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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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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The Viking Lumber Mill is on Prince of Wales Island. It was just awarded a contract to log part of the Big Thorne timber sale. (Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska News)

The Forest Service awarded a contract Tuesday, Sept. 30, to log two-thirds of a controversial Southeast Alaska timber sale. Officials say it’s the first of several contracts for an area called Big Thorne.

Prince of Wales Island’s Viking Lumber Co. beat out four other bidders for what’s called the Big Thorne Stewardship Integrated Resource Timber Contract.

That name means the Forest Service sells timber to Viking, but reduces its cost in exchange for trail repair, stream restoration and other stewardship work.Tongass Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole oversees such sales.

“Typically, we’ve put up timber-sale contracts and we award them to the highest bidder. This being a stewardship contract, it not only has a timber component, but it also has service work that we expect,” he says.

The Forest Service won’t release the amount Viking will pay, the value of the stewardship work or the contract itself. Cole says that’s because the contract has not yet been signed.

Viking, meanwhile, does not respond to interview requests.

But Cole shared some details.

The contract calls for almost 3,800 acres to be logged between Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove. About half would be clear-cut, the other half selectively logged, including some thinning.

“So they can log and generate credits, do the service work and it gets covered that way. Or they can do the service work and then stumpage will be offset to cover that payment,” he says.

The contract calls for about 85 miles of new or repaired roads. About 15 miles of that will be removed once logging is done.

The full Big Thorne sale includes more than 6,000 acres of old-growth forest, plus around 2,000 acres of second-growth.

Cole says logging won’t start until spring. That’s part of a deal cut with environmental groups challenging the entire Big Thorne sale in court.

“What we have agreed to is a briefing schedule to try to get a decision out of the District Court by April 1. And April 1 is significant because that’s the beginning of operating season,” he says.

Viking was the winner bidder on last year’s version of the Big Thorne sale. Court challenges kept that from happening.

The Juneau-based Southeast Alaska Conservation Council is one of the parties suing to block this year’s sale.

SEACC Communications Director Daven Hayfe says the sale, and those like it, are costing the Forest Service government millions of dollars.

“So, when we’re talking about federally subsidizing a 6,100-acre clear-cut, and exporting half of that overseas to Asia without any local processing, we’re very literally talking about a giveaway,” he says.

Hayfe supports stewardship work. The goal is to restore streams, rivers and other fish and wildlife habitat damaged by past logging.

But he says the contract is the wrong way to do it.

“Repairing bridges, replacing culverts, trail maintenance, thinning, all that is very important work on the Tongass. But it should not be paid for with continued, large-scale, old-growth clear-cut logging,” he says.

The Ketchikan-based Alaska Forest Association, a timber industry organization, isn’t objecting to a combined contract.

But Executive Director Owen Graham says it’s too small.

“The sale’s only two-thirds as big as it’s supposed to be. But at least it exists,” he says.

Graham says Viking could run out of the timber it has before the contract’s spring starting date. And that’s only if the sale makes it through the courts.

He says officials are not making enough of the Tongass available.

“We also need to work with the Forest Service to get a continuous stream of additional timber, so they have some longevity and they don’t have to liquidate that Big Thorne timber sale quicker than planned,” he says.

Tongass officials will soon announce contracts for at least three smaller sales within the Big Thorne area.

Cole says it’s all part of a new direction for forest management in Southeast Alaska.

“The whole intent of this transition is to keep the current industry alive, which would allow them to have sufficient volume to generate revenues to create a retooling effort to get to this young growth timber supply,” he says.

The agency’s Tongass Advisory Committee is meeting to consider how to make that transition. Its report is due out in May.

Read and hear earlier reports:

• Forest Service upholds Big Thorne decision
• Conservation groups file suit over Big Thorne sale
• USFS announces 150 mmbf Big Thorne sale on POW

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