Legislature(1995 - 1996)
09/27/1996 01:00 PM House RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
JOINT HOUSE AND SENATE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEES
September 27, 1996
Anchorage, Alaska
1:00 p.m.
HOUSE MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Joe Green, Co-Chairman
Representative Scott Ogan, Vice Chairman
Representative John Davies (via teleconference)
Representative Pete Kott
OTHER HOUSE MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Gail Phillips
Representative Jeannette James (via teleconference)
Representative Pete Kelly (via teleconference)
Representative David Finkelstein
HOUSE MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative William K. "Bill" Williams, Co-Chairman
Representative Ramona Barnes
Representative Alan Austerman
Representative Don Long
Representative Irene Nicholia
SENATE MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Loren Leman, Chairman
Senator Rick Halford
Senator Robin Taylor (via teleconference)
Senator John Torgerson
SENATE MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Drue Pearce, Vice Chairman
Senator Steve Frank
Senator Georgianna Lincoln
Senator Lyman Hoffman
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Spruce Bark Beetle Infestation
PREVIOUS ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
JERRY BOUGHTON, Chairman
Alaska Society of American Foresters
P.O. Box 2938
Palmer, Alaska 99645
Telephone: (907) 271-2535
DR. ED HOLSTEN
U.S. Entomologist/Forest Health Specialist
3301 "C" Street, Suite 522
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
Telephone: (907) 271-2535
DR. PATRICK MOORE, Director
Forest Alliance of British Columbia
4068 West 32nd Avenue
Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Telephone: (604) 969-4250
TOM BOUTIN, State Forester
Division of Forestry
Department of Natural Resources
400 Willoughby Avenue, Third Floor
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1724
Telephone: (907) 465-3379
LES REED, President
F.L.C. Reed and Associates Ltd.
12471 Phoenix Drive
Richmond, B.C. Canada
Telephone: (604) 969-4250
LANCE TRASKY, Supervisor
Southcentral Region
Division of Habitat and Restoration
Department of Fish and Game
333 Raspberry Road
Anchorage, Alaska 99518-1599
Telephone: (907) 267-2335
GREG ENCELEWSKI, Assistant to the President
Ninilchik Native Corporation
800 East Dimond Blvd., Suite 3-490
Anchorage, Alaska 99515-2044
Telephone: (907) 344-8654
JIM CAPLAN, Deputy Regional Forester
Natural Resources
U.S. Forest Service
P.O. Box 21628
Juneau, Alaska 99802-1628
Telephone: (907) 586-8863
MIKE FASTABENT
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Alaska Cooperative Extension Service
P.O. Box 757020
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Telephone: (907) 474-7661
JACK PHELPS, Executive Director
Alaska Forest Association
111 Stedman, Suite 200
Ketchikan, Alaska 99901-6599
Telephone: (907) 225-6114
CLIFF EAMES
Alaska Center for the Environment
519 West 8th Avenue
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Telephone: (907) 274-3621
CATHERINE THOMAS, Incoming Chair
Alaska State Chamber of Commerce
ArcTech Services, Incorporated
P.O. Box 3005
Kenai, Alaska 99611
Telephone: (907) 776-5515
JOAN NININGER, Owner
Secretary/Treasurer
Circle DE Pacific
6239 "B" Street, Suite 201
Anchorage, Alaska 99518
Telephone: (907) 349-3430
PETER ECKLAND, Administrative Assistant
to Representative Bill Williams
Alaska State Legislature
352 Front Street
Ketchikan, Alaska 99901
Telephone: (907) 247-4672
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 96-81, SIDE A
Number 000
The meeting was called to order in Anchorage, Alaska at 1:00 p.m.
JOE GREEN, CO-CHAIRMAN, HOUSE RESOURCES COMMITTEE: ....The
director of the Forest Service Tom Boutin. In Kenai we have
Senator Torgerson, and in Fairbanks Representative James and I
understand Representative Davies is in route. In Homer we have
Speaker of the House Gail Phillips who would like to make an
address in a few moments. And then on listen only, we have Mat-Su,
Seward, Cordova and Washington, D.C. So we have a good listening
audience as well as I'm pleased to say a good audience here. So
without any further ado, I'd like to turn the meeting over briefly
to my co-chair here, Senator Loren Leman of the Senate Resources
Committee to introduce his members.
Number 043
SENATOR LOREN LEMAN, CHAIRMAN, SENATE RESOURCES COMMITTEE: Thank
you Representative Green. I'm Senator Loren Leman, the Chairman of
the Senate Resources Committee, and we have here in Anchorage with
us today Senator Rick Halford and on-line in Sitka, Senator Robin
Taylor who are both members of the committee. And if there are
other members of the committee who are listening in to please
identify yourself or if later they arrive on the remote sites,
please have somebody let us know so that I can acknowledge them
also.
Number 117
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you. Also at the table here we have the
vice chair of the House Resources Committee, Scott Ogan from the
Valley. And with that I would like to turn over for introductions
to Jerry Boughton of the Society of American Foresters and after
that I understand you'd like to make a statement and then I would
like to have recognized Speak Phillips from Homer before we get
into the next presentation.
Number 148
JERRY BOUGHTON, CHAIRMAN, ALASKA SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS:
Okay, thank you Representative Green. I'd like to make some brief
introductions. We have some individuals who will make some
presentations here today that the Society of American Foresters has
brought here. We have Dr. Ed Holsten. Dr. Holsten is a
entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service here in Anchorage. He
has been an entomologist practicing in Alaska for 15 to 18 years.
In that range, he has been dealing with the spruce beetle situation
throughout that time and is recognized as one of the leading
experts on this situation and on the spruce beetle in Alaska. He's
also involved in a considerable number of research efforts to
understand the implications of this beetle and the biology of this
beetle. We also have with us today two distinguished gentlemen of
international fame. We have Mr. Les Reed. Here Mr. Les Reed is a
past chief of the Canadian Forest Service from Ottawa. He is
currently and international forestry consultant. He has experience
working with these kinds of situations in many countries across the
world. He has worked in over 40 countries across the world on
forestry issues. We also have with us today Dr. Patrick Moore.
Patrick is an individual who has been an environmental activist for
a number of years. He is original -- one of the original founders
of Green Peace. He functioned as a director of Green Peace
International and Green Peace Canada for a number of years. He is
an author of a book that's just out called "The Pacific Spirit,"
and he is currently with an organization, "The Forest Alliance of
British Columbia," which is an organization that is trying to
determine how to best deal with forestry issues in Canada, and he
is also the chair of the Forest Practices Committee of that
organization. So I think we have some distinguished gentlemen here
of significant knowledge to share some information with you today.
