An aerial drone photo of Wolf Creek Boatworks on Prince of Wales Island in September 2019. The 80-year-old operation lies on state and federal land. (Photo courtesy of Sam Romey)

An 80-year-old hydro-powered wooden boat shop on Prince of Wales Island is in jeopardy as the federal government completes a massive land swap with the state’s mental health trust.

Wolf Creek Boatworks is an 80-year-old shoreline complex off the road system and off the grid. Power comes from a century-old hydro plant harnessing the force of water flowing downhill.

“It goes into a turbine, a water turbine from 1902,” owner Sam Romey said by telephone. “So it’s still working, fully functioning.”

It’s been running continuously since 1939, much of it on the same flat belt-driven technology powered by a hydro turbine that generates electricity and harnesses kinetic energy from the creek on an isolated cove at the end of Twelve Mile Arm halfway between the communities of Hollis and Kasaan.

But that location made it perfect for builders of wooden boats used at the time by Prince of Wales Island’s fishing fleet. In fact, it’s still the only place on the island skippers can haul their vessels out of the water. The next closest would be in Ketchikan, more than 40 miles over water.

“A lot of people use that grid for, you know, changing zincs, painting the bottom, stuff like that,” said Ronald Leighton, tribal president of the Organized Village of Kasaan. “Yeah, I know I went up there with my boat a couple times.”

Wolf Creek Boatworks owner Sam Romey says the flat belt driven shop machinery, shown in the 1940s, has not changed much in the last 80 years. (Photo courtesy of Sam Romey)

The boatworks has operated on leased public land since the beginning. Or at least it did up until 2015. Then things got complicated after Congress passed legislation mandating a roughly 20,000 acre swap between Tongass National Forest and the Alaska Mental Health Trust.

“This land exchange is extremely important for the mental health beneficiaries in Alaska,” said Wyn Menefee, executive director of the trust’s land office. He says legally, the boatworks is trespassing on state and federal land on an expired lease and expects the trust to take full possession of the land next year.

“If we receive the property with the buildings, then we will decide what to do with them at that point in time,” he said.

The Forest Service’s view is that because the lease had expired when Congress mandated the land exchange in 2017, it can’t issue another permit. But Romey has emails showing he was still in the renewal process a year after the land swap bill was signed into law.

That all ground to a halt last year and an eviction notice was served.

“They figured they could just give me an eviction notice and go away,” Romey said. “And then they realize that I own the buildings. So to tell me to go away and take my buildings with the would destroy the possible National Historic Site.”

The boatworks was deemed worthy of protection back in 1988. But the state never submitted the documents and the listing never went through.

Even so, legally the Forest Service still has a responsibility to make sure history is not erased when its lands are transferred to the mental health trust. An agreement signed by state historic preservation officials in 2018 covers the entire swap and there are concerns that the spirit of the agreement isn’t being honored.

“It was our understanding that the boat works would be transferred to the Mental Health Trust, and it would be dealt with with a district property management plan,” said Judith Bittner, the state’s historic preservation officer.

She’s alarmed that the Forest Service is now demanding that the structure be partially dismantled or left to the trust with no assurances of its continuity. In fact, the plan only stipulates that a “poster” is created that catalogs any historic site destroyed.

“And so we’re, you know, we’re ending up with a very complex situation that puts the historic property in threat of loss,” she said.

Menfee says he understands the outcry over the future of the boatworks, but the trust isn’t cutting any deals with anyone before it takes possession of the land.

“I understand why people are saying what they are about trying to get it back to Sam (Romey),” Menefee said. “I understand their perspective; it’s just not in the purview of my obligations. My obligations are strictly financial and fiduciary to the trust.”

The trust’s land office has indicated that it intends to commercially log much of the forest land it’s receiving. But Romey and others point out that the state’s mandatory setbacks around fish streams means much of the seven acres around the boatworks couldn’t be legally logged. And he says the trust has turned down an offer for a swap of forested lands he owns nearby.

Trish Neal, president of the Alaska Historic Preservation Association, says there’s a real danger of losing a piece of the region’s history. The Anchorage-based nonprofit recently ranked it among its top 10 most endangered historic properties.

