Viewpoints
What does Ketchikan get?
by Chris Wilhelm
July 16, 2004
Friday
Editor Sitnews:
The state's Mental Health board
is making me cross-eyed & crazy. If logging Deer Mountain,
Minerva Mountain, and Gravina Island weren't enough! On to Leask
Lakes! The Mental Health board does not let the public provide
input on its decisions. Instead, they will take the trees from
our viewshed and popular recreation areas and sell them overseas
in the round. No processing, no thank you. Just the big trees
for export.
Mental Health does not have
to follow any of the guidelines established by the Forest Service
for logging and processing.
What does Ketchikan get? Loggers from down below to cut trees
for a few months. No logs will be processed here. Nothing for
the veneer plant. Nothing for local sawmills. Mental Health takes
the money back to Juneau. The Asians take our world's finest
old growth high grade Sitka spruce trees. Ketchikan takes a backseat
to corporate interests from OUTSIDE and gets a clearcut view
of Gravina. I get it.
Ketchikan gets the stumps. Now I live in the 3rd world.
Our local representatives seem to be powerless to alter this
course.
Mental Health Lands Trust is charged with protecting the long-term
productivity of Trust Land, maximizing long-term revenue from
Trust Land, and diversifying revenue-producing uses of Trust
Land, to be managed prudently and with accountability to its
beneficiaries.
Please join me in writing the Mental Health board and express
your sentiments.
Sincerely,
Chris Wilhelm
E-mail: citytours@kpunet.net
Ketchikan
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and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sitnews.
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