STURGIS, S.D. – Meade County Comissioners this week approved sending a letter to the Black Hills National Forest Supervisor’s Office opposing a proposed wilderness designation of the Beaver Park Roadless Area.
The designation is part of the revised Black Hills National Forest Plan.
Beaver Park lies within a high-use and high-growth area of Meade County that supports a diverse mix of economic, recreational, and agricultural activities. Commissioners say its proximity to the I-90 corridor, adjacency to private lands and the Black Hills National Cemetery, and its role in supporting forest health through ongoing fire mitigation projects make it incompatible with a wilderness designation.
Commissioner believe the designation would place undue restrictions on public access, vegetation management, grazing and other longstanding land issues.
The Beaver Park area was at the epicenter of a major mountain pine beetle outbreak in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s which resulted in extensive tree mortality and elevated wildfire risk that required urgent landscape level intervention.
