MBP Control Program 2016-2017 Concluding
The Mountain Pine Beetle control program for 2016-17 has begun wrapping up for the season.
In total, nearly 22,000 infested trees were controlled in the Hinton region since October. These trees were either successfully removed through harvesting efforts or single tree removal. This was a monumental effort that required the cooperation and coordination of the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, West Fraser and the Town of Hinton.
In the Town of Hinton specifically, we had originally surveyed the Town limits in October of 2016, and at that time had determined approximately 300 trees had to be controlled. The Government of Alberta has a Municipal Pine Beetle Control Grant Program that we were able to access for $66,200. As the winter progressed, and more and more infested trees became evident because of their transition from green to red (known as ‘faders’), we chose to submit an amendment to our original grant application so as to hopefully control the significant increase in visibly infested trees. As of May, we had increased our original scope of our program to up to 1000 trees (within just the Town of Hinton), and this would cost an additional $114,000.
Thankfully, with the support of the Department of Agriculture & Forestry, we successfully received these additional funds to continue to challenge the mountain pine beetle issue in our community.