PETERSBURG, AK Governor Sean Parnell in January introduced Senate Bill 44, and a companion bill in the house. The legislation would nearly double the size of the Southeast state forest, created last year, adding 23 parcels of just over 23-thousand acres of state land to the forest.<br />
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At one of two hearings before the Senate Resources committee, state forester Chris Maisch said the expansion will help boost the state&rsquo;s timber offerings. &ldquo;Adding lands to the state forest will ensure the state&rsquo;s most suitable lands in Southeast remain available to contribute to timber supply through the state&rsquo;s ongoing timber sale program,&rdquo; Maisch said.<br />
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The lands in the bill are already owned by the state, and can already be used for state timber sales. However, moving the parcels into the state forest system means they would primarily be managed for timber production. It&rsquo;s a change that Maisch said will guarantee the lands stay in long-term public ownership and allow the state to focus on thinning young trees from some of the parcels that have already been logged. &ldquo;The key difference this bill does is it allows us to start aggressive precommercial thinning on young growth stands, which is really an investment for the future because it allows us to approximately double the volume on the same given acreage of land,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So right now the allowable cut is about eight and a half million (board feet) and in the future as this forest is converted over to second growth or young growth, as its referred to, that allowable cut will about double.&rdquo;<br />
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Maisch estimated it would be another 30 to 40 years before the state would see harvests of second growth timber on some of the land. More than half the forest land identified in the bill is classified as old growth forest, with older, more valuable trees and would also be harvested eventually, according to Maisch. The land is spread throughout central and southern Southeast. Close to Petersburg, parcels in the bill are at Frederick Point on the eastern side of the island, near Woodpecker Cove, near the Ernie Haugen public use area and Favor Peak on the southern end of Mitkof Island. Other parcels are on Zarembo Island, Wrangell Island and near Coffman Cove, Whale Pass, Naukiti and Edna Bay.<br />
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Coffman Cove city councilor Elaine Price told legislators that the council in that community is unanimous in its support for the forest expansion. &ldquo;If the logging ends it&rsquo;s gonna be disastrous for prince of wales as a whole not just Coffman cove and we feel that the state&rsquo;s efforts to do something to stabilize the industry should be applauded and we support it fully,&rdquo; Price said.<br />
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Likewise, industry representatives urged legislators to pass the forest expansion, including Wade Zammit, president and CEO of the Sealaska Timber Corporation. &ldquo;Passage of Senate bill 44 will help stabilize the timber from state lands and will allow these lands to be managed with a commitment towards forestry that is necessary for the long term planning , those of us in the forest industry sector require for such things as sustainable resource management,&rdquo; said Zammit.<br />
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Shelly Wright, executive director for Southeast Conference, a regional organization of communities and businesses, urged the state to boost timber offerings. &ldquo;Our region is in emergency mode. We need this forest designation in order to survive. The existence of a timber industry in SE Alaska depends on immediate action to provide a supply of economically viable sales,&rdquo; Wright said.<br />
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Others who testified were concerned that the bill did not require processing of the timber in local mills. Jeremy Maxand of Wrangell was concerned that logs on the state lands would be exported in-the-round. &ldquo;When they&rsquo;re transferred to state forests, they could very likely, and based on conversations I&rsquo;ve had with people in the industry will most likely just be cut down and shipped out. And there wont be any incentive to revitalize our timber economy and to possibly sustain for the long term, not five or ten years but 50 years a smaller value-added timber operation in our community,&rdquo; said Maxand. He urged the lawmakers to include incentives for local processing of the timber.<br />
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Eric Lee of Petersburg agreed it was an important distinction to make. &ldquo;Round log export and value added processing are two very different things,&rdquo; Lee said. &ldquo;Yes, round log export could create as many jobs as local value added processing, but only for the very short period of time that logging companies need to cut down the trees and ship them out. After that when the trees are gone, the jobs are gone. That&rsquo;s the real reason round-log export is so damaging to local economies. It&rsquo;s just not sustainable.&rdquo;<br />
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State forester Maisch told committee members the state cannot restrict round log export, but has policies to encourage value added manufacturing. And Owen Graham with the timber industry group the Alaska Forest Association asked legislators to keep the export option open. &ldquo;Most of the wood the state has sold in the past five years has been domestically processed,&rdquo; said Graham. &ldquo;We think that&rsquo;s a good practice but we also think the state needs to hang onto the log export as a tool to use to manage your program. The markets go up and down and export markets are a good place to put your timber if the local or domestic markets aren&rsquo;t doing well at the time. Right now we have good markets and we desperately need more timber.&rdquo;<br />
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Other Southeast residents panned the bill or sought changes. Ketchikan borough resident Mike Sallee was concerned with a loss of hunting opportunity in new clear cuts and thick stands of new trees. &ldquo;I find SB 44 in its current form to be overly timber centric, primarily benefitting one or at very best a few large scale timber operators and lacks sufficient attention to long-standing multiple use on the lands involved,&rdquo; said Sallee. And Joe Sebastian of Kupreanof asked for some concessions in the legislation . &ldquo;If this bill is to go through, we need to drop the Rowan Bay parcel, the Hook Arm parcel on Dall island, and we also need to create some new state parks so that if the two go hand in hand, at the end of the 100 years we can have one program at least that will have paid for itself and have served the public instead of more endless roads of more second growth clearcuts stretching hundreds of years into the future,&rdquo; Sebastian said.<br />
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The committee made no changes and voted to move the bill. That version next goes onto the to the Senate Finance Committee.
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