The Black Hills National Forest will get an additional $2 million in federal money this year to battle mountain pine beetles, according to Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

Forest supervisor Craig Bobzien said the extra funds allocated by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack would be used against the beetle outbreak in areas of greatest risk in the hills.

 Bobzien said it would amount to about 20 percent of what the Black Hills National Forest will spend this fiscal year to fight the beetles in a broad band from the northern Black Hills near Custer Peak to the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve near Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

 “This will certainly be a help for us to do more of those kinds of treatments in conjunction with our base programs,” Bobzien said Monday.

 The $2 million is part of $40 million allocated in December by Vilsack to fight infestations in the Rocky Mountain Region. Colorado is slated to get $30 million, and Wyoming will get $8 million.

 Originally, Forest Service officials said the money would not be used directly in South Dakota but would be focused on heavy beetle infestations in Colorado and southern Wyoming.

 Thune said he wrote Vilsack outlining what he called the unique needs of the Black Hills National Forest.

 “This will come as very welcome news to those who have been working hard to protect the Black Hills,” Thune said in a press release Monday. “This infestation is having a dramatic effect on forests in the region and action needs to be taken before the situation deteriorates further. This infestation is leaving forests and the surrounding areas vulnerable to fire and watershed degradation.”

 Bobzien said the South Dakota congressional delegation and Gov. Mike Rounds all wrote letters encouraging Vilsack to help not only in Colorado and Wyoming, where beetles have infested more than 3 million acres, but also in South Dakota, where the infestation has reached 340,000 acres, nearly 30 percent of the 1.2 million-acre Black Hills National Forest.

 Bobzien said the extra $2 million would be used for treatments such as mechanical thinning and prescribed burning in the areas at highest risk, ranging from the central Black Hills to the upper part of the Spearfish Canyon drainage in the Northern Hills.

 About $5 million of the $40 million is coming from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds that the Forest Service has been using to reduce the threat of wildfires.

  

   Contact Steve Miller at 394-8415 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com