About 2,000 dead and dying trees on 30 acres in the Park Lake area southwest of Helena will probably be logged as part of the Helena National Forest’s battle with mountain pine beetles.

Closer to home, federal lands in the South Hills of Helena also are on the priority list for removing both bug-infested and non-infested trees.

It’s the start of what’s expected to be an ongoing tree removal project for at least the next five years, as the Helena National Forest concedes its losing the battle with the beetles. Forest officials recently shifted gears, and now want to focus on removing trees that pose a hazard to people camping, hiking and playing in the woods; logging dead and live trees that can be used for lumber, or are on forest lands near homes; and thinning dense stands where the beetles seem to thrive.

“There are going to be landscape-level changes as we try to manage areas where we can mitigate fire dangers,” said Kevin Riordan, Helena National Forest supervisor. “We’re talking about doing some thinning, some sanitation salvage — removing infested trees before the beetles fly next July — and maybe even some chemical treatments in high-use areas like recreational sites and trail heads.

“If we get a cold winter I think that could knock them back, but I don’t expect that to happen. Barring that, I don’t see any other way to slow them until they run out of food, which is trees.”

Mountain pine beetles have killed trees on millions of acres in Colorado and British Columbia over the past decade, and the epidemic has moved into Montana in recent years. The most recent aerial survey, which was done in 2007, shows that at least 700,000 acres in Montana are infested with the rice-sized mountain pine beetle.

The insect bores its way into trees — mainly lodgepole pines but also Douglas fir, and ponderosa, whitebark and limber pines — and interrupts their nutrition systems, which kills the trees.

The beetles typically are a normal part of the forest ecosystem, drilling into trees near the end of their life cycle. When those trees die, they provide habitat for a wide range of critters from ground squirrels to birds.

Many scientists say that the high number of beetles present in forests these days has to do with years of drought that has stressed trees, making them less able to fight off the beetles. In addition, the warm winters haven’t culled their numbers; sustained below-zero temperatures usually keep their numbers in check.

In 2004 in the Helena National Forest, mountain pine beetles were present at normal levels in the Helena National Forest, found on about 14,000 acres. That almost doubled in 2005 to 25,000 acres and grew to 34,300 acres in 2006. By 2007, that number had tripled to 118,300 acres.

This summer’s aerial survey of the Helena forest showed that an estimated 380,000 acres hold beetle-killed trees. Those numbers lag behind a year, too, since the trees that were killed by the beetles take a year to turn to their tell-tale dead red color.

“With the Helena forest being almost 1 million acres, that’s roughly 40 percent of our lands. I’d say that’s a significant infestation,” Kevin Riordan, Helena forest supervisor, said this week. “Are we going to be able to go out there and grab all that stuff? Even if we had all the resources possible, I still don’t think we could do it all.

“So our team looked at the infestation levels across the forest and where we had opportunities that we might be able to do something.”

Last week, Riordan’s leadership team did a “rapid assessment” of the Helena forest, and identified eight areas where they either needed to protect public safety or infrastructure, and where they could do something relatively quickly, hopefully to create conditions that would slow the beetles’ spread. (See accompanying story)

But not everyone agrees that logging the forests is the only way to save them. Michael Garrity, executive director of the conservation group American Wildlands, says he supports the work proposed for Park Lake, and possibly in other areas, “as long as they follow the law.”

“And they don’t have a very good track record,” he added.

Garrity understands the need to thin out tree stands in places like the South Hills, where homes abut the thick forest and wildfires can race through fairly easily. But he said studies show thinning outside those areas doesn’t necessarily slow the spread of beetles or beetles, nor does it create healthier trees. Forest officials say thinning reduces trees’ competition for water and sunlight.

“Think about it — if you thin the stands, you get more sunlight in there and more wind, which dries out the forest floor, giving trees less moisture,” Garrity said. “It’s my understanding you’d have to cut down 80 percent of the trees to get rid of the beetles; then you’re destroying the trees to save the forest.”

Garrity adds that in his opinion, the thinning work done on the forests makes them look more like parks than wild areas, which is poor habitat for animals like elk. He thinks the Forest Service is using the beetle epidemic to scare the public.

Riordan has heard that argument. He counters, though, that when you have highly susceptible stands of lodgepole pines that probably are going to be killed by beetles anyway, that you might as well do what you can to preserve them or log trees while they still can be used for timbers.

What he and Garrity agree on is that it won’t be cheap.

It’s too early to do a cost estimate, Riordan said. Regardless, due to budget constraints for the Helena Forest, they’ve asked the regional headquarters for help with what are as of yet unknown costs that would be associated with the work.

But other forests also are in similar situations, and all of the national forests recently were told to cut their budgets in order to help pay for the high cost of fighting wildfires last summer.

“They’re committed to trying to help,” Riordan said, but he added that the regional office doesn’t necessarily have the money, either.

Garrity is worried that fewer contractors are bidding on timber sales than have in the past, which means the public may be the ones picking up the logging tab.

“A couple years ago it was costing around $1,400 per acre to do this kind of work,” Garrity said. “The federal government is giving money out like crazy, like with the $700 billion (Wall Street) bailout; where are we going to get all the money?”

Click here to view the official assessment and recommendations.

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com