Site near Nederland to close July 9; alternate site near Allenspark to open Aug. 9

Boulder County, Colo. – Boulder County’s Forest Health Initiative is gearing up for its seasonal transfer of the county’s Community Forestry Sort Yard program from Nederland to Allenspark.

Because the county only has the resources and staff to operate one site at a time using an air curtain burner and related equipment to reduce volume and process woody material, the two sites operate on alternate schedules each season.

At 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 9, the Nederland area sort yard, located at 286 Ridge Road, will close for the summer. Residents using the Nederland area site are encouraged to continue with their beetle mitigation and defensible space improvement projects by cutting and transporting beetle-infested logs and slash to the site before mountain pine beetles begin flying in mid-July.

The Boulder County Commissioners are reviewing proposals for reopening the Nederland area sort yard on a limited basis this year to accept additional slash and logs from county residents. More information on potential dates and hours for these extra collections will be released later this summer.

Additionally, Nederland area residents are invited to attend and provide input about their experience using the sort yard in its first year of operation at a community meeting scheduled for 7 p.m., Tuesday, July 12, at the Nederland Community Center.

The Allenspark/Meeker Park sort yard, located on the Peak-to-Peak Highway just north of the Boulder-Larimer county line, will open for log and slash disposal at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 9 and remain open through Oct. 15. The Allenspark area site will not accept logs infested by mountain pine beetles until the majority of beetle flight has ended in mid-September.

To better understand the types and preferred lengths of material accepted at the sort yard, please visit www.BoulderCounty.org/ForestHealth before using the yard for the first time.

For more information about bark beetle management tips, upcoming trainings, and sort yard operations, contact Ryan Ludlow, Boulder County’s outreach forester, at 720-564-2641 or pinebeetle@nullbouldercounty.org.

-BoulderCounty.org-