Governor concerned about impact of bark beetles

Cheyenne, WY – Governor Dave Freudenthal appears very worried about the impact bark beetles are having on the National Forests. Wyoming Public Radio's Renny MacKay reports.

Freudenthal sent a letter to the Secretary of the U-S Department of Agriculture this week with a dire assessment of the health of Wyoming's forests. The governor says catastrophic wildfires may become more prevalent in the state, because of the beetle killed trees. He is asking the federal government to act now to address the problem.
"Next year may not be as wet as this year was. We did really well this summer. We didn't have a lot of dry lightening, we had moisture. A lot of these places that had lightening strikes that might have turned into fires was accompanied by moisture."
Freudenthal sent a list of suggestions for what the federal government could do to take on bark beetles. He says a lot of it comes down to reallocating money so dollars that were meant to deal with bark beetles doesn't get siphoned off to fight wildfires.
For Wyoming Public Radio I'm Renny MacKay.