“It’s been operating since for 80 years — it’s a viable business,” she said. “It’s not somebody’s hobby, it’s not just somebody’s place out in the woods.”

She says the Forest Service has a responsibility to preserve one of the last historic boat yards in Southeast Alaska.

“The Forest Service, in my opinion, (is) just taking the easy way out, and it’s just going to slap up something on a kiosk,” she said.

The Forest Service declined to make anyone available for an interview.

“One of the USDA Forest Service Alaska Region’s highest priorities is the completion of the Alaska Mental Health Trust land exchange,” a statement to CoastAlaska attributed to Alaska Region spokeswoman Katie Benning said. “Recently, the Forest Service and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority closed on a portion of Phase II and are working to complete the final portion of the exchange. It is anticipated that the land exchange will be completed in early 2021.”

The agency declined further comment. But on its website, it wrote: “the public is invited to share ideas on how to mitigate the potential adverse effects of removing the Boatworks” by sending written comments to sm.fs.WC_Boatworks@usda.gov by May 22. It’s unclear what types of ideas it’s seeking. An early April teleconference elicited nearly a dozen letters in support for the boatworks.

Proponents of saving the boatworks have also appealed to Sen. Lisa Murkowski who had pushed for the 2017 legislation mandating the land swap.

“Sen. Murkowski is aware of the issue concerning Wolf Creek Boatworks, and expects the Forest Service to properly address any historic structures at the site,” spokeswoman Grace Jang wrote in a statement.

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski recently hosted the U.S. Forest Service’s top official in a flying visit to Tongass National Forest. The delegation kept a low profile during its visit to Southeast Alaska.

Back in a mid-May budget hearing, Murkowski quizzed Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen. She wanted to know why recent timber sales in Tongass National Forest had no takers.

And what was the Forest Service doing about it?

“It is a challenge and I’d be glad to work with you more even come up to Alaska that we can roll up our sleeves and really look at this,” Christiansen replied.

Murkowski — who chairs the powerful Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee — acted on this opening.

“I welcome you up to this state any time summer, winter, spring fall,” she said.

Christiansen chose summer. She spent July 6 and 7 in Wrangell, Ketchikan and Prince Wales Island as part of a flying visit with Alaska’s senior senator.

At a Saturday morning meeting in Wrangell, the delegation heard from the timber industry and its boosters.

“There was discussion about making sure that we’re able to keep the one remaining mill in Southeast, operational,” Wrangell Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen told CoastAlaska on Friday.

That would be Viking Lumber Mill on Prince of Wales Island which employees a few dozen people.

“And they’re struggling to get enough wood to keep going,” said Frank Roppel, a veteran figure in Southeast Alaska’s logging industry who sat in on the meeting.

The octogenarian was a top Alaska Pulp Corporation executive. In its day, the company was a top regional employer, operating a sawmill in Wrangell and a pulp mill Sitka from the 1950s until the 90s.

Roppel told CoastAlaska that the forest service chief asked good questions and was receptive to concerns over timber supplies for commercial logging.

“We were encouraged that there’s some interest and willingness to try and help the industry,” he said.

The exclusive gathering in Wrangell included about 10 business people and civic leaders and discussed the Trump administration’s controversial effort at crafting an exemption from the 2001 Roadless rule that would allow logging in more undeveloped parts of the Tongass.

But at a roundtable of tribal leaders in Ketchikan the delegation heard a different perspective.

“We prefer that there is no change the forest plan and I think most of the tribes are going that way,” said Ronald Leighton, president of the Organized Tribe of Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island.

He says he used the audience with the Forest Service delegation to press for preferential access to old growth red cedar for traditional carvers.

“When we did our longhouse we were having trouble finding quality cultural logs for that,” he said. “So, in fact, we had to buy from Sealaska.”

None of the meetings were publicized in advance. The visit was only announced nearly a week later in a July 12 press release.

But if it had been, the delegation would likely have gotten an earful from opponents to old growth logging in the Tongass.

