Beetles, climate change reducing water quality, supply

By Mike Lawrence (Contact)

Steamboat Springs — This spring, in the Yampa/White river basin, snowpack peaked on March 13 at a level that was 72 percent of average for that date.

According to statistics compiled throughout decades by the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, the snowpack’s peak — when snow contains its highest amount of water — came 31 days before the average peak date of April 13.

Gary Severson, executive director of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, said bark beetles, which infest weak trees and essentially strangle them by cutting off nutrient channels, could impact about 1 million acres in 15 Western Slope counties — killing up to 90 percent of the lodgepole pine trees in that area.

“We are the epicenter of the mountain pine beetle epidemic that’s going on,” Severson said. “Most of these forests are the headwaters for our rivers and streams … we’re in the process of seeing an entire lodgepole pine forest die, right before our very eyes.”

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