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Montana gets federal funding to battle pine beetle |
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The Helena
Independent Record reports that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is
allocating $20 million to Montana for forest management and
conservation programs targeting areas affected by the mountain pine
beetle.
It’s part of the same program under which last month
the USDA said it was earmarking $40 million for Forest Service Region
2, where beetles have killed more than 2 million acres of pine trees in
Colorado and Wyoming. Last week, the federal agency said it would spend
an additional $14 million on damaged Idaho forests where the bark
beetles are also boring into trees and killing them.
The $20
million comes from the USDA budget, which already has been approved by
Congress. Disbursement of the funds for Montana will be done by Leslie
Weldon, the new regional forester for Region 1.
A recent
federal estimate noted that about 5 million acres of Montana forests
have been affected by the infestation, up from about 2 million acres
last year.
The additional funds will be especially welcome on
the Helena and Beaverhead-Deerlodge national forests, which are among
the most affected by beetles in Montana. More than half of the
983,000-acre Helena forest is infested, and one-third of the trees on
the 3.4 million acre Beaverhead-Deerlodge forest have been attacked by
the beetles.
http://www.helenair.com/news/article_5484ed98-026d-11df-b42c-001cc4c03286.html
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