Bark beetles are feasting on N.M. ponderosa pines

SANTA FE, N.M. — A cousin of the bark beetles that are attacking pinyon trees in northern New Mexico is feasting on ponderosa pines in the Santa Fe National Forest.

The forest has hired a logging company — Jemez Mountain Forest Products — to thin about 100 acres in the Redondo campground in the Jemez Mountains west of Santa Fe this winter to fight the problem.

"We're hoping to stop it here so it doesn't take hold and take off up the mountain," said Tom Malecek, timber staff officer of the forest.

Bark beetles killed more than 300 large ponderosa pine trees last year at the Paliza campground on the southwest side of the Jemez Mountains, and foresters are beginning to see more sick and dying pine trees in other areas of the Jemez.

The federal government is paying Jemez Mountain Forest Products about $550 per acre to thin the campground.

The company's owner, Larry Garcia of Jemez Springs, also will be able to sell wood products from about 250,000 board-feet of saw timber from cutting from campground trees 9 inches in diameter or larger.

He said he expects to complete the project in February.

The thinning project is the first so-called "stewardship contract" in the U.S. Forest Service's New Mexico-Arizona region under President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative, which lets loggers take some larger trees to offset costs they incur thinning smaller, unwanted trees to reduce fire danger and improve forest health.

Environmentalists say, however, that removing larger trees increases fire danger.

Trees that the Jemez loggers can cut down have been sprayed with blue paint. Many of those trees are sick from bark beetle infestation or from overcrowding from other trees.

"Generally, we mark the suppressed, dead or dying trees," Malecek said. "You don't want to take the big, healthy trees. We're not taking the big yellow-bellied trees that are growing good."

After the logging, the campground's trees should grow large and healthy because they will have less competition for water, sunlight and space, said Ronnie Herrera, timber staff officer for the Jemez district.