Pine Beetles Devastating Areas of the Black Hills
Local News
by
Kyle Horan
last edited on
Friday, September 03, 2010
Just take a drive in the Black Hills and you can see the devastating effects of the pine beetle.
The rust-colored trees you see are actually dying from the pesky bug which creates a major fire danger.
Forest officials and state leaders are trying to get the problem under control without much success.
From the top of Custer’s peak, if you look across the hills brown patches can be seen among the green pine trees.
These patches of brown are trees that have already been killed by the pine beetle infestation.
"We have literally lost the Black Hills. There is very little they can do anymore to catch it," says Donnie Quaschnick, Custer Peak resident.
People in the hills are fed up.
“The problem we're having is the bugs are taking us over. They are eating us alive. They completely surrounded our property, our neighbors, all of us. We are kind of in a dead zone I guess,” says Steve Nothdurft of Mystic Hills Campground.
What happens is mature pine beetles come out of the trees in early Aug., then they fly to an adjacent tree, burrow in, and lay their eggs. The beetle larvae then eat and kill the tree from the inside over the winter, and the cycle starts over.
Trees that are 50 to 100 years old can be wiped out in just a year, and local property owners say that the forest service isn't doing enough.
"I don't know what their problem is. Whether they are restricted by government regulations, which is a large part of it. They are restricted to what they can do and how they can do it," says Quaschnick.
And all these dead trees are a fire danger.
"If I had a fire come through here, I wouldn't have anything left. Who would come to a burnt out campground?" says Nothdurft.
Nothdurft also says he thinks if the forest service cut a fire break around his property it would save it from the bugs and even a forest fire, but officials at the forest service disagree.
"So, just cutting a strip in a narrow place will not necessarily make a difference. It will reduce the fuels in whatever that otherwise would have happened as a result of dying trees there," says Bob Thompson of the National Forest Service.
Thompson says the only way to combat the pine beetles is on a large scale.
"Their preferred habitat is dense, mature trees, so what we try to do is to thin out the forest and maintain it in a thinner state, not every place, but where ever we can. And also to remove any bug infested trees," says Thompson.
In the meantime, Nothdurft is doing everything he can to keep his property from going up in flames.
Friday, the forest service said it will take public comments for 30 days on a plan to reduce the risk of mountain pine beetle infestation in part of the Black Hills National Forest.
That environmental statement is for about 41,000 acres in the Northern Hills Ranger District northwest of Rapid City.