Lodgepole Pine and the Beetle Killing It

David Patzke
NR 320
Right now there are approximately two million acres of lodgepole pine in the United States that have been killed by the Mountain Pine Beetle and even more has been killed in Canada. The foresters have not been able to find anything that will stop the outbreak and are waiting for it to pass over. The big question to ask is what to do with the killed trees once the beetle is gone and the wood becomes stained blue by a bacterium if it is left on the ground for too long. Also, what would be the impact to the people that rely on the timber for jobs and the dangers of leaving the wood lying on the ground.
Right now the state forests are trying to create markets for wood products that contain the blue stain and other features of the wood like the small holes caused by the insects. I am not sure that this is the right approach to take. I would much rather see the wood left on the ground for woody biomass or used as some kind of biomass fuel than trying to create a short term market that never existed for a short term problem that will not be around in thirty years. I do not know what could be done with the rest of the wood or what the best options are for using the wood. This seems like a large waste of time and money because it would appear that the forest services are trying to do this as a public relations move. I think that they want it to appear that they are trying to do something when in reality they know that there is really nothing they can do at all.
The only real big concern I would have with leaving all of the wood on the ground is that it could become a very dangerous fire hazard with all of that extra fuel being dead and dried out on the ground. This could become an even bigger problem now because of the terrible drought that the northwest is in. Then you would also have to consider the amount of nutrients that are lost to volatilization further degrading the site. The worst part about this could be that all of the wood that is burned up could not be used by the timber industry to support it.
The other concern that I might have is that there is not enough timber going to the mills if the wood is left on the ground to decay or burn up. The mills right now are not doing very well because of the poor economy and by not having enough wood to maintain the mills and then they would probably have to be closed. This is the problem that I think a lot of non-industry people do not understand is that people would be counting on this wood to have a job and provide for their families.
All of these things taken together lead to a very volatile situation with no really good solution for any of the parties involved and will lead to more problems in the future for all of the land managers making the decisions in the future.