I would like to briefly read a statement, if I could, representing
the Society of American Foresters. First we would like to thank
the chairs of the House and Senate Resources Committees and the
members that are here today to listen to this information and to
consider this very serious issue that is effecting Alaska's forest.
The Society of American Foresters has about 18,000 members. It is
the national organization that represents all segments of the
forestry profession in the United States. It includes public and
private practitioners, researchers, administrators, educators and
forestry students. It includes individuals representing many
disciplines related to forest management such as hydrology,
wildlife biology, entomology, et cetera. The objectives of the
Society are to advance the science technology education and
practices of professional forestry in America and use the
knowledge and skills of the profession to benefit society. I'm
proud to be here today with you as the chair of the Alaska portion
of that society which has approximately 250 members. The members
of the Alaska Society became concerned with this beetle situation
and this increasing decline in forest conditions in 1993. At that
time we developed a position statement about this situation that
stressed recognition of numerous resource impacts and the need for
coordinated owner efforts across ownerships to reduce further
impacts and to restore already impacted forests. A copy of the
position is in the information packets that have been distributed.
The active infestation in 1993, at that time, was occurring at a
rate of about 700,000 acres per year. Since that time, forest
management to address this issue on all Alaska ownerships, but
particularly on public administered lands, has not come close to
matching the increased rate of infestation. Attempts by public
managers have been met with debate, protest and litigation and
relatively little actual treatment. All the while, the beetle
infestation has continued to excellerate. The aggressive and
coordinated efforts that were a hoped outcome at that time, as a
result of this 1993 position statement, the Alaska Forest Health
Initiative that was occurring at that time and other efforts simply
have not materialized in a fashion to deal with this situation.
Now in 1996, approximately 1.3 million acres are actively having
trees killed on them by these beetles. That's nearly double the
rate of how it was occurring in 1993. Nearly three million acres
in total, possibly one-half of the white spruce forest type in
Alaska have been heavily impacted by this beetle to date. The
skyrocketing epidemic is threatening the very existence of our
white spruce forests, certainly as Alaskans have known and used
those forests for the past 100 years or so. Coordinated efforts to
understand the ramifications of this forest removal on our fish,
wildlife, recreation, watershed and timber values is not taking
place. Which communities are at fire risk? What will be the
future cost of reforestation? How will this effect tourism? And
whole variety of other forest values is simply not being quantified
at this time. In 1993, the National Office of the Society of
American Foresters published a report that was to assess the task
of managing the nation's forest to sustain their health and long
term productivity of all forest values. That report stated that to
achieve this goal will require strategies which meet the following
criteria: (a) Maintain the structural and functional integrity of
the forest as an ecosystem; (b) meet the diverse needs of the human
community; and (c) commit the technological, financial and human
resources needed for implementation. In Alaska, we have a crises
at this point in time. It's of world scope in magnitude. We have
the distinction of having the largest spruce beetle epidemic
killing forest, not only in the United States, in North America and
possibly in the world. What are we doing about it? In good
consciousness, we can simply can no longer ignore this situation.
Certainly, a strategy that meets the criteria that I just went over
from that other report is needed for Alaska. What to do is often
quickly channeled into a question of "To log or not to log?" And
it becomes a debate, it becomes a philosophical emotional debate.
The Society is urging you, as the state's policy makers, to not
fall into that debate, but to look at the bigger picture. How is
this dramatic and tremendous forest changes that's occurring in
Alaska, how is it effecting the resource values that we hold dear
and that we want to have for future Alaskans. Because of these
tenants, many members of the Alaska Society of American Foresters
are compelled to bring this subject before you. It is our hope
that this will be the start of long overdue aggressive, coordinated
and positive actions to slow or prevent this further decline and to
restore impacted areas. These actions are imperative to maintain
our existing resource values to the greatest extent possible and to
ensure quality resource values for future generations of Alaskans.
Number 1005
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you very much Jerry. I really want to
express the appreciation of the House Resources Committee and I'm
sure that Co-Chair Senator Leman would say the same. We appreciate
your volunteering to come up and make these facts known to us. It
doesn't take one very long to drive outside of the city and see
dead and dying trees. So we're aware. We weren't perhaps aware,
to the extent that you're bringing to our attention, how serious
this is, but I am actually here kind of as a surrogate for my Co-
Chair Bill Williams who was unable to be here or on teleconference,
but he handles forest activities for the House Resources. My
comraderie, the Senator Leman, handles both - everything that comes
before his committee. But I did want to make that statement and
then introduce some other people who we would hope to hear from
today and perhaps set the ground rule. What we're hoping to have
today is not a confrontation meeting at all. It's strictly a data
gathering and educational meeting and if there are people who will
perhaps differ from what you suggest to us, I would certainly be
willing to stay here after we adjourn this meeting, but I would
like to hold any confrontational type questions till after this
meeting is adjourned. In fact, I would like, if it's permissible
all the presenters to hold all questions until all the information
is on and then feel free to ask any questions of any of the
presenters. And if that's acceptable, we have with us on
teleconference Tom Boutin of the Division of Forestry for the
state, we have Greg Encelewski of the Ninilchik Native Corporation,
Larry Hudson U.S. Forest Service, Mike Fastabent of the Alaska Coop
Extension, Jack Phelps is here with the Alaska Forest Association
and finally, I hope - I haven't seen him but Lance Trasky with --
oh there he is, yes - is here with the Division of Fish and Game
and I would hope that all of these people would be able to add
something to our database. With that I would like to hear from --
Gail are you on?
REPRESENTATIVE GAIL PHILLIPS: I certainly am.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Would you like to make some comments please?
Number 1216
REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: Thank you Joe and thank you very much
Senator Leman and Representative Green for this opportunity and for
putting this meeting together. I really appreciate the attention
the Resource Committees are paying to this critical issue. During
the course -- I attended the meetings yesterday in Kenai and during
the course of your hearing today, you will receive expert testimony
from the professionals and the experts on this subject. There are
very very sobering facts that will be presented to you. I am going
to speak coming from a resident of this highly volatile area of
infestation, but also as a person that many many years ago served
on an interagency task force when the spruce beetle epidemic was
first getting a stronghold on the Kenai Peninsula, and had we taken
our legislative responsibility seriously at that time, I don't feel
that we would be in the position we are today. As Alaskans, we
pride ourselves often on being the biggest state, having the
tallest mountains, having the greatest miles of shoreline, and all
these other superlatives. We are faced with a superlative today
that is shameful and that is we in Alaska have the largest
infestation of (indisc.) beetle in our forest of any state in the
union and possibly the largest infestation in any country in the
world. And that is terribly terribly shameful as far as I am
concerned. When we all as legislators were sworn into office, we
took an oath of office that we would uphold our constitution and
one of the points in the constitution is our responsibility to
protect and wisely use and manage the resources that we have in
this land. Ladies and gentlemen, we are doing a terrible terrible
job of that responsibility. In fact, I believe that we have been
totally irresponsible in the ignorance that is portrayed and in our
ignoring this major major health problem in Alaska's forest. No
longer are we looking at just an outbreak on the Kenai Peninsula,
and a small area of the Kenai Peninsula at that. When you see the
pictures today you will see an ugly ugly picture, but no longer is
it just on the Kenai Peninsula, it is throughout this whole state.
