WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet announced that Colorado will receive $30 million from the U.S. Forest Service to address the impacts of the bark beetle and spruce beetle epidemics and to protect people and property. The funds will be focused in Medicine Bow & Routt, Arapaho & Roosevelt, and White River national forests – which together contain almost 3 million acres of dead lodgepole pine trees. Of that $30 million, $2 million will go to help address spruce beetle and other forest health issues on the Western Slope and in Southern Colorado.

The funding was made available at the urging of Senators Udall and Bennet, who last year wrote U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, asking him to make emergency resources available to help Western states address immediate needs related to the bark beetle epidemic. Secretary Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service, agreed on Dec. 8 to make $40 million available for bark beetle-caused public safety, infrastructure and ecological damage.

Today's announcement provides more details, including that the bulk of the funding will go to Colorado.

“Colorado communities have been at the epicenter of the bark beetle epidemic. We now have millions of acres of dead and dying trees that could threaten people's safety, damage and disrupt infrastructure, or add fuel to wildfires. So this additional funding – which has come at our request – is very good news,” said Senator Udall, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “I have worked for many years to get additional resources to help keep the public safe from wildfire and falling trees and to improve the overall health of our forests. These funds will help enable communities to better protect property, people and facilities, help keep trails and campsites open, and create and sustain jobs.”