“We’re really sorry that Lisa Murkowski and chief Christiansen missed the Turnout for the Tongass Rally on June 22 in Juneau where 150 Alaskans turned out in support of the national roadless rule,” said Dan Cannon, Tongass Forest program manager for Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, an environmental group.

Past public hearings and written comments have been overwhelmingly supportive of keeping the roadless protections for approximately 9.2 million acres in place.

The Forest Service is expected to hold public hearings to a draft environmental impact statement for an Alaska-specific Roadless Rule later this year.

“I would hope that Chief Christensen comes back during the public comments and the public meetings to actually hear from Alaskans,” Cannon said, “and travel to places beyond Ketchikan and Wrangell and go to Juneau go to Sitka and hear from larger swath of Southeast Alaskans.”

The delegation also visited Naukati on Prince of Wales Island where the Forest Service completed a landswap with the Alaska Mental Health Trust.

There was a Saturday visit to Staney Creek where the delegation met with the local branch of The Nature Conservancy which has partnered with the agency to undertake watershed restoration.

“We talked about past work and collaboration between the Nature Conservancy in the Forest Service,” said Michael Kampnich, the nonprofit’s field representative on Prince of Wales Island.

Commercial logging didn’t come up in those discussions, he said.

The trip was almost exactly a year after Sen. Murkowski brought Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue to tour the Viking Lumber mill on Prince of Wales Island. That visit had the usual fanfare with media in tow.

This time around, the Forest Service chief opted to keep a low profile in Alaska. But why?

“This was a relationship building visit with Senator Murkowski in the State of Alaska,” Babete Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service in Washington, D.C. said in a statement in response to questions from CoastAlaska.

Tonya Parish, a spokeswoman for the Senate committee that organized the trip, said in a statement that current protocol is to almost never give advance notice of visiting high-ranking officials and that the itinerary didn’t allow for public meetings or media interviews.

She declined further comment.

With additional reporting from KFSK’s Joe Viechnicki in Petersburg.

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Forests along Peril Strait shine on a sunny Sept. 15, 2015. Several government agencies are selling timber to Southeast Alaska mills until larger stands of trees are made available. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

The state just sold timber from its Southeast Alaska forest to the region’s largest mill. It’s part of a multi-agency effort to keep the area’s logging industry alive. But some say it’s time to let it go.

Klawock’s Viking Lumber was the only buyer interested in the North Hollis timber sale. It’s about 230 acres on Prince of Wales Island, the center of what’s left of Southeast’s timber industry.

But it wasn’t sold under the usual bid program.

State Forester Chris Maisch said it was a negotiated sale based on more than the price.

“The kind of things we’re looking for (are) would the wood be used to manufacture products in the state, how many jobs … will be created from the project. Of course, the price being offered for the timber is also a consideration,” he said.

The state Division of Forestry said Viking is paying $375,000.00 for mostly Sitka spruce, hemlock and red cedar.

It’s not huge acreage as timber sales go. But it’s one of several small state sales aimed at keeping Viking and other parts of the industry alive.

“We have stepped up our timber sale program because of the shortfall of federal volume here over the last several years,” he said.

The North Hollis sale was finalized in December. The state forest also sold a second parcel to Viking last year, near Coffman Cove, also on Prince of Wales Island.

(Read Tongass in transition: Striking a chord with old growth trees.)

The Tongass National Forest makes up most of Southeast Alaska (Courtesy U.S. Forest Service)

Another agency also plans to provide stopgap timber.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office is trading some controversial timberlands near cities for acreage in the Tongass National Forest.

Executive Director Wyn Menefee said the office is planning for sales this year and next.

“That’s going to be very vital for the timber industry down there because they’re short on timber supply and we are the ones that probably can provide, after we get the land through the lands exchange, the necessary fiber to market,” he said.

The first will be near Naukati, which is also on the island.

About 11,000 acres are involved. But it won’t all be sold at the same time.

“We will be putting that old-growth available for timber markets in Southeast, which hopefully will give them enough breathing room to allow the Forest Service enough time to get timber on the markets,” he said.

Around 2,400 acres will be in the first sale, which will be offered this spring. Public comments on the overall plan are due by Jan. 15.

