Timber Cutting Continues on U.S. & Private Lands Amid
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MARK BRENNAN TIMBER CUTTING CONTINUES ON U.S. & PRIVATE LANDS The long-term future of timber harvesting on federal lands may be AMID PROPOSED TRANSITION TO YOUNG-GROWTH HARVEST decided in D.C. Federal foresters are laying out a transition to young- IN PUBLICLY OWNED STANDS WITHIN TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST growth timber over the coming 10-15 years, but an industry built to harvest federal court and the U.S. feet of timber would go through and process old-growth trees argues ACongress in 2017 put two big Viking Lumber in Klawock—the last that the new regime would finish off swaths of Southeast Alaskan forest medium-sized sawmill in Tongass most of the remaining year-round jobs into play for prospective timber National Forest. USFS also laid out in wood manufacturing. harvest—infusions of short-term help sales near Big Thorne for small mills. USFS foresters propose that eventu- for an industry while long-term issues The other prospective boost for circle in Washington, D.C. ally most timber logging came from Congress. taken on federal The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court in spring When Alaska Mental Health Trust land will come A U.S. COURT 2017 turned aside environmental- proposed logging on Deer Mountain from areas & CONGRESS ists’ challenges to the Big Thorne in Ketchikan’s iconic backdrop, local harvested timber sale on Prince of Wales Island, uproar led Alaska’s congressional decades PUT TWO BIG SWATHS releasing about 6,000 acres of old- delegation to push through a land growth timber and 2,300 acres of swap in 2017. The trust traded its land OF FOREST INTO PLAY young growth for a pending cutting behind Ketchikan for federal forest program. Most of 149 million board around Prince of Wales Island. FOR PROSPECTIVE HARVEST 72 OUR TOWN DISCOVER KETCHIKAN RETURN TO CONTENTS PAGE ago and regrown in young trees. The A MASSIVE INVENTORY OF TIMBER authors of the conversion to young- U.S. Forest growth projects say that a decade-plus LANDS WAS MEANT TO PRODUCE of mixed-age harvests will “support the transition in a way that preserves DETAILED INFORMATION, Service a viable timber industry” in Southeast. TIMBER STAND BY TIMBER MULTIPLE-USE MANAGEMENT In 2016-17, Tongass forest personnel collaborated with the state’s Division STAND, FOR DECISION- COVERS 17 MILLION ACRES of Forestry on a massive inventory of timber lands. The assay was meant contracts by MAKERS & STAKE- OF TIMBER HARVEST, the end of 2017. to produce detailed information, RECREATION & CULTURE timber stand by timber stand, for The Vallenar HOLDERS decision-makers and stakeholders. project would Ketchikan was the first HQ Crews surveyed 137 timber stands harvest roughly for Alaska’s federal foresters encompassing 12,165 acres during 4 million board feet of young growth and it’s still a nerve center for field work in 2016. Foresters in 2017 from 170 acres of national forest land. management. inventoried another 12,250 acres— The project area is on Gravina Island Nearly 150 people in Ketchikan including young-growth forest on near Ketchikan’s airport. Tongass work for the United States Revilla Island. National Forest staff anticipated Department of Agriculture Forest Service. One of them is the Tongass In the meantime, federal foresters implementation of the harvest in 2018. National Forest supervisor, who proposed harvests of young-growth The state made the proposed federal has administrative oversight across trees near Ketchikan and west of timber sale practical by building a the entire forest. Ketchikan-Misty Prince of Wales Island. USFS said that road to adjacent state forest land in an Fjords Ranger District is based here. the Vallenar and Kosciusko young- unrelated public works project. growth projects would help private Another state road is threading into The first U.S. forester posted to industry bridge from old-growth timber land at Shelter Cove on Revilla Alaska set up shop in Ketchikan in to young-growth—that is, gear up Island. Passing through federal forest, 1902, soon after President Teddy gradually while finding markets for Native corporation timber and parcels Roosevelt proclaimed a forest a new product. But the Alaska Forest owned by the Alaska Mental Health reserve in a third of the Panhandle. Association (AFA), Trust, the road will Alaska was a district of the U.S. and an industry advocate, FOREST FACTS benefit both timber became a territory in 1912. contends that federal Tongass National Forest has more harvesting and recre- Tongass National Forest now young-growth timber land mass than 10 U.S. states, such as ational access. encompasses nearly 17 million volumes won’t sustain West Virginia or Maryland. Old-growth logging acres of land spanning 500 year-round manufac- on Native land is in a miles, southeast of Ketchikan to Recreational visits in the forest northwest of Yakutat. About four- turing in the region. mini-boom. Sealaska number