Out of the frying pan into the fire: BHNF hires supervisor from WV

After a century of fire suppression, a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns, a lack of environmental litigators and GOP retrenchment the Black Hills National Forest has been broken for decades. 

Craig Bobzien lasted as supervisor of the BHNF for eleven years but retired in 2016 when the volume of shit hitting the fan just became too overwhelming. In June an interested party asked former acting Supervisor Jim Zornes to comment on the high turnover rate and the heinous state of affairs on the Forest. 

Now, West Virginian, Shawn Cochrane will be its sixth different leader this year and 11th in the past seven years.

Mark Van Every was the forest supervisor when the Resilient Landscapes project was approved. He said the forest had nearly double the number of mature trees under 16 inches in diameter than the forest plan called for. The full Bull Springs project area covers 13,422 acres. Of that, Nieman Timber Company [sic] has commercially harvested around 4,000 acres. An interview request to Neiman Enterprises was declined. However, an official with the company said in a statement the timber industry initially supported the concept of the Black Hills Resilient Landscapes [BHRL] project as proposed. [Bill Janklow's idea of public radio]

Because of failures of Republicans to control invasive species like cheatgrass and Eastern red cedar the grassland fire danger index will be in the extreme category today for eastern Pennington County.