(Read Tongass in transition: An uncertain future for Alaska’s last big mill.)

The Tongass National Forest has been the largest source of timber on public lands for decades. But management changes, lawsuits and a shortage of older timber has slowed its sales.

Tongass officials will offer three sales this year totaling about 1,200 acres. Spokesman Paul Robbins Jr. said two are old growth while one is young growth.

“We’re also working on environmental impact statements for sales on the Petersburg and Wrangell Ranger districts, as well as multiple sales as part of the Prince of Wales landscape level analysis,” he said.

Robbins said the Forest Service is working with other timber owners. They include the state, the land trust, Sealaska regional Native corporation and the University of Alaska.

Portions of the Tongass National Forest can be seen from Ketchikan’s Rainbird Trail. (File photo)

“We convened about four or five years ago to coordinate timber sales and improve economies of scale, reduce overall costs and help the economics of timber sales for Southeast Alaska,” he said.

“They just want to continue to do business the way they have been doing business,” said Bob Claus, a Prince of Wales Island resident and a member of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.

He and others question sales that continue supplying old-growth timber to what he calls a dying industry. He said they’re damaging the environment, including salmon, deer and wolf habitat.

“So you have Sealaska, you have mental health trust, you have state lands and you have the Forest Service … all pushing for more old-growth harvests out of a place that just can’t take it anymore. They’ve already taken all the old growth that they can take. And probably more than was acceptable,” he said.

Viking Lumber continues logging old-growth trees from a previous Forest Service sale. What’s called Big Thorne involves around 6,000 acres between Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove.

The Tongass is being managed under a plan to move away from harvesting old-growth trees. It calls for a new industry based on younger timber, also called second growth.

But a federal agency last fall determined Congress has the right to review – and possibly overturn – the plan.

If that happens, the Tongass could resume selling larger stands of older trees, which is what the industry wants.

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A Petersburg fishing boat passes the ferry Taku near the entrance of Wrangell Narrows in August, 2013. The ship was put on the market in 2017. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

Southeast Alaska saw some major trends and events in 2017. They ranged from cruise ship passenger increases to budget decreases to labor battles to murder investigations.

Here are our top picks:

State ferry sold

In March, the Alaska Marine Highway System put the ferry Taku up for sale. The 54-year-old ship already had been tied up for about two years.

The Taku went out for bid for a minimum of $1.5 million. But it took several tries, each with a lower price.

General Manager John Falvey said the final offer was $171,000, a little more than a tenth of the original price.

“The winner was the Jabal Al Lawz Trading Co., from the (United Arab) Emirates,” he said.

It will become a ferry in the Philippines – or be sold for scrap.

An earlier offer to turn the ship into lodging in Portland fell through.

“Their plan is to do some renovation on the Taku and turn it into a destination hotel and waterfront activities center,” Falvey said at the time.

Officials hoped to finalize the sale by the end of the year. But the closing date is now Jan. 19.

Chinook shortage hits Southeast

David Turner Jr. won 2016’s Spring King Salmon Derby. This year’s derby was canceled. (Image courtesy Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska)

2017 was a lousy year for king salmon fishing in Southeast waters.

Chinook runs here and in British Columbia saw historically low returns.

That prompted a Southeast-wide closure for kings in both sport and commercial fisheries.

That’s unprecedented, at least in recent memory.

In Juneau, the low numbers meant canceling one sport fishing derby and eliminating kings from another.

State biologist Daniel Teske said the problem is in the ocean, not the rivers where kings spawn and hatch.

“Something’s happening out there, whether it be less prey available or more predators and we are seeing it throughout a bunch of different systems here,” he said.

Proposals to further restrict the region’s catch will go before the state Board of Fisheries at a January meeting in Sitka.

Tongass plan targeted

At the start of 2017, Tongass National Forest managers planned to move away from logging old-growth timber. They wanted to transition to a new industry using younger trees.

But timber businesses – and some politicians – worked to reverse that direction.

Industry leader Owen Graham said the plan was bad news.

“It’s literally going to put our industry completely out of business,” he said.

