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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Forest Service faces resistance to Fryingpan logging plans

Elizabeth Stewart-Severy
/
Aspen Public Radio

The U.S. Forest Service has received 11 formal objections to its draft decision to log up to 1,800 acres in the Upper Fryingpan Valley.

The objections come from the Town of Basalt, local homeowners and forest advocates. The Town of Basalt is concerned about safety, as the project could bring heavy truck traffic down the narrow Fryingpan Road and through town. Fryingpan Valley homeowners are concerned about the forest ecology, as well as impacts to recreation in the area.

The project includes clear-cutting, mostly of lodgepole pines. The Forest Service said this will provide timber for local industry, including a biomass plant in Eagle and a mill in Montrose. Agency officials said it will also mimic wildfire and encourage regrowth of an old forest.

The Forest Service has 45 days to review the objections before making a final decision on the project.  

 

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.
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