I think that we are at a point, and my involvement with this goes
back many years, I think we are at the point today where
legislatively we must take our constitutional responsibility to
heart. We must legally enforce that responsibility. We must
declare a state of emergency and we must take action. We have
talked about this issue for years. We have have had numerous task
forces, both from the state, the borough, the federal government.
We can talk until we're blue in the face and exactly what's gonna
happen is what has happened today in that our forests in Alaska are
being destroyed by a little bug and we sit here and fiddle while
Rome burns. Ladies and gentlemen, as you listen to the testimony
today, please keep in mind that I feel that it is time for the
legislature to step to the plate and take in our responsibility and
declare an emergency on this. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Number 1601
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you very much Gail. I would like to
recognize that Senator - or excuse me, Representative Kott has
joined us. Would any members of either the House or Senate
Resources Committee like to say anything before we get started?
Senator Leman.
Number 1621
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: I'd just add I'm anxious to get started only to
get as much covered as possible and I agree with you if we could do
that and then get into the questions, it's probably the best use of
our time.
Number 1635
REPRESENTATIVE JEANNETTE JAMES: Representative Green.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: This is Jeanette in Fairbanks and
Representative Pete Kelly has just come in and Tim Kerr from John
Davies office is here.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay, thank you very much Jeannette.
Number 1644
SENATOR RICK HALFORD: My only comment was to the Speaker's
comment. I agree with what she said, but I wonder if she has some
new way that I could never find. I wonder how the legislature goes
about declaring an emergency.
Number 1704
REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: We figure out a lot of other things. I
think we can figure out that one.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: That was Senator Halford. I'm sure you recognized
the voice.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: If there are no other comments, then we will
get into the meat of the project. And I guess, Jerry, you'd like
Dr. Holsten to go first.
MR. BOUGHTON: Yes, if Ed could provide an overview of the
situation.
Number 1731
DR. ED HOLSTEN, U.S. ENTOMOLOGIST/FOREST HEALTH SPECIALIST: Sure,
my name is Ed Holsten. As Jerry said, I've been working with
spruce beetle for basically since early 70s, full time with the
Forest Service here since 77. A majority of my work has been
involved in research of a variety of nature, everything from
management techniques to reduce impacts of the beetle to the other
extreme, pesticides as well as involved quite a bit in monitoring
areas of intensification of this outbreak as well as technical
assistance. What I want to do here is just kind of lay a little
ground work, a little historical perspective so the rest of the
specialists can kind of build on that. As that graph there shows
spruce beetle has been around for quite a while. What we see on
that graph is just based on what written records that we have had.
And since about the 70s, we do a fairly intensive aerial survey of
the whole state, all forested areas. So you can see there has been
quite a dramatic increase, most notably about ten years ago. So
the point - one point is we've always had beetles as long as we've
had spruce and spruce beetle occurs wherever spruce is found in the
state, from Southeast Alaska up to tree line in the Brooks Range.
Outbreaks build up and have been most prevalent in Southcentral.
Southcentral is kind of the banana belt for spruce beetle. We have
had outbreaks and we do have outbreaks in Southeast Alaska. The
probability of having problems in Sitka spruce stands are less, not
to say we don't have outbreaks there. That photo over there is of
Kachemak Bay and that's a Sitka spruce site. Southcentral Alaska,
without going into a lot of reasons why, is just perfect habitat
for the beetle. The right type of trees, the right type of
climate. Even though we have very extensive white spruce stands up
in the Interior, we have a whole different complex of insect fest
up there that potentially could cause problems, but right now we
don't have major spruce beetle outbreaks lets say along the Yukon-
Kuskokwim River. We have had problems there, but nothing to the
magnitude that were seeing now on Kenai, Anchorage Bowl and
especially the Copper River Basin. That map over there is of
Copper River Basin area, the Glennallen Copper Center area. Those
dark green areas portray areas of infestation that we've picked up
from aerial surveys this year. As Jerry stated, we're up to about
1.4 million acres of -- that's active and ongoing and new infested
areas, not areas where the beetles have come gone. So that 1.3 to
4 million figure is "a record high." What helped and I won't go
into, but is it still somewhat debatable, as most of you remember
1993 was the mother of all summers, at least in Southcentral,
record high temperatures - early temperatures. We already had
quite a large population of beetles. Do to that whether regime
there, beetle populations doubled statewide in one year. So we
already had quite a large base of beetles and doubled that, so in
1994 populations really started climbing. One of the differences
I've noticed and a lot of people -- I've just finished up having a
national steering committee made up bark beetle specialists that
was going on this week down in the Kenai, so there were about 27
people from Canada and the Lower 48 up that work with different
bark beetle type problems. One of the things that came to light
quickly for those folks, these are folks who have worked quite
extensively with bark beetles, it's not so much the extensive
nature of this outbreak - the large acreages that are involved, but
intensiveness of the outbreak. Spruce Beetle historically will
come in and out of a stand for one or two years, stakeout a certain
percent of the large spruce. What we're seeing in the last few
years is incredible mortality in some of these stands. That photo
there those stands are about 90 percent dead in the matter of three
four years. Not all areas of the state are being impacted to that
degree of severity, but there are some very very large notable
areas - the Copper Center area, extreme heavy mortality in those
stands and in the lower Kenai. Elsewhere in the state, depending
on the stand structure of the types of trees, the mixture of
species, the overall impact is less. But there is huge areas with
very very severe intensive mortality that has been occurring. A
lot of this discussion, that's gonna take place afterwards here,
will have to do with impact and I'm not gonna go into a lot of
detail because there is a lot more specialists than myself on
impact. But when I'm referring to impacts, they could be negative
as well a positive - the effects that the beetle is having on our
forest community. Unfortunately, like Jerry mentioned, there is a
real paucity of information to quantify and qualify these impacts.
But quickly, obviously there is one of loss of wood fiber.