almost 3 million every year, fifths of Southeast Alaska is in the And AFA argues that Corp., the regional with estimated value of $380 million. national forest. the state’s young About 5,000 jobs are supported by Native corporation, trees are likely to recreational visits. claimed more than USFS manages for multiple uses: be exported in the 68,000 acres of federal timber harvest; mining; recreation; The Tongass has one of the nation’s round —not running forest in 2015—its wildlife habitat; and cultural largest silver producers. Greens through sawmills to final allotment in preservation. Ketchikan is home support jobs. Creek Mine turns out 2,400 tons of to foresters, engineers, biologists, ore each day and employs more than the Alaska Native AFA and the industry Claims Settlement archaeologists, recreation 800 people. Kensington Mine, an programmers and many other lobbied in Wash- Act. This transfer of underground gold mine, supports specialists. ington, D.C., against more than 300 jobs. Tongass forest land to the land-management Sealaska was expected The agency’s work is seen in plan amendment for to yield 30 million to trails and cabins. The public uses Tongass National Forest that was 50 million board feet of timber per agency-mapped logging roads for signed in late 2016, before a change of year. Because private landowners recreation access—particularly administrations. Aside from concerns aren’t subject to primary manufacture on Prince of Wales Island. USFS about young-growth timber, the mandates imposed on national forest decisions on logging units affect industry argues that only a fraction timber, most Native logs will go to our economy and our viewsheds. of planned timber sales were imple- Pacific Rim markets in the round. Interpretation specialists provide mented by USFS in nearly a decade. Sawmills won’t reap much work from information on the forest’s the Sealaska timber, but dozens of natural history and the human As proposed, the Kosciusko young- presence. But much of the agency’s growth sale takes in about 30 million roadbuilders, loggers and support personnel will benefit. work is not so apparent. Stream board feet of young timber on federal rehabilitation projects and fish forest; cutting would be administered Timber industry employment in all of ladders improve salmon stocks. by the state’s Division of Forestry. Alaska—most of it in Southeast—is Archaeologists inventory and The project area on Kosciusko Island just more than 700 people, according protect culturally important sites. is about five miles west of Edna Bay. to the Resource Development USFS scientists study living things Tongass forest staff anticipated inking Council—compared to 4,600 in 1990. and natural processes. 73 OUR TOWN DISCOVER KETCHIKAN RETURN TO CONTENTS PAGE Catching fire? FUEL MADE FROM WOOD WASTE IS GATHERING INTEREST & INVESTMENT Fossil fuel is giving way to fiber fuel in some of Ketchikan’s public facilities and a local mill is delivering cost savings with a heat source that’s otherwise wasted. GREGG POPPEN GREGG A biomass energy conference in the First City in 2017 brought statewide attention to the range of wood energy Wood-energy conferees observed how mill waste becomes BTUs. benefits—and to the obstacles. Ketchikan International Airport fired up a wood energy boiler in 2016. Biomass-fired gear replaced the fuel-oil system in place since 1973. “We had options,” said Mike Carney, manager of the airport for Ketchikan Gateway Borough. “The least attractive was oil.” The borough studied biomass systems in Alaska and the Northwest— such as in schools, hospitals and corporate offices—before hiring Wisewood Engineering to design a plant. The capital cost was practically zero: grants from Alaska Energy Authority and the legislature funded the $700,000 system. POPPEN GREGG Fuel quality and costs were the operational touchstones. Biomass-fueled heating gear at the airport displaced an old diesel-fired system. Two pellet vendors offered bids. Tongass Forest Enter- prises scored well on quality and price. “The goal with reminded that planning and engineering are crucial—along biomass was to save money and to support another with reliable and cost-effective fuel supplies. Conference growing business in our community. We hit on both of organizer Karen Petersen of Thorne Bay, chair of the state’s those,” Carney said. The biomass boiler system may save wood energy development task force, said biomass can be as much as $30,000 a year compared to the fuel-oil plant. most beneficial in “remote communities where they have a wood resource they could convert—creating local jobs and Grants for engineering provided a bonus in a design for a no longer relying on someone to deliver fossil fuel.” biomass system at Ketchikan High School, which will have about eleven times the fuel demand of KIA’s installation. Larry Jackson, co-owner of Tongass Forest Enterprises, said his mill can turn out about 1,600 tons of combustible The Alaska Wood Energy Conference in Ketchikan in 2017 pellets each year.