RIDGWAY – With the bark beetle destroying the forests of Colorado’s central Rocky Mountains and the Front Range, the pain of that devastating epidemic will soon be felt on the Western Slope as officials from the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests (GMUG) are expecting a 36 percent budget cut next year, with the funds being appropriated elsewhere to fight the pine beetle outbreak.

“If they are able to come up with other funds, some of this might be moot,” GMUG Deputy Forest Supervisor Sherry Hazelhurst told the commissioners from Montrose, San Miguel, Ouray, and Delta counties at a Nov. 17 tri-county work session held in Ridgway. “Right now, we are operating under the assumption that we will have 36 percent less than what we had in 2009.” The GMUG is a combination of separate National Forests on the Western Slope that cover over three million acres of public land.

According to Hazelhurst and a report by GMUG Forest Supervisor Charlie Richmond, with the 36 percent budget cut, the 2010 fiscal year budget will continue to support all fixed-cost commitments (permanent employees, fleet, rent and utilities), but target programs, s such as vegetation, watershed management, fuels treatment, recreation management, and road/trail maintenance, will be cut sharply.

“Most of what is cut is our discretionary costs,” Hazelhurst said, “like contractors, seasonal employees and getting goods and services to do a project. We recognize the emergency on the Front Range. This is the best we can do.”

The redirected GMUG funds will got to the Medicine Bow-Routt, Arapaho-Roosevelt and White River national forests – the three forests most heavily impacted with bark beetles. Hazelhurst said the emergency could last as long as three to ten years.

Hazlehurst said the GMUG is expecting to maintain the same level of fire preparedness, but that some workers may be shifted to the bark beetle emergency; the GMUG has also retained some work with the various county weed-management agreements already in place, as well. Some recreational facilities, including non-concessionaire managed campgrounds, visitor centers and restrooms may close, or be open for limited hours, due to the cuts. There will also be fewer road and trail miles being maintained by Forest Service crews.

Bill Steele, coordinator for the Public Lands Partnership, said at the meeting that he understands the severity of the pine beetle epidemic in other forests but that he doesn’t understand the notion of taking funds from (mostly) unaffected forests to fight the epidemic in another.

“Absolutely recognizing that it is an emergency on the Front Range, it doesn’t make sense to rob Peter to pay Paul and fund those efforts from the rest of us,” Steele said. “It’s neglecting the forest treatment here. It just doesn’t make sense to address the problem with this money. All or some of the temporary employees will be eliminated, maintaining trails will be reduced. In my opinion, what is scarier is that much if not all monies to fund forest treatment and management will be eliminated. It’s silly.”

San Miguel County Commissioner Art Goodtimes observed that siphoning public-lands funds in the beetle-kill effort could cause enough alarm for legislation to eventually be passed.

“It’s the perfect way to alert this,” Goodtimes said. “A lot of people will be upset. It’s not going to get legislation unless we have something to say that it is really hurting us. This will give us ammunition to do it.”

Goodtimes added that the redirection of precious funds to fight beetle kill would sound an alarm to legislators for perhaps one or two years, but longer than that would be “crazy.”