In October, a federal agency ruled the plan was subject to congressional review. And the next month, Sen. Lisa Murkowski added a measure overturning the plan to an appropriations bill.

Both discouraged environmentalists, who pushed for the transition, including Southeast Alaska Conservation Council’s Meredith Trainor. 

She said when she heard that Congress can decide the Tongass’ fate her “heart sank a little.”

Final decisions could be made in the new year.

Transboundary mines challenged

The Brucejack Mine pours its first gold bar in June of 2017. The mine is about 25 miles from the Alaska border. (Photo courtesy Pretivm Resources)

Fisheries, tribal and environmental activists continued battling mineral development across the border in British Columbia in 2017.

They worried it could poison salmon-rich waterways that flow through Southeast.

In September, tribal activists petitioned for trade sanctions. Leader Frederick Olsen Jr. wanted more done to protect Alaska fisheries.

“The goal is to get federal involvement in our transboundary mining issue,” he said.

It was followed by a November joint letter from the Walker-Mallott administration and Alaska’s Congressional Delegation. It lobbied the State Department to engage with Canadian officials.

It’s not yet clear whether the effort will get the results its authors want.

But the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said the agency is aware of the concerns.

“This is an issue we have raised with our Canadian counterparts at a number of levels with both provincial and federal governments, and we will continue to engage with them on it,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.

The post Southeast’s year: Taku sold, Chinooks crash, mines petitioned and a Tongass turnaround appeared first on KRBD.

A timber sale sign is posted in the Tongass National Forest on Prince of Wales Island. The state is in court again, trying to end the U.S. Forest Service’s roadless rule, which limits logging and other development in the Tongass. (KRBD file photo)

The state of Alaska is again trying to overturn the U.S. Forest Service’s roadless rule.

Officials on Nov. 6 appealed a September court decision that threw out an earlier state challenge.

The rule mostly blocks logging in undeveloped areas of the Tongass National Forest.

It was established more than 15 years ago, but the Tongass was given an exemption, which was later overturned.

Assistant Attorney General Tom Lenhart said the state continues to challenge the roadless rule because it’s damaging Southeast Alaska’s economy.

“It’s played a key role in the almost complete demise of the timber industry,” he said. “It’s impacted utility companies and rural communities who may have future plans to build additional roads to connect to the outside world.”

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council is one of the environmental groups that supported the rule in court.

Attorney Buck Lindekugel said the state’s appeal doesn’t make sense.

“They seem stuck in the past. Today’s economy here in Southeast is driven by tourism, recreation and fishing, not old-growth logging,” he said.

State Forester Chris Maisch manages state timberlands near the Tongass National Forest.

He said the timber economy could rebound if the roadless rule is overturned.

“It essentially provides the ability to manage in a much more flexible manner, not only just forest resources, but energy resources as well as mining resources on the forest,” he said.

Among other arguments, the state said the roadless rule violates federal legislation requiring the U.S. Forest Service to meet the demand for Tongass timber.

The state filed this case in 2011 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The appeal was made to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The state’s Lenhart said some earlier rulings have been close, so it’s worth another try.

“We’re relatively optimistic that a three-judge panel at the D.C. Circuit may well come to a different conclusion and may in part or in total invalidate the roadless rule this time,” he said.

SEACC’s Lindekugel said the appeal is a waste of time and money.

A separate challenge has already been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Instead of working with local communities to change things on the ground for the long-term interests of everybody, they’re focusing on a fraction of the economy by propping up the timber industry at everybody’s expense,” he said.

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The Tongass National Forest includes most of Southeast Alaska. (Image courtesy U.S. Forest Service).

A Washington, D.C., environmental group is accusing the Tongass National Forest of breaking its own timber-sale rules.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility cites internal Forest Service documents in its critique of Tongass management. The national forest includes most of Southeast Alaska.

Executive Director Jeff Ruch said forest managers didn’t sufficiently review or monitor sales. He said they also allowed logging companies to cut corners.

“And as a result, there were significant monetary losses. And they didn’t accomplish their environmental goals. And the oversight was so poor that the Tongass National Forest didn’t even have copies of the contract, let alone the backup data,” Ruch said.