Sawlogs, three years - after they've been dead for three years
quickly lose their value. However, for chips they hold their value
quite well for a long period of time. There has been a number of
studies that have been done by the University of Alaska as well as
the University of Arizona on the impacts that the beetle is having
on aesthetic quality. "One of the portions of recreation
experience, especially on the Kenai." And there is some very very
good results coming out about how the public, both residents and
nonresidents, view bark beetle outbreaks. Wildlife habitat, there
is some fish and game folks here which will talk a little bit more
about that. That hasn't been looked into too much up here by
wildlife biologists. In other words, what are the impacts having
on habitat of those animals that are associated with live green
spruce forests? And a lot of people kind of assumed this outbreak
would come and go in a matter of years - the overall impact
wouldn't be very severe. The last few years there has been formed
an interagency committee made up Fish and Game, Fish and Wildlife
Service, Forest Service and Division of Forestry, entrusted to
quantify and qualify some of these impacts that may be occurring to
wildlife habitat for a variety of species due to bark beetles.
Fuel build-up is a major concern and I don't know if John See is
here, I don't think he's here, but he is the fire behavioral
specialist for Division of Forestry. There is a real concern,
especially in view of what happened this summer up in Wasilla and
the two fires down on the Kenai, what effect beetle killed timber
will have on risk of wildfire and there is some fairly good data
especially coming out of the Crooked Creek fire and the Hidden
Creek fire. We know for a fact that about five to ten years after
beetles infest a stand those trees snap off and come down. What
that means is large woody fuels. The amount of that material
increases from 2 tons per acre, under normal conditions, up to 30
to 40 to 50 tons per acre. So we seeing in over a large scale a
dramatic increase in large woody fuels, which is a major factor in
large fires. Also, once these stands open up, a lot of these
stands not all, but very many of them on the Kenai, are being
invaded by a grass, kellamagrostis(ph.). It's a blue joint grass.
It's a very tall grass with - probably most of you have seen - it's
a perennial grass, and that occupies the site. Being a perennial
grass it dries out every winter and that's our main fine flashing
fuel that starts most of the fires and carries most of the fires in
Southcentral Alaska. So one of the concerns from fire folks in
many areas is increased fuels due to beetle infested areas, and
also a dramatic increase in kellamagrostis grass which aids in the
quick spread of fires. So the overall risk of large fires is
slowly increasing not only due to fuel build-up, but with
encroachment of grass. So that's a real concern to those that are
dealing with fire. The other thing is is what we're seeing, and
we're not quite sure, is we're seeing in these large scale areas
like up at Copper Center those pure spruce stands have been heavily
hit by beetles. There is very little regeneration occurring
underneath those stands. They're very even aged, fairly uniform
stands. And the real concern is is without intervention what type
of vegetation, what type of forest are we going to have down the
road? We have very little replacement growing stock, plus the seed
source from the spruce as the years go on is being reduced as the
trees are being killed, so we're lacking the seed source. We're
gonna see a change and we are seeing a change in many of our
forested areas, not to say that that change necessarily is bad.
There will always be some type of vegetation out there, but whether
that forest vegetation will provide the amenities or products that
we're used to only time will tell. So one of the misperceptions is
that once the beetle comes through a stand, the stands naturally
regenerate right back to spruce again. That isn't necessarily
what's happening in many many areas. There is very little
regeneration coming back in for the reasons that I just talked
about. So we will be seeing a change and a change is occurring in
(indisc.) forests here due to beetles to be good or bad, but we're
not without some type of intervention in high valued areas, we're
not gonna get back the same type of forest structure assuming
that's what we want - what we have now. So I think it's that last
point I kind of want to get home. Again, there is a real
misperception that the beetle is a natural agent. People can argue
whether that's natural or unnatural, but it's almost a moot point,
but the main misperception is the regenerative powers. In other
words, once beetles come through, spruce will just come right back.
We've been monitoring areas that have been impacted by the beetles
for close to 20 years now in a particular plot and we see very
little if any regeneration coming back on these sites due to
competition of grass. So we're seeing some large changes in forest
makeup. And on that note, I think I'll just leave it there and,
hopefully, that's enough ground work - background information.
I'll let everybody else add on to it. Thank you very much for the
opportunity.
Number 2932
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you very much Dr. The next person that
we had to give us a perspective is Dr. Patrick Moore.
Number 2940
DR. PATRICK MOORE, DIRECTOR, FOREST ALLIANCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA:
Thank you very much.
Number 2941
REPRESENTATIVE PETE KELLY: Mr. Chairman, this is Pete Kelly in
Fairbanks. The last testifier, could I get his name please, Mr.
Chairman.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes, that's Ed Holstein - H o l s t e i n.
DR. HOLSTEN: e n.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: e n.
Number 3000
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DAVIES: Mr. Chairman.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES: This is John Davies up in Fairbanks. Just
want to let you know I'm here.
CO- CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you John. Anybody else. Have they
joined us since we had the opening notices from teleconference
sites.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: This is Kenai. We have Senator Salo's staff
here.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And Representative Davis staff.
TOM BOUTIN, STATE FORESTER, DIVISION OF FORESTRY, DEPARTMENT OF
NATURAL RESOURCES: Mr. Chairman, this is Tom Boutin. Here in
Juneau we have Paula Terrel from Senator Lincoln's office and
Annette Kreitzer from Senator Leman's office.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay, thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. Chairman, do you wish to hold questions
until after?
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: At least I think we should get through these
first three speakers because, again, we want to make sure that it's
factual data rather than digressing off on personal questions. I
have a bunch myself. Dr. Moore.
DR. MOORE: Thank you, Representative Green. It's a pleasure to
meet with you this afternoon, members of the House and Senate
Resources Committee. Unfortunately, after flying over the Kenai
Peninsula yesterday for a couple of hours from one end to the
other, it is sad for me that I have to report to you that you do
really have an environmental emergency on your hands here in
Alaska. I've seen forests around the world from Western Australia
to Northern Europe to Brazil, all across Canada and the United
States, and I have to say I've never seen anything quite so
extensive and devastating as you have presently got occurring here
in the state of Alaska in the way of forest destruction by a
natural agent, in this case the spruce bark beetle. One of the
reasons that there has been inaction to date on this problem is the
paralysis that's been caused by the basic philosophical controversy
within your community as to whether or not this is a natural
phenomenon that should simply be allowed to take it's course as
nature does or whether you have a disease or plague or a parasite
on your hands here that should be treated as such. I'm afraid to
tell you that this has been a false question and it has been very
unfortunate in the same way that you've been led to believe this is
a choice between logging or not logging, you've been led to believe
this is choice between seeing this as a natural event or some kind
of disease. If I could just read a couple of paragraphs from my
book to show you how I've tried to explain this in a way that gets
rid of this duality that's been imposed in this debate. "Some
people might say that diseases are a natural part of the forest so
they must be good for trees in the long run. Species of beetles
that chew the life out of pine trees and spruce trees are after all
part of the biological diversity of the forest. Why should we
refer to them as a disease when they have just as much right to
live as the trees. This is about the same as saying that smallpox
and the HIV virus are good for humans. Disease may well play a
positive roll in evolution, but this is hardly going to convince us
to let epidemics run their course. The same is true for
domesticated plants and animals. When confronted with a disease
that threatens to destroy crops, our reaction is to find a control
for the disease, not to welcome it as part of biological diversity.
