{"id":44787,"date":"2021-09-09T02:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T08:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-says-legislation-could-help-fund-fire-mitigation-efforts-in-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:21:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:21:41","slug":"bennet-says-legislation-could-help-fund-fire-mitigation-efforts-in-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-says-legislation-could-help-fund-fire-mitigation-efforts-in-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennet says legislation could help fund fire mitigation efforts in Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet talks with local fire and forestry agencies about fire mitigation Wednesday at the Lions Den on the eastside of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sen. Michael Bennet met with local fire and forestry agencies Wednesday in Durango to discuss projects in the area that could benefit from the Colorado Democrat\u2019s proposed Outdoor Restoration Partnership Act.<\/p>\n

If included in the Senate\u2019s upcoming budget, the act would secure up to a $60 billion investment in forests and watersheds spread over 10 years.<\/p>\n

If approved, $40 billion would be allocated to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with states and tribes on projects to support forest and watershed restoration and wildfire mitigation projects. The remaining $20 billion would go toward funding local governments and collaborative groups for conservation, restoration and wildfire mitigation projects.<\/p>\n

\"Hal
Hal Doughty, chief of Durango Fire Protection District, speaks with Sen. Michael Bennet and local forestry agencies Wednesday at the Lions Den in Durango. Mitigation work has reduced the threat of wildland fire in the area. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re here to talk about what we need to do to protect our watersheds and talk about forest mitigations that have just been ignored for far too long,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

The discussion brought together the city of Durango, La Plata County, the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Forest Service, Durango Fire Protection District, Durango-based forestry collaboratives, timber industry and the Southwest Conservation Corps.<\/p>\n

Much of the discussion with officials in Durango focused on wildfire mitigation projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cFire knows no political jurisdiction. \u2026 It\u2019s going to take collaboration to do this,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the bill is designed to have some of the money go to federal agencies and some of the money \u2026 to state and local agencies so that we can all work together on this project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The west side of Durango has been threatened several times over the years with wildfire. Local officials who met Wednesday with Sen. Michael Bennet said additional mitigation work is needed. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Local partners talked with Bennet about wildfire mitigation projects that have been undertaken, and some of the challenges they\u2019ve faced to complete those projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one-size-fits-all as far as fire mitigation treatment is concerned,\u201d said Amy Schwarzbach, natural resource manager at Durango Parks and Recreation. \u201cSome of the challenges we\u2019re seeing behind the houses is limited access and terrain \u2013 steep terrain with very few vehicular access points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the usefulness of the mitigation projects, Durango Fire Protection District Chief Hal Doughty mentioned how helpful wildfire mitigation was when trying to direct the 416 Fire in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get to a point where you ask, \u2018Do these mitigation projects really work?\u2019 The truth of the matter is that the 416 Fire stopped at Falls Creek and was turned back up into that area where that mitigation had happened previously,\u201d Doughty said.<\/p>\n

\"Local
Local fire and forestry officials talk Wednesday with Sen. Michael Bennet about wildfire mitigation projects that have been undertaken, and some of the challenges they\u2019ve faced to complete those projects. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After hearing about ways entities are collaborating to get mitigation done in the Durango area, Bennet said he hopes more funding is on its way with the Outdoor Restoration Partnership Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur counties and cities and water districts are already doing this work, as we\u2019re talking about it today. It\u2019s something that we historically didn\u2019t do, and something we don\u2019t fund,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cIt is every bit an investment in infrastructure that building a road out here is. I would argue more so.\u201d<\/p>\n

njohnson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet, center, listens to Hal Doughty, chief of Durango Fire Protection District, speak about fire mitigation in the area that has helped reduce the dangers of wildland fire. Additional work is needed, he said. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator discusses potential benefit of Outdoor Restoration Partnership Act for Southwest Colorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1030,28,29,25,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-environment","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86228,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44787\/revisions\/86228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44787"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}