Read a Forest Service report identifying problems with some Tongass timber sales.

Alaska Forest Service officials responded with a press release, but wouldn’t grant an interview or answer specific questions.

In the release, officials said they’re already addressing issues raised in the internal review cited by its critics. That includes updating the appraisal process and making improvements to its timber sale administration.

“The Forest Service takes very seriously its obligation to ensure the accountability, integrity and effectiveness of the timber sale program.  Internal reviews such as the Forest Management Activity Review referenced by [Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility] are routinely conducted to ensure the Forest Service achieves the management and strategic goals for the activities under review,” the release said.

Among its complaints, the public employees group said Tongass managers improperly allowed loggers to “cherry-pick” more valuable timber within sale areas, including spruce and cedar.

Alaska Forest Association Executive Director Owen Graham said that’s the only way to make timber sales economic.

“What they seem to be saying is the Forest Service should have forced them to log more hemlock trees, more lower-value trees. That would have got them more stumpage. That doesn’t make any sense. If you harvest lower-value trees, you get less stumpage because the trees are worth less,” Graham said.

The Ketchikan-based trade association has lobbied the Forest Service to provide enough timber to keep what’s left of the region’s industry alive.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is calling for an in-depth, forensic audit.

The post Group says Forest Service mishandled timber sales appeared first on KRBD.

The Viking Lumber Mill on Prince of Wales Island was awarded a contract to log part of the Big Thorne timber sale. But owners say it’s not enough to stay in business past next year. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

Owners of Southeast Alaska’s largest remaining mill say it could close next year. It’s part of an ongoing battle over logging in the Tongass National Forest.

Viking Lumber is a family-owned business in Klawock, on the west side of Southeast’s Prince of Wales Island.

It would have been considered a small-to-medium-sized mill in the peak days of the timber industry. But now, it’s the biggest in the region.

Bryce Dahlstrom of Viking Lumber tells the Southeast Conference about how his mill may close March 15. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

That may change, because it can’t get enough logs.

“The amount of economic timber in the next five years is pretty much non-existent,” said Bryce Dahlstrom of Viking Lumber, addressing a recent meeting of the regional development organization Southeast Conference.

He said the U.S. Forest Service isn’t selling enough old-growth trees for Viking to stay in business. As a result, he said the mill, which 150 people depend on for their jobs, will have to close in about 18 months.

“For the sake of my employees and the employees of the businesses that we support, I would really like to see some action done, and something very drastic. I’m not up here blowing smoke saying we’re going away. We are going to go away, unless something major happens,” said Dahlstrom , who took his case to Congress earlier this year.

The Forest Service disagrees.

Alaska Regional Forester Beth Pendleton points to the Big Thorne timber sale, not far from Dahlstrom’s mill. His business won the bid for that contract and has been logging since 2014.

“So there’s still several years in that multi-year contract remaining for Viking Lumber,” she said.

While smaller than many past sales, it’s among the largest anywhere in the national forest system.

Tongass Forest Supervisor Earl Stewart and Alaska Regional Forester Beth Pendleton discuss the timber industry at Forest Service Alaska headquarters in Juneau. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

And that’s not all. Pendleton said loggers will have other opportunities.

“We have a number of sales over the next three to five years that we will be offering to industry, both Viking and other competitors, to provide that sustainable supply of timber,” she said.

Southeast Conference, the Alaska Forest Association and other industry supporters say there’s no guarantee that will happen. And if it does, the sales could get tied up in court.

“The federal government will not offer enough timber in the next two years to keep that mill running,” said  Chris Maisch, who runs the state Division of Forestry.

His agency has devised a plan to sell some of its Southeast Alaska timber to Viking.

During a recent legislative hearing, he addressed Senate Bill 32, a Walker administration measure allowing the state to use a different kind of bidding procedure.

“And without the change in that statute, we will not be able to negotiate those sales. They’ll have to go competitive. And in Southeast Alaska, a competitive sale pretty much is guaranteed to go export because the export market can afford to pay more,” Maisch said.

