CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SOUTH LAKE TAHOE : U.S. Set to Triple Dead Tree Logging

The U.S. Forest Service plans to triple the amount of logging in the Tahoe Basin next year in an effort to clear an estimated one out of five dead and dying fir trees in the Sierra Nevada, officials said. Three years of drought and an ongoing attack by the fir engraver beetle have wiped out large sections of forest and speckled the once-emerald-green basin with brown trees. “Look at any hillside and 10% to 100% of the trees are dead in any given area,” said the Forest Service’s John Swanson in South Lake Tahoe. “There are well over 50 million board-feet in the Tahoe Basin that are dead or dying trees. They may look alive but they aren’t.”