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Ketchikan: Timber Sale On Hold, Road Link Allowed to Proceed By MARY KAUFFMAN - The U.S. Forest Service’s Alaska Regional Forester Beth Pendleton has directed the Tongass National Forest to put the Saddle Lake Timber Sale on hold until a supplemental environmental review can be completed and further public comments are considered. Friday’s decision still allows a fish pass to be built to help spawning salmon and construction of a 1.1-mile road link.

An aerial October 2015 photo of the Alaska Mental Health Trust’s nearly 4,000 acre clear-cut that is adjacent to the Saddle Lakes project area
Photo Courtesy Greenpeace

The proposed Saddle Lakes Timber Sale project is located in the middle of Revillagigedo Island, east of the city of Ketchikan, on a peninsula between George and Carroll Inlets. The project would harvest approximately 30- 47 million board feet (MMBF) of timber on about 2,207 acres using cable, shovel, and helicopter logging systems; and would construct up to 16 miles of NFS system and temporary road.

In a March 9th letter to Greenpeace, Pendleton agrees with the complaint that the original Environmental Impact Statement hadn’t sufficiently considered the effects of additional logging that likely would take place after the planned transfer of about 8,000 acres of National Forest Service land to Alaska Mental Health Trust.

“We’re glad to see this project put on hold,” said Dune Lankard, senior Alaska representative for the Center for Biological Diversity. “This kind of destructive logging comes at a steep price for wildlife including wild salmon, wolves and goshawks that call these incredible forests home. Revilla Island is a treasure of Southeast Alaska and deserves better than continued massive clearcutting.”

Although the timber sale is delayed, the Forest Service is authorizing a right-of-way to the State of Alaska to build the long-planned six-mile Shelter Cove Road. The road would be a low-volume road, rock and gravel road between two existing low-standard roads that would extend from the end of Revilla Road at Harriet Hunt Lake all the way to the Shelter Cove on Carroll Inlet. The 1.1-mile road link is on Forest Service land.

The proposed road project would provide vehicle access to Shelter Cove and would allow the public increased opportunities for recreation, subsistence hunting and gathering, tourism, and small scale economic development consistent with public land use plans and policies.

The decision to put the sale on hold was in response to a formal objection by environmental groups. Although the groups support building the fish pass, the conservation groups oppose the right-of-way.

In November 2015, environmental groups objected to the project’s final environmental impact statement and an accompanying draft project decision. The proposed decision was for 47 million board feet of logging and 37 miles of road construction and reconstruction.

Organizations requesting further public comments on the Saddle Lake Timber Sale included Greenpeace, Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community (GSACC), Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, and The Boat Company. - More...
Tuesday AM - March 15, 2016

Saxman: RURAL COMMUNITY STATUS RESTORED TO SAXMAN VILLAGE - After ten years of arduous effort, the Organized Village of Saxman announced they are filled with gratitude at the recent decision by the Federal Subsistence Board (FSB) to remove Saxman from the list of nonrural communities, thereby recognizing Saxman as a rural community. Under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), rural community members enjoy a priority to harvest wild fish and game on federal public lands and waters. In 2006, however, the Village of Saxman took the stance that the FSB wrongfully classified Saxman as a non-rural community, thereby denying its citizens the subsistence rights they had exercised since time immemorial.

The Federal Subsistence Board (FSB) officially restored the rural status of Saxman on March 10, 2016. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) grants a harvest priority of fish and game on public lands, but this priority is only extended to “rural communities”; however, in 2006, under political pressure from the State of Alaska, the FSB terminated Saxman’s rural status and grouped the village with the larger city of Ketchikan. Represented by Native American Rights Fund, Saxman later filed suit to restore its rural status, but parties settled the case in favor of this administrative fix.

The Organized Village of Saxman, worked for over ten years to restore the community’s rural status. The Native American Rights Fund expressed congratulations to all of the tribal citizens and community members who worked for so long to restore their essential subsistence rights.

“The importance of being recognized as a rural community is acute for Saxman and is crucial to survival. Subsistence is an essential cultural practice, a traditional worldview that is at the heart of surviving and thriving in Saxman,” said Lee Wallace, Tribal President of the Organized Village of Saxman. - More...
Tuesday AM - March 15, 2016

Fish Factor: Alaska fishing permits plummet By LAINE WELCH - Fire sale salmon prices last year and a dim outlook for the upcoming season have caused the value of Alaska fishing permits to plummet.

To another extreme – the prices for halibut catch shares have soared to “unheard of levels.”

Starting with salmon permits: “A lot of people had disastrous seasons last year, whether it was drift gillnet or seine permits, and the values have declined dramatically,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.

At Alaska’s bellwether fishery at Bristol Bay, a base sockeye prices of 50 cents a pound helped push drift gillnet permit prices into the $98,000 range, down from $175,000 last spring.

“That may be the bottom; they seem to have come up a bit,” Bowen said, “but it’s still way below what they were trading for at this time last year.”

The lower prices have spawned little interest in Bay drift permits; likewise, for salmon seine cards across the state.

Seine permits at Prince William Sound are priced in the $150,000 range, down from over $200,000 a year ago. Kodiak seine permits have sunk into the mid $30s, and a Cook Inlet drift permit is valued in the $60,000 range.

Bowen doesn’t expect the tide to turn anytime soon.

“I'm afraid a lot of the same factors that contributed to the low prices we saw last year are pretty much the same this year. It’s not an optimistic outlook for salmon, and that is depressing the market for permits, and also the boats,” he added. “There are lots on the market, lots of sellers, not that many buyers.”

“There’s not a lot of extra money floating around in the salmon industry. So folks wanting to upgrade their vessels or pick up permits in another area, we’re just not seeing that happening.”

The situation is slightly better in Southeast Alaska, where driftnet permits are getting a plug of interest.

“More than I thought compared to all the other salmon areas,” said Olivia Olsen of Alaskan Quota and Permits at Petersburg.

“We started at $78,000 in November and drifts now are going for $85,000 and they may creep up from there. Same with power troll permits. They’ve been pretty steady sales at about $35,000 which is down about $6,000 from last year, but still a pretty good price when you listen to all the talk about bad salmon prices. Hand troll permits also are on the upswing to $12,000,” Olsen said.

Both brokers said salmon permit prices tend to tick upwards the closer it gets to salmon season.

“I think the main issue is what we are going to see for prices, Bowen and Olsen said. - More...
Tuesday AM - March 15, 2016