Will this cause inflation from higher lumber prices?
Road ban 'bullet' in loggers
Tongass restrictions set to start in 2004
By Paula Dobbyn
Daily News Reporter
(Published November 14, 2000)
The Clinton administration's decision to sweep the Tongass National Forest into a new forest protection policy amounts to putting "the last bullet in the head" of Alaska's beleaguered logging industry, said Jack Phelps, executive director of the Alaska Forest Association.
"They just loaded the gun," said Phelps, the timber industry's leading advocate in Alaska, speaking from his Ketchikan office.
The Forest Service unveiled a long-awaited plan on Monday that would put some 58.5 million acres of pristine national forest across the country off-limits to road building and logging.
An earlier draft of the policy exempted the Tongass. But the rule announced Monday includes at least 8.5 million acres of the 17-million-acre Tongass, a coastal temperate rain forest that covers Alaska's Southeast panhandle with massive trees and abundant wildlife, according to Mike Weber, Forest Service spokesman.
"Creation of the National Forest System by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt, although unpopular at the time, is today viewed as an enduring victory for conservation. It is my firm belief future generations will regard this proposal in the same light," said Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck in Washington, D.C.
The agriculture secretary has 30 days to sign the decision. Unlike other national forests, the new logging restrictions in the Tongass will be on hold until 2004.
"We held off the feds for now," said Gov. Tony Knowles in an interview. The Alaska Democrat lobbied unsuccessfully for the Clinton administration to exclude the Tongass from the roadless policy in a bid to protect the few remaining jobs the Southeast timber industry supports.
Since Congress scaled back logging with the Tongass Timber Reform Act in 1990, the industry has suffered major setbacks, including the closure of two large pulp mills that employed hundreds.
U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, called the roadless decision an "outrageous affront." Both he and Knowles noted that the Forest Service recently spent $13 million and more than a decade to update the plan that guides Tongass management, a blueprint that sharply scaled back logging. The decision Monday would override that plan and further restrict tree cutting, which undermines the Forest Service's integrity as a public agency, Knowles said.
Environmental groups applauded the new policy as long overdue and a victory for wildlife, recreation, fishing and subsistence.
"Now is the time to bring 21st century management to our last remaining old growth forest," said Matt Zencey, who manages the Alaska Rain Forest Campaign.
But delaying road-building restrictions until 2004 leaves important areas of the Tongass on the chopping block, said Aurah Landau, grass-roots organizer for the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. Moira Sound on Prince of Wales Island, Finger Mountain overlooking Tenakee Inlet, and Emerald Bay on the Cleveland Peninsula north of Ketchikan are all important areas for recreation, wildlife habitat and fishing that could still be chain-sawed, Landau said.
"Over the next couple of years, two-thirds of the timber sales on the Tongass are in roadless areas. The truth is we don't know how many of these areas will be around in 2004," Landau said.
The Forest Service estimates up to 214 miles of road will be built in untouched areas of the Tongass between now and when the policy takes effect. With the road ban in place, the amount of timber allowed to be cut off the Tongass will shrink from 153 million board feet a year to around 50 million, the agency forecasts. Timber interests have said that's barely enough wood to keep a cottage industry alive, and they predict the cut will be more in the range of 30 million board feet.
Monday's announcement came as little surprise to the Alaska logging industry.
At a recent Alaska Forest Association convention, the organization's attorney Jim Clark said he was certain the Tongass would be included as part of an environmental legacy President Clinton wants to leave. Clark said the industry would likely mount a legal challenge by amending an existing lawsuit against the Forest Service over logging cutbacks.
Phelps did not want to elaborate on the industry's legal strategy. But he said putting more of the Tongass into conservation violates the "no more" provisions of Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, a 1980 law that created 104 million acres of new national parks, refuges, wild rivers and other conservation units in the state. ANILCA's "no more" clauses, frequently cited by pro-development interests, limit land withdrawals to 5,000 acres unless Congress approves them.
The roadless policy would shrink the number of acres available for logging in the Tongass from 576,000 to 311,000.
Some hope for the industry lies with the possibility of a Republican takeover of the White House and a reversal of the logging ban. Regardless, the battle for the Tongass would likely continue.
If a Bush administration tries to roll back the roadless policy, "we'll be all over them like flies on garbage," Zencey warned.
Reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at pdobbyn@adn.com or 257-4317.
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