Medicine Bow - Routt National Forests
Thunder Basin National Grassland

USDA Forest Service
Medicine Bow-Routt
National Forests,
Thunder Basin
National Grassland
2468 Jackson Street
Laramie, WY 82070
307-745-2300

Telephone for the
Hearing Impaired
307-745-2307

News Release

USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Region
Medicine Bow & Routt National Forests, Thunder Basin National Grassland

Contact: Diann Ritschard 970-870-2187

Forest Service Releases Plan to Remove Beetle-kill Trees Along Roadways

 

Laramie, Wyo., (June 2, 2008) – The public is invited to review the Forest-wide Hazardous Tree Removal and Fuels Reduction Environmental Assessment (EA) and the Finding of No Significant Impact. The EA describes the potential effects of a proposal to fell and/or remove hazardous trees within 150 feet of the centerline of National Forest System Roads open to public travel on the Medicine Bow and Routt National Forests . Most of the trees being removed were killed by the Mountain Pine beetle. The dead trees can fall without warning, posing a serious safety hazard to the public. Removal of the trees will reduce that hazard.

The proposal also includes felling and/or removing hazardous trees along state and county roads that cross the National Forests and felling and/or removing hazardous trees in and adjacent to developed recreation sites and administrative sites. In addition, the proposal includes felling, but not removing, hazardous trees along motorized and non-motorized trails.

The project area includes National Forest System lands in Albany and Carbon Counties in southern Wyoming and Routt, Jackson , Grand, Rio Blanco, Moffat, and Garfield Counties in northern Colorado .

The Forest Service plans to begin removing trees this summer and will continue tree removal for the next 10 years. Priority for scheduling treatments would be determined annually by: a) the severity of bark beetle infestation, tree mortality, the severity of safety hazard posed; b) maintaining safe access to important public recreation sites and trails; c) maintaining requested ingress/egress to private inholdings; d) public desires for maintaining access into the National Forests; e) protection of facilities listed on the National Register of Historic Places; and f) protection of administrative sites, particularly those used to house seasonal employees.

Please visit www.fs.fed.us/r2/mbr/projects/foresthealth to read the EA and the Finding of No Significant Impact.

 

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Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests Thunder Basin National Grassland

2468 Jackson Street, Wyoming 82070-6535

www.fs.fed.us/r2/mbr