Exported timber is sold in the round, not milled in the state. The bill has made it through several committees, but its chance of passing is not known.

Viking Lumber’s conflict with the Forest Service is tied to the agency’s transition from old-growth to young- or second-growth timber harvests. That’s been supported by tourism and fishing interests that say logging, as it’s been done, damages the environment and threatens their industries.

Andrew Thoms of the Sitka Conservation Society was an environmental representative on an advisory panel that helped draft the transition plan.

“As I’m seeing it, the Forest Service is doing its best to supply timber to the mills in the region. And I think that one of the big problems that we have is that a lot of the economic timber that’s easy to reach on the Tongass has already been cut,” Thoms said.

The Forest Service has been looking for new ways to harvest and process younger trees.

Tongass Forest Supervisor Earl Stewart said the agency remains committed to the transition, expected to take a decade and a half.

“The real intent is to use new market opportunities to develop new markets, develop new products and help sustain the communities across Southeast Alaska,” he said.

But do those new markets preclude the old markets?

“It would be very difficult for me to assess in 16 years what the market availability or the product interest might be,” Stewart said. “I think the key right now is to try to provide resiliency in this system so that you have latitude and flexibility to move and to shift.”

The transition is part of an update to the Tongass management plan, which began in 2014. It’s scheduled to be complete by the end of this year.

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A Tongass National Forest clearcut is shown in this 2014 aerial view. A new court decision limits logging on roadless areas of the forest. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up a case that could have expanded logging in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. It’s the final step in one legal battle involving what’s called the Roadless Rule. But there’s another case.

About 15 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service issued a ban on logging, roadbuilding and some other development in many of the wilder lands under its jurisdiction.

Put in place at the end of the Clinton administration, it targeted areas without roads and became known as the Roadless Rule.

A portion of the Tongass National Forest along Peril Strait is seen from the ferry Chenega Sept. 3, 2015. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

It quickly attracted the scrutiny of the first Bush administration, which delayed its implementation. About two years later, that administration announced an exemption for Alaska’s Tongass – and later Chugach – National Forests.

Legal battles ensued and that exemption was upheld, struck down and appealed.

The latest – and final – action in the case came from the U.S. Supreme Court. It decided Monday not to hear a state challenge to a ruling against the exemption by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tom Waldo of the Earthjustice environmental law firm said that means roadless areas of the Tongass are protected.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to keep trying to build expensive new roads that no one can afford to maintain into the wild and remote parts of the Tongass,” he said.

Waldo and other Roadless Rule supporters say it protects salmon and wildlife habitat critical to the region’s tourism and fishing industries.

Owen Graham of the Alaska Forest Association trade group said the Supreme Court action delivers a substantial blow to a hard-hit regional economy.

“What the timber industry needs desperately is a timber supply. And this is one of a number of issues that are preventing us from having that timber supply,” he said.

State officials say they’re disappointed, but not surprised.

“Only about 4 percent of all petitions are ever granted review by the Supreme Court. So it’s always something of a long shot,” said Tom Lenhart, a state assistant attorney general involved in the case.

A separate state suit, filed in a District of Columbia court, challenges the whole rule, as well as its Alaska provisions. It claims the rule conflicts with terms of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

“We think very clearly that the Roadless Rule as applied to Alaska violates that federal law, which makes the rule invalid,” he said.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council attorney Buck Lindekugel said that argument won’t hold.

“The Roadless Rule has survived many other legal attacks, like the State of Alaska’s, and we expect the Washington D.C. Circuit [Court] to uphold the Roadless Rule, just like the other courts have,” he said.

Even if that happens, the logging industry could try other approaches.

The forest association’s Graham said lawsuits are just one approach to increasing the amount of timber available for harvest. Another would be to seek congressional action.

“And then the other thing is we could just get a … federal administration that’s friendly toward responsible resource development and they can just rescind the rule, because it’s an administrative rule. It’s nothing that Congress passed,” he said.

Tongass logging is a small fraction of what it was 20 or 30 years ago, when the forest service regularly scheduled large timber sales and mills operated in Sitka, Ketchikan and Wrangell.

