University of Alaska Board of Regents Should Halt Southeast Timber Sale By Rebecca Knight May 17, 2014
The local community use area, which includes these sale locations, has already been hammered by a half century of industrial scale logging and the sales will only worsen the impacts. Logging activities could commence very soon unless the U of A's Board of Regents exercises it s discretion to either cancel the sales in their entirety or at least halt the process and meet with the affected communities first. The sales were planned in a collaborative effort with the U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Division of Forestry, not the local community, and were slipped by so fast that residents are just now becoming aware of the consequences. They were fast-tracked to dovetail with a nearby federal timber sale now being logged. In 2008 Alaska DNR's Division of Forestry convened the Landslide Science and Technical Committee to assess the geographic scope of landslide hazards to public safety associated with timber harvest on Mitkof Island. The committee documented Areas with public roads that are within 1/2 mi downhill from slopes >50% that have forests with commercial harvesting. The South Mitkof timber sale in particular, is proposed in this area of documented high landslide risk, and is directly above and adjacent to the only island highway and a popular recreation area and boat launch. In fact, the area has already experienced massive landslides. Other landslide research demonstrates any type of logging on unstable slopes will increase landslide risk by a factor of five, endangering public safety and any infrastructure. Moreover, both sales occur in high value Sitka black-tail deer winter range. Habitat loss for deer played a large role in the Board of Game s recent decision to reduce nearby Kupreanof s Lindenberg Peninsula deer season to the length of the Mitkof season - the shortest season with the lowest bag limit of anywhere in SE Alaska. The Board later authorized predator control for the Alexander Archipelago wolf in the local area because loss of winter range combined with recent severe winters crashed the deer population. According to the ADF&G, the annual deer harvest decreased from 216 in 1998 to only 22 during the 2012 Mitkof Island deer hunt. That year it took 147 hunters over 565 hunter-days to harvest 22 deer. That's over 25 hunter days for one deer. Finally, the scenic Wrangell Narrows will have a highly visible, mile and a half long scar in full view of tourists and nearby residents, despite it's designation as an All American highway under the National Scenic Byways System. The system s objective is that its byways be developed and managed to serve the communities through which they pass , recognize and address the needs of the traveler, and development strategies should be a product of the local communities of people who live near the byway There has been no recognition by the University of the scenic values and scenic status of Wrangell Narrows. Alcan and Sealaska, the successful bidders, are allowed to export 100% of these logs, along with the local milling jobs they would otherwise provide. They'll be loaded on freighters headed to Asia and elsewhere. Columbia Helicopters, based in Portland, Oregon, which is currently working the federal timber sale on nearby Kupreanof Island, will also likely work the University timber sales. Other than a few summer logging jobs, our communities will realize few to no benefits, monetary or otherwise, but will clearly realize the shortcomings. All this so that habitat, our most valuable resource, can be quickly exported directly to Asia and elsewhere. Our island landscapes are being reduced to colonial-style export plantations. Sincerely, Rebecca Knight About: "Rebecca is a longtime Petersburg resident, a former US Forest Service forester and a retired ADF&G fisheries technician. She continues to commercial fish with her family." Received May 14, 2014 - Published May 17, 2014
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