It is a bit utopian to expect otherwise. Professional foresters
who concern themselves with forest health are no different in this
respect from medical doctors, veterinarians and plant pathologists.
They prefer healthy productive forests that are not infested with
fungi and insects that damage or kill trees. They have developed
a whole range of strategies to reduce the incidence of disease in
trees and many of these have resulted in dramatic improvements in
growth and survival. Some pests, like bark beetles, must be more
less accepted as a fact of life and the only approach is to manage
around and with them. Whatever tactics are used, the knowledge of
and treatment of tree diseases is an integral part of forest
science. The desire to cure disease is at least as natural as the
disease itself." And that's why this is a false debate. There is
nothing unnatural about trying to cure a natural disease such as
the bark beetle and I believe that in the case of the situation you
have here in Alaska today, you have not choice if you were to
exercise responsibility towards the people and the ecosystem of the
great forest you have here in Alaska than to take some
intervention. Already there has been a great intervention in the
form of suppressing natural wildfires throughout the whole state of
Alaska, throughout North America, very successful. That's part of
the reason why forests get older these days than they did before
fire suppression was brought in and that's part of the reason why
these forests are more susceptible to beetles, it's because they
didn't burnt down before they got old and became susceptible. It's
very ironic and not necessarily intuitive to people. When you're
told as you've been told that when these forests die from the
beetle, they aren't just necessarily gonna grow back into beautiful
spruce forests right away again, they're gonna turn into
grasslands. That's partly because they're not going to burn. If
these forests, which die, were to have huge clematis wildfires go
through them, and with the heavy fuel loading you'd have deep
burning of the organic layer in the soils, that would go back down
and expose the mineral soil, then the spruce would come back. But
so long as you have heavy organic soils after these trees have
died, you'll have a very difficult if not impossible time to get
your spruce forests back again. That's why it's not just a
question of logging or not logging. Obviously, in many areas of
the state where even all the spruce trees have been killed such as
in some of your national parks, you're probably not going to go
into an extensive logging program although that may be wise from an
ecological perspective because the problem is is every tree that
becomes infected becomes an infection center to infect ten more
trees, because one beetle goes in and lays a whole pile of grubs
under the bark and then every one of those grubs comes out as a new
beetle and that's why there is expediential growth in these
populations. So getting rid of the infected trees is really the
best way to stop the epidemic and really the only effective way
short of aerial spraying over mass areas with pesticides which is
not acceptable either ecologically or socially. So sanitation is
the way to go. In Scandinavia, it's virtually illegal to leave
dead trees that have been killed by beetles in the forest. As a
matter of fact, it is illegal. It's illegal to leave timber along
the roadside for a lengthy period of time because it can become a
reservoir for beetles. The great irony here in the United States
is it's practically become illegal to cut the dead trees down
because of various environmental legislation, which I believe runs
counter in this case to the real needs of the environment.
Ecological restoration is what's needed here, not just extractive
logging. That's (indisc.). Logging is part of the solution in
many of the areas, particularly the state forests which are meant
to be managed on a sustained yield basis for multiple values. It's
not just the timber that's being killed. You think logging has
negative environmental impacts, you don't log the whole forest at
once like this beetle is killing it all at once. At least with
logging there is lots of forest at various stages of growth if
you're on a sustained yield basis. But with this beetle, you've
got massive wipe out of forests over the broad landscape and the
elimination of the habitat that that forest provides for many many
bird, insect, plant and mammal species. So the impact of logging
should no longer be really considered to be the primary question
here. The impact of the beetle kill is the primary question and
the way to deal with it in areas where you want to see spruce
forests growing back again is through ecological restoration. If
you want to see the ability of foresters to successfully intervene
and recreate the ecosystem, the natural ecosystem, not a
monoculture pulp plantation or a phony forest, but a real forest
that looks like the one that was there in the first place, you
don't need to go any further than the Mt. Saint Helen's disaster in
Washington State where professional foresters, through the simple
intervention of site disturbance and salvage plus the replanting of
healthy two-year-old trees to get a good head start was able to
recreate that ecosystem decades before nature is able to do so on
its own. It is possible through the science of ecological
restoration to recreate these ecosystems far faster than they would
be recreated under normal means. I want to make sure my colleague,
Les Reed, has lots of time to make his presentation so I'll stop
there, but I'd be glad to answer any questions you might have
later. Thank you very much.
Number 3906
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you Dr. Moore. So with that, we'll go
right to you Les.
Number 3911
LES REED, PRESIDENT, F.L.C. REED AND ASSOCIATES LTD.: Thank you
very much. It's a great pleasure for me to address the committee
of the legislature. I've looked forward to this ever since I heard
this was gonna take place and I do hope that our time here in
Alaska will be - you look back on it as some help. I would like to
say that my visit here this time as part of this international
panel is a sequel to one held in 1993, where Governor Hickel's
foresight put in place an addition of on forest health and in 1993,
three people came here to overfly the forests and give advice on
what might be done. Fortunately, -- unfortunately, very little
happened after that. I am glad as an active member of the Society
of American Foresters, and my friend Jerry Boughton here, I'm glad
to be part of the association. I've been a member for years and I
think they're doing a terrific job to bring this to public
attention. I will try and confine my remarks to eight points and
squeeze them in to ten minutes as my friend Patrick has done.