In recent years, the forest service has changed its focus from old-growth logging to harvesting younger trees.

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The Tongass National Forest makes up most of Southeast Alaska (Courtesy U.S. Forest Service)

The Tongass National Forest will soon be without its two top officials.

Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole plans to retire in April after about a dozen years in the job. He’s overseen timber sales, stewardship efforts and other agency programs in Southeast Alaska.

Cole’s deputy, Tricia O’Connor, is moving to a new Forest Service job in Wyoming. She’ll be supervisor of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, which borders Yellowstone National Park, starting in February.

Both have been based in Ketchikan. Neither was immediately available for comment.

The supervisors work under Alaska Regional Forester Beth Pendleton, who also oversees Southcentral’s Chugach National Forest.

Cole came to the Tongass about 35 years ago and worked in management positions throughout Southeast. Most recently, he’s been a leader in the forest’s transition from old-growth logging to harvesting younger trees.

O’Connor has been Tongass deputy forest supervisor since 2011. She’s been in the region almost 15 years, beginning as Yakutat district ranger.

Both positions have been posted on USA Jobs, a federal employment website.

The Tongass is the nation’s largest national forest, at about 17 million acres. Most of Southeast Alaska is within its borders.

We’ll have more on the Tongass management changes in future reports.

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Beached logs pile up in Shoal Cove on Revilla Island in the Tongass National Forest. A new report challenges old-growth logging spending in the forest. (Jim Baichtal/USFS)

A new report says the U.S. Forest Service is wasting millions of dollars by propping up a failing Southeast Alaska timber industry. It says the Tongass National Forest should instead invest in projects supporting tourism and fishing, which are growing segments of the economy.

Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based research firm, prepared the study with funding from two conservation-oriented foundations.

It was released by the Alaska chapter of Trout Unlimited, which is critical of Tongass logging.

“The Tongass has historically been a national forest focused on old-growth harvesting and it looks very much today like the same thing,” says Ben Alexander, Headwaters’ associate director.

“The underlying economics in Southeast Alaska have shifted radically and the growth sectors and the sectors creating jobs and opportunities for communities and businesses now are no longer in timber,” he says.

The report says the Forest Service spent more than $100 million subsidizing old-growth logging over the past five years.

Alaska Regional Forester Beth Pendleton didn’t have the information at hand to confirm or deny that figure.

The Tongass National Forest makes up most of Southeast Alaska (Courtesy U.S. Forest Service)

But she says the Headwaters report does not accurately describe how agency funding works. She says Congress, not her office, decides how much goes to programs such as timber, fishing and tourism.

“I believe that the report, while well-intentioned, is flawed. And I think it shows some naivety relative to how the federal budgets are allocated,” she says.

Ross Gorte, a research professor involved in the report, says that’s sidestepping the problem, which he says is in Washington, D.C.

“They don’t tell the Forest Service how much money to spend on recreation in the Tongass versus how much to spend on recreation in Washington or Alabama or anywhere else,” he says.

“We do have some flexibility relative to policy and how we implement certain program direction,” says Pendleton.

She says that’s allowing her agency to start moving away from old-growth logging. The goal is to do that in 10 to 15 years.

“So over the last five years, we’ve been putting an increasing emphasis on that transition to young growth,” she says.

The Headwaters report says the agency has moved too slowly.

Austin Williams is Alaska policy director for Trout Unlimited.

“It’s frankly not clear when that time frame might start or end. And there’s an opportunity to speed it up. Ten to 15 years is just too long and it’s not getting at the real needs of Southeast Alaska communities,” he says.

The Forest Service says a change this big doesn’t happen overnight.

Pendleton says the planning process is ongoing, including consulting with an appointed Tongass Advisory Committee representing different interest groups. That panel meets this week in Sitka.

“The planning process takes time. It’s one that’s based on collaborative engagement with our communities and [the] public and also through the offering of stewardship contracts. So these things do take some time, but we’re making some progress in that direction,” she says.

A separate report, from an industry consultant and an environmental scientist, says the transition could happen in five years.

The Forest Service says that’s not realistic. But Pendleton says the research is part of the advisory committee’s discussion.

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