United States.

Schultheis called on Gov. Bill Ritter and the legislature to take aggressive action, including beefing up the Colorado State Patrol’s immigration enforcement unit. Schultheis said the state should consider requesting federal stimulus funding to step up state law enforcement against illegal immigration.

“The safety of our citizens ought to be the governor’s paramount concern and should take precedence in budget matters — even in a down economy,” Schultheis said in a statement. “It’s time to reprioritize.”

The Denver Post reported this week that a sweep by federal agents in the Pike National Forest near Deckers uncovered at least one weapon, piles of discarded garbage, propane tanks and more than 14,500 marijuana plants in an area the size of a football field. The drug cache reportedly could be the largest marijuana-growing operation ever found in Colorado.

The Post reported that Mexico-based drug cartels are increasingly growing marijuana in national forests to avoid the risks of smuggling Mexican-grown pot across the border. U.S. authorities say the cartels recruit workers from Mexico to spend months living in Colorado forests monitoring the plants. According to the Post, federal authorities say the drug operations pose a hazard to hikers who may happen upon the armed farmers in the woods and also threaten streams that can be polluted by chemicals used to grow marijuana.

Schultheis asked the governor to support a bill to require Colorado employers to utilize the federal E-verify program, ensuring their workers are lawfully in the country. Schultheis said he will introduce that bill again next year, even though the legislation has failed to pass in the past.

International drug cartels have turned portions of Colorado’s national forests into sophisticated marijuana growing operations, raising questions about visitor safety as well as potential impacts to water quality, the Denver Post reports.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack applauded Colorado’s efforts to create a plan for roadless areas in national forests within its borders, but he told the Denver Post he preferred a national plan for managing roadless forests.

The Colorado Department of Natural Resources released proposed revisions to the state’s draft roadless rule today that will affect the management of 4.1 million acres of roadless national forests within the state’s borders.

The state of Colorado has been working with the U.S. Forest Service and a wide variety of stakeholders since 2005 to develop a permanent conservation framework for the 363 roadless areas within the 11 national forests in Colorado.

A draft rule was first published in the Federal Register in July 2008.

Today’s release opens a 60-day comment period, after which DNR may consider making additional adjustments based on feedback it receives before finalizing its recommendations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture later this fall.