Number one, my departure point is summarized by this proposition,
Alaska's land and renewable resources are world class without
parallel on this globe. Their vastness, their diversity, their
majesty, their accessibility are legendary. It follows that this
incomparable landscape deserves world class stewardship. Number 2,
no one should take an asset like this for granted. There is no
such thing in nature as a static equilibrium. Just when the
community was really comfortable with being told that nature was
kind and benign and that nothing had to be done, disaster strikes,
the spruce beetle hits and the worst epidemic ever recorded, in my
opinion. Just let nature take its course they say. Well that's
what happened and now you can see you have an emergency on a
classic world scale. Not just the trees. It's not possible to
separate the trees from the other assets, the wildlife habitat, the
watershed, recreation and all these other assets. So any kind of
a solution which focuses simply on trees and their salvage is a
false solution. Number three, based on my international
experience, I have to say - and I speak with great reluctance, but
I have to say that sustainable forestry is not being achieved in
Alaska. Maximum sustained yield is not being realized at the
present time. International criticism will soon be aimed at
Alaska. You can brace yourself, it's coming. You're customers,
for one, will demand changes just as they have in B.C., Oregon,
Brazil, Southeast Asia. You're customers will certainly demand
changes and they will want to know for certain - they will want
some kind of certification to say that you're managing forests
sustainably. Number four, some good news. World markets are
growing. There is an economic side of this that is good news. The
world markets are growing rapidly for you're fish, you're big game,
you're tourism for forest products. The potential markets open to
Alaska are double or triple in these fields. In my opinion, the
forests of Southcentral Alaska are now, for the first time,
economically operable, fully feasible now to occupy these forests
and utilize them. It's not just a question of higher prices, which
are developing around the world which will make it easier for you
to cover your costs of extraction and processing, it's a question
of a lot of other things. For example, we have developed now new
pulping processes which allow us to make wood pulp with no
effluent. Now that will sound strange, but you can actually do
this. We have a duel mill in Saskatchewan which produces ground
wood pulp for newspapers with no effluent. There are now alcohol
pumping processes which produce pulp with no effluent. Not only
that, they are closed loop systems that guarantee that you can
recover a lot of byproducts like vadiliton(ph.) and fertilizer,
lignin, xylitol sweeteners for chewing gum and pop. There are a
whole range of things that you can do with these new processes.
We're on the threshold - a breakthrough in technology in pulping.
Salvage of beetle kill timber will yield immediate economic
benefits, not just on the timber side, but in less fire danger,
improved habitat, improved tourism and recreation potential. So I
repeat don't separate please the salvage of the timber from these
other values. Number five, what's the cost of doing nothing? In
the classroom I had some fund with my students. I told them I just
created Reeves number one law of policy formulation and it goes
very simply - it says that anyone who recommends a policy without
telling you what it will cost, that person is both reckless and
irresponsible. The costs of uncontained beetle destruction and a
subsequent restoration and of loss of property and the cost of fire
suppression - these costs are enormous. Sooner or later, it will
hit all of you in the pocketbook. Here are some costs of doing
nothing. Catastrophic wildfires, you saw some this year - earlier
this year. Number two, destruction of private property, parks,
recreation areas, lower property values, higher home insurance
costs. Number three, unprecedented damage to forest and watersheds
accompanied by the erosion of land and major reductions in fish and
wildlife populations. Number four, foregone options to diversify
the income and employment basis of the state. Just as a sidelight
for those of you who live in Anchorage, I saw a map this morning
which shows that if you have a fire starting up....
TAPE 96-81, SIDE B
Number 001
MR. REED CONTINUED: ....there are no water mains to fight fire
with. So it's gonna take the firemen - they're gonna have to do
some really inventive work to curtail a (indisc.) a fire of that
magnitude. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I'm saying the
risk is so real that something has to be done to do some work in
this populated area. After all, half the people of the state live
in this region, within 50 miles of where we sit, so it must be very
important to you in the legislature. Another loss is potential
state revenue. You'll lose revenue from timber or other revenue
sales. You'll spend more on clearing up the mess so that the
revenue position of the state is very important to estimate. We'll
see impairment Native lifestyles who depend for food chain and
other things on a healthy stable renewable resource. You'll find
that you'll see damage to your international reputation as a wise
trustee of forest lands. So the cost of doing nothing -- now I
said earlier that the cost of -- the guy who makes a recommendation
and doesn't tell you what it's gonna cost, he's a bad character.
So I'm gonna give you an idea of what it will cost to restore the
land. These are just crude figures, but based on some experience
we've had in British Columbia you might start here with the cost of
$50 to $100 million a year to salvage the timber and replant and
restore those watersheds. Fifty to $100 a year. Remember the
forestry did not cause this problem, therefore, they should not be
expected to foot the entire bill for rehabilitation, that would be
absurd. I've heard a dozen times since I came here, people say
well it wouldn't pay to rehabilitate because the timber you take
out is only worth $30 a ton and that won't pay the costs, per acre,
of restoring. And I say that's -- you're asking the wrong
question, not whether the forest salvage work would pay the entire
bill. That's not the question, the question is whether when you
restore habitats and watersheds and viewscapes and you may have
your self a $100 million bill, but lets hope that in the process
you've got yourself some real handy revenue benefits on the other
side and that these people will help to pay for the restoration.
Onamisters(ph.) are strange people, particularly forest economists.
They've got this little narrow focus on the tree, the wood yard and
they refuse to look beyond that to the big picture, so I urge you
to look at the big picture as you think about restoration. Item
number six in my list of eight, I've almost finished. The goal
must be world-class stewardship, not gridlock. Somehow this has to
be broken. A full consensus may be entirely impossible. All I can
say is that what I've seen happen in other parts of the world is
that the politicians finally say, "We can't wait anymore, we've got
to make a decision and we're not gonna get everybody to agree, but
if we can get 90 percent of them to agree, we'll go ahead." It's
incumbent on us to leave our assets as citizens, and I speak as a
citizen of the world and a citizen, in some ways, of your own
country because we're all in this together. It's incumbent on us
to leave these assets in better shape than we found them. I
learned that from my father in a farm, I didn't learn this in
forestry school, I never went to forestry school. But I did learn
that stewardship of resources means you leave it better than you
found it. You've got a big task here to leave it better than you
found it. Number seven, the urgency of this is if I haven't
conveyed to you a sense of urgency then I've failed. I shouldn't
have come. So then you go a strategic thinking and you begin say,
"What will we do next?" And it's not that difficult. The paper
that I have left with you will give you some of the things that
have to be done. First of all, you treat the beetle as an
emergency it truly is. Second, you prepare a strategic plan, an
integrated one, comprehensive one. Third, you establish specific
goals. How much habitat do you want? How many fish and wildlife?
What populations do you want? What do you want out of the forest
economy? Number four, you strengthen the mechanisms for
cooperation and coordination. This will mean streamlining your
regulatory system. It'll mean doing something to improve the
response time among the various state and federal agencies. Number
five, we'll have to build constituency support, residents,
visitors, nongovernment agencies, state and federal officials, the
whole works, students, educators. Number six, examine the revenue
potential and the expenditure tracks. Number seven, review
legislation and regulation. In the process, you'll pick some
revisions perhaps and make specific people and specific functions
in state government accountable to achieve your goals in the
strategic plan. Number eight, address some information gaps. You
already have more data than you need to make a strategic plan, so
I would urge you not to wait until you got perfect data. You don't
need perfect data for a strategic plan. Sometimes you need better
data out of the field to correct a certain problem, but there can
be no question that any longer delay would just simply add to the
catastrophic nature of your problem. Nine, I would urge you
activate some kind of a citizens force land advisory council to
deal with the epidemic, not confining it to simply a government
task force, but to make it a little broader, make sure the group is
small and give them four or five months to come up with a strategic
plan. If you give them two years, they'll take it. So give them
a small budget and tell them that you've got to have a quick
answer. When I ran the Canadian Forestry Service, I used to do
that. They said, "Well we'll come back in six months and have some
meetings and tell you." And I said, "You forgot, I have to find
money for you in the legislature - in the Parliament. You will
have to come to me with an answer next week." And they say, "Oh,
we can't do that." And I'd say, "Fine, go away, leave (indisc.)
