Timber sales topic for county

After the success of two cooperative efforts to manage the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest (B-DNF), Jefferson County has decided to form a committee to come up with projects to take the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Working Group.

The Lowlands project between Butte and Basin was the first approved under the Farm Bill and resulted in timber “sold way higher than what they had anticipated,” said Jefferson County Commissioner Leonard Wortman. Another project through the state’s “Good Neighbor” program also was the first approved through that program, he said.

With extensive damage to trees in the B-DNF from pine beetles, tree fall is a serious hazard, said Wortman.