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pay for the program. The county was expecting to receive about $200,000 to pay for the program this year but has only received $37,000. County officials said the program would need an additional $175,000 this year to continue the battle against the insect that has devastated about 400,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest in the Black Hills since 1996.
• "If we don't do anything, we could see (infected) trees multiply by another four to eight times over the next couple years," said Scott Guffey, supervisor of the county Weed and Pest Department.
• Commissioner Lyndell Petersen said the $80,000 is the first time in the past three years that the county has made use of emergency funds that usually cover disasters such as fires and blizzards.
• The mountain pine beetle infestation is a disaster of a sort and every bit as devastating as a forest fire.
• The long-term damage to the Black Hills and, by extension, to the tourism industry that depends on an aesthetically pleasing pine forest is too great to ignore.
• If the county hasn't had to use emergency funds in three years, it can count itself fortunate. The county's expenditure to keep the beetle kill program going is a reasonable use of emergency funds, in our view.
• Depending on federal funds for the pine beetle program has its dangers, as the county found out. Program funding can go away just as quickly as it appears.
• That's why it is vitally important that the Legislature approve Gov. Dennis Daugaard's $2 million appropriations request to continue funding county pine beetle eradication programs. We can't afford to do nothing while healthy trees succumb to the voracious mountain pine beetle.
• ___
• The Daily Republic, Mitchell, Feb. 19, 2013
• Open minds, creativity needed on area state park idea
• With one of the largest and best outdoors-themed retail stores in the state (Cabela's), a location along Interstate 90, and a major tourist attraction (the Corn Palace), Mitchell seems the ideal place for a nearby state park.
• In fact, with Mitchell's already thriving tourism and outdoors industries, we can think of few other places in South Dakota, outside of the Black Hills and Sioux Falls, where a state park and a city would be more mutually beneficial. Hundreds of thousands of people already stop in Mitchell every summer to visit the Corn Palace, so a steady stream of potential park visitors is nearly guaranteed.
• And if a state park were available for camping, more of those visitors might take the opportunity to spend a night. Beyond that, it would be a great addition to the quality of life for the more than 15,000 residents of the Mitchell area.

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