me, I'll write it myself." Now I have a great firm belief that
sometimes the best people to handle a thing like this are
community leaders and legislators without technical academic
credentials in hydrology or in forestry or entomology. Sure you've
got to draw on these people, but perhaps it's not the best idea to
put them in charge of a strategic plan. Number ten, table an
annual report. Make it mandatory, in your legislation, to table an
annual report on the status of Alaska's renewable resources every
year and it'll be addressed to the House and Senate and it'll be
distributed simultaneously to the public. This could be - I say
again, could be done. You could have your first preliminary done
be February of next year. Strategic planning isn't a complicated
forecast. The strategist simply looks at the problems and looks at
the direction you're headed and says, "Is that where you want to
go?" That's strategic planning. So, you have a chance to choose
your future here in Alaska. It won't be the chance you had ten
years ago, but it's still very much a worthwhile choice and I thank
you.
Number 822
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you very much, Les. We have several
state presenters. Is it the feeling of the committee that we
should go right on through or answer some of the questions that may
have arisen now and then go to the state presenters. I would
prefer - it's a little after 2:00 now and I understand some of you
may have to leave, so I would like you to get all the data if you
can for the (indisc.). Charge ahead, okay.
Number 847
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I just wanted to ask a quick question. Les,
you said that paper was here. Is it in our packets or is it
available? Thanks.
Number 904
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay, with that then we'll move on into the
state organizations and we would hope that we would hold our
comments to somewhere between five and ten minutes. I would like
to also -- I understand Cliff Eames is of the Alaska Center for the
Environment is here, yes. And perhaps at the conclusion of the
other state agencies, you might like to make some comments as well
Cliff if that's alright. We do have some room at the table here if
some of the people would like to come up. First, I'd like to call
on Tom Boutin from teleconference. Tom, are you still with us?
TOM BOUTIN, STATE FORESTER, DIVISION OF FORESTRY, DEPARTMENT OF
NATURAL RESOURCES: I certainly am, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me
okay?
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Very well, sir. Can everybody out there hear?
Go ahead.
MR. BOUTIN: Okay, good, I've got some notes that I'll read from if
I might, Mr. Chairman. I know once I get to talking, of course I
won't be able to hear you so I'll just go right on through and try
to go as quickly as I can. For the record, Mr. Chairman, I'm Tom
Boutin, State Forester and Director of DNR, Division of Forestry.
Thanks for inviting me to talk with you today. I want to
specifically thank you for inviting all of the players to the
table. DNR asked that the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service, the University, the Mental Health Land Trust and other
landowners be invited. We also wanted the Department of Fish and
Game to come since we've looked to them for answers to questions
such as what will be the impact of the bark beetle on fish habitat,
game habitat and water quality; and we work with them to mitigate
the effects of logging on those values since logging followed by
reforestation is the only large-scale response that has been
available to DNR. Also, Fish and Game and the United States Fish
and Wildlife Service have participated in a group of scientists and
land managers called INFEST has has been looking at the infestation
and I think the perspective that Fish and Game has is important
here today. DNR also wants to thank you for inviting the
environmental community. Environmental interests have had a key
role in determining what options are available to public land
managers who are trying to respond to the bark beetle. There's a
briefing paper in your packet that the the Division of Forestry
updated for this hearing. We have briefing papers on most of our
initiatives and issues. We began updating this one when we
happened to learn that the Society of American Foresters had
planned meetings on this issue. The state of Alaska owns about 2.1
million acres of land in the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Half of that
is in state parks, refuges and critical habitat areas. Of the 1.1
million acres that is in the public domain, 449,000 acres are
forested land. Of that 449,000, over half is west of Cook Inlet
and 201,000 is on the Kenai Peninsula and Kalgin Island. Most of
that forested land is heavily impacted by the spruce bark beetle.
The goals that DNR has had in its bark beetle program are to
accelerate reforestation, maintain diverse forest types and ages to
support a wide variety of public uses, and capture the economic
value from infested trees before they decay. The key feature of
our program has been timber sales. Out of the 201,000 acres on the
Kenai Peninsula and Kalgin Island, timber sales for fiscal years
94, 95 and 96, totaled about 8,750 acres in 25 sales. Our 5 Year
Sale Schedule for the Kenai Borough proposes sales on about 28,000
acres. Of that acreage, 19,000 is on the Kenai Peninsula. Prior
to 1994, DNR had sold an average of 200 acres of timber sales, per
year, on the Kenai Peninsula. In timber volume we've sold between
30 and 40 million feet of salvaged timber on the Kenai since 1994,
up from a program of less than one million feet per year. This
sort of increase in a public timber sale program has required
additional public process. We asked Borough Mayor Don Gilman to
put together a panel of citizens to review our 5 Year Schedule. We
committed up front to complying with every recommendation upon
which the panel could reach a consensus and there were 18 consensus
recommendations. We addressed concerns underlying those
recommendations on which there was no consensus as best as we
could. We transferred money to the Department of Fish and Game so
a habitat biologist could be on the ground with us while we did our
silvicultural prescriptions and the timber sale layout. We
borrowed a silviculturist from the United States Forest Service.
We committed to having a public meeting in communities near every
timber sale and the habitat biologist and the silviculturist came
to every one of those meetings and explained our program. We met
with media in Anchorage and on the Peninsula. We had most of the
Peninsula media out on different timber sales. When a large sale,
Kalgin Island, received no bids, we got together with the timber
industry to design a sale that would sell and then it did sell. We
asked the United States Forest to bring research people up from
Portland to record how timber in different stages of beetle-caused
decay held up for conversation to lumber, chips and veneer. We
provided the logs and staff for the recovery study and passed the
study results on to the industry and have used them in our sale
appraisals. We have programs that do not include timber sales and
we have also used those to respond to the bark beetle. Our forest
stewardship program helps private landowners determine objectives
for their forested land and what must be done to meet those
objectives. As you might imagine, the bark beetle is a major
feature of that program on the Kenai Peninsula. Our urban and
community forestry program holds meetings and workshops, and
distributes information for homeowners to use in combating the
beetle. Our fire prevention program has held numerous defensible
space workshops for rural homeowners on the peninsula. We produced
a paper for the tour companies on the Kenai Peninsula to use to
explain the beetle epidemic to their customers. With this record,
Mr. Chairman, you could think that everyone cheer us on, but there
has been some unhappiness. On September 22, 1994, Trustees for
Alaska and four other groups appealed our 5 Year Schedule in
Anchorage Superior Court. The case is known as Alaska Sportfishing
v. DNR. For a period of time, the plaintiffs asked for a stay on
each of our timber sale auctions, but all of the stays were denied.
