State Forest Service receives $1 million grant to fund forest management in Teller County

TELLER COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Woodland Park Field Office of the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) recently received a $1 million Landscape Resilience Investment grant through the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP) that will fund essential forest management activities near the North Catamount reservoir.

The CSFS said the grant money will fund a fuels treatment project that will help shift the risk from catastrophic wildfire on the landscape, increase protection to vital drinking water supply and infrastructure, protect wildlife habitat, and provide increased protection to communities adjacent to the North Catamount reservoir.

The project is expected to be complete by 2025.

According to the CSFS, the Colorado legislature passed SB21-258 with bipartisan support in April 2021, funding the Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program, creating a fund to stimulate on-the-ground fuels reduction projects to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, increase the resilience of the State’s vast forested landscape, and increase strategic forest management activities.