KALISPELL - The state parks agency plans logging in popular Lone Pine State Park to remove trees killed by mistletoe, beetles and drought, a project that could start as early as next month.

Twenty percent of the standing Douglas fir and larch trees in the heavily forested park are dead, up from 4 percent in a span of just five years, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said Thursday.

The agency's regional supervisor in Kalispell, James Satterfield, recently authorized the logging. Trees on about 70 acres of the 239-acre park will be removed, said Dave Landstrom of the agency's Kalispell office.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks had endorsed a larger project, which drew criticism from the public. Concerns cited during the comment period included aesthetic effects and proliferation of noxious weeds, which Landstrom said will be one outcome of disturbing the land.

If a timely contract can be signed, then logging could begin in February and continue for about a month, he said. Landstrom said rehabilitation of the land, including work to combat the projected surge in noxious weeds, will continue at least three years.

The park on slopes five miles southeast of Kalispell "receives the kind of use an urban park gets," Landstrom said. It is a popular place for jogging, and in the summer Lone Pine frequently is a stop for travelers en route to Glacier National Park.

"It's one of those edge-of-town parks that has strong local use," Landstrom said. "It's going to be incumbent upon us to do a very good job" in managing the problem of dead and dying trees.

Landstrom said one goal of the logging is to give the forested landscape openings that will encourage new growth of trees. Some of those removed will be used for lumber and others for pulp, he said.

Beetle and mistletoe infestations are widespread problems in northwestern Montana forests.