Udall visits plant center

MEEKER I The Upper Colorado Environmental Plant Center (Plant Center) was privileged to host Senator Udall on July 2. On his way to select the 2012 White House Christmas Tree in the White River National Forest, Senator Udall stopped by and learned more about what the Plant Center had to offer regarding plant material development for specific revegetation and reclamation applications for the Front Range and the upper reaches of the Colorado River watershed. A short tour of the Center highlighted plants that are being tested for use in revegetation of gas and oil production and transmission related activities, flowering plants that are beneficial to sage grouse, products suited to high elevation disturbances including post-fire revegetation, and species and planting techniques to replace Tamarisk and Russian olive along riparian areas.
While the Senator was visiting the Center, he met with and heard natural resource concerns from Rio Blanco County Commissioner Shawn Bolton; White River Conservation District president, J.D. Amick; Colorado Association of Conservation district president Gary Moyer and White River and Douglas Creek Conservation District executive director Callie Hendrickson. They shared the districts’ and county’s concerns regarding how the endangered species listing of the Greater Sage Grouse would impact the county, the impact of excess wild/feral horses on the range, and a brief summary of the districts’ Wood Utilization Study. The Senator was most interested in the Wood Utilization Study’s preliminary results that indicate standing beetle killed timber may maintain its integrity much longer than currently believed.