New leadership overseeing a portion of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, or 4FRI, promises to aggressively increase thinning operations by this time next year. 

The newly changed leadership team of Good Earth Power Arizona (GEPA) has set a goal to thin 15,000 acres of forest by May 2018. Before taking over management for the Northern Arizona branch of the program, the agency was averaging only 2,400 acres annually.

Leadership at GEPA changed six months ago following a lawsuit settlement in 2016 with Portland contractor Campbell Global. 

GEPA has the largest contract under the U.S. Department of Agriculture project.

It manages the thinning and restoring of 300,000 acres of federal wild land in the Coconino National forest.

The land is part of the 4FRI region, which includes a total of 2.4 million acres slated for restoration over the next five years. The Kaibab, Tonto and Apache-Sitgreaves forests make up the remaining regions under the federal Four Forest Restoration program.

GEPA’s CEO Bill Dyer said they also have plans to invest more than $100 million converting the closed Lumberjack Mill in Heber into a sustainable operation in composting. 

Dyer said a name change may come soon for GEPA, to help put the company’s history prior to the new team behind them.