Monday,  May 7, 2012 • Vol. 12--No. 298 • 15 of 30 •  Other Editions

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in Flandreau and several basements were flooded in Madison.
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War against SD tree bugs enlists unlikely fighters
VERONICA ZARAGOVIA,Associated Press

• SPEARFISH CANYON, S.D. (AP) -- Joe Shark's Native American heritage taught him to be leery of the timber industry on the South Dakota reservation where he grows apples and gooseberries, but a threat from an enemy no larger than a fingernail impelled him to grab a saw and join the loggers.
• For more than two decades, tiny pine beetles have been a colossal pain for two competing camps in the forests of the Black Hills region -- the American Indians seeking to preserve the trees and the timber workers who are chopping down thou

sands for profit. The infiltration of the bug has left countless trees dead, severely threatening both missions.
• It has reached such epidemic levels lately that Shark and other tribal farmers with longstanding opposition to logging aren't just muting their resistance but chipping in. They're helping to clear the infected trees in order to save the non-infected ones.
• "I don't agree with logging, and I never have, (but) I know in my heart I'm doing the right thing," said Shark,

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