I think there were ten sales altogether for which the judge said we
had done a good job and that the plaintiffs were unlikely to win on
the merits of their case. Individual sales have been added to the
complaint and the list of appellants has expanded to nine groups.
For the first 18 months, there was constant churning of motions and
filings; DNR had to catalog, index and file over 10,000 pages of
documents. On June 5, 1995, the court ruled in DNR's favor on a
motion to recover expenses in the case and Trustees sent a check
for good funds. Final oral arguments are now scheduled for next
month and a decision could come this year. We have also had a
number of administrative appeals of our Kenai Peninsula timber
sales, which have all been denied, and one appeal of our coastal
consistency funding on the Falls Creek Sale, for which the Coastal
Policy Council ruled in DNR's favor. I cannot honestly say that
these administrative and judicial appeals have materially delayed
any timber sales or our program has a whole but we certainly have
spent time on them that would have been spent on another part of
the program had they not come. Mr. Chairman, I think DNR has
figured out how to responsibly and efficiently meet the new
statutory public process requirements that came at the same time as
the update of the Forest Resources and Practices Act. I don't
think anyone in the timber industry anyway believes that DNR could
be doing more to respond to the bark beetle using what we have for
people and money. But I want you to know that 5 Year Schedules,
Forest Land Use Plans, which are required for every timber sale,
public meetings and field trips, appeals and litigation amount to
significant expense for the sale of dead and dying spruce trees
that are short, sparse, small and a great distance from much of a
market to begin with. I need to mention the market from a land
manager's perspective. Jack Phelps will talk about the market in
some detail, and I share his long-term optimism, but right now
owners of low grade timber are suffering. Pulplog prices have
dropped from as much as 35 to as much as 75 percent since last
fall. Companies that were actively buying Alaska wood for Lower 48
pulp mills have gone home. The remaining Alaska pulp mill is
reported to be in very serious trouble. DNR has had a number of
timber sale auctions at which there were no bids. In the Interior,
those sales seem to be picked up later, but beetle-killed timber
sales in Haines are not selling and one sale on the Kenai did not
sell. Mr. Chairman, DNR's timber sale program, as a whole, returns
more money to the state than it costs. The state has no deficit
timber sale program. But salvage sales do not usually pay for
themselves. In particular, Kenai sales only pay for part of the
reforestation costs and usually do not pay for all of their
preparation and administration. Reforestation of salvage sales is
not required by the Forest Resources and Practices Act and private
landowners requested and DNR recently completed regulations that
set out the procedure for exempting salvage sales from
reforestation. But DNR has committed to reforesting all timber
sales to the stocking standards in the law even in the case of
salvage sales. On the Kenai Peninsula, we have one buyer but all
landowners are very fortunate to have that one buyer because if
that firm had not developed their market, I doubt that anyone would
have done so and the market would have completely shut us down at
this time. As it is, I know of a number of firms in Southeast and
in Southcentral that have extraordinarily large decks of low-grade
logs. In this sort of market, Lower 48 pulp mills would not give
a new supplier an order at any price. markets always change, but
I don't know that we can find a good market in time for much of the
dead and dying spruce that can be offered. I would like to cover
just a few more topics. One is fire and the bark beetle. While
the situation is not simple at all, and you have probably heard
that, there is one simple fact. The Miller's Reach fire, the fire
in Big Lake last June, was in no way involved with the spruce bark
beetle. The spruce bark beetle was not a feature of that fire.
Our briefing paper includes an attachment that describes the
wildfire implications of the bark beetle epidemic. I also want to
make it clear that DNR has not accomplished this alone. The Alaska
Legislature enacted HB 121, sponsored by Representative Bill
Williams, to allow expedited sale of salvaged timber. HB 212,
sponsored by Representative Jeannette James, was thoroughly
improved by the Resources Committees and allows a more expedited
public process. Both of these bills were signed into law by
Governor Knowles. Governor Knowles put money for salvage timber
sales on the Kenai Peninsula into his capital budget. Governor
Knowles' office has helped DNR work out some timber sale issues in
a way that allowed us to proceed when some of those same issues on
earlier timber sales had come to wreckage three years ago. We now
get together in the Governor's office and work these things out.
The United States Forest Service has given DNR money and expertise
that it could not have found any other place. Funding to do the
job came along with the Forest Service silviculturist that I
mentioned a moment ago. That silviculturist went right to court
with us and you can't ask for a better partner than that. The
forest stewardship and urban and community forestry programs are
totally federally funded. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game
has helped at critical moments. Commissioner Frank Rue weighed in
on our Falls Creek timber sale and as a large sale - largest
salvage sale the state has ever had near Ninilchik on our Falls
Creek timber sale in a way that allowed it to proceed. He told the
very new Administration that sale had been done well and should
proceed. Therefore, the appeal sitting on my then new boss' desk,
John Shively, was denied and I think Trustees were put on notice
that what they had begun in court would find its conclusion in
court and I hope you can appreciate how important that was at that
point in time. The timber industry, and particularly the Alaska
Forest Association, has provided expertise, support and patience,
especially patience perhaps for timber sale program. They have
provided affidavits on a moment's notice time after time to help in
our defense against Trustees. They've stood with us on our
initiative to move to operator reforestation with our best
customer, the firm that I mentioned had found a market for Kenai
timber, showing all foresters some innovation in meeting
reforestation requirements. I need to also mention that that firm
is reforesting areas that it is not required to reforest even while
experiencing a severe market downturn. When a judge makes an
example out of a timber operator that showed a wholesale disregard
for the law and the environment I think that's great. But do I
cringe when the media beats up the timber industry in general
because I think that this firm that I'm talking about, a firm which
found a market for dying timber that we public land managers are
stuck with, and then does reforestation on the Kenai out of its own
profits. The DNR commissioner and his office have provided
constant support for our Kenai program. Deputy Commissioner Marty
Rutherford has traveled to countless late night public meetings on
the Kenai to explain our timber sales. I've seen her bring her
baby to more than one all day Saturday meeting down there. The
Department of Law has been an exceptional partner in our timber
sale program. The attorney assigned to us is a professional
forester and he worked in the woods before going to law school.
Our foresters believe in him and he works at least as hard as we
do. Last spring, we gave the Attorney General a gallon of maple
syrup and told him that the Division of Forestry would see that he
never runs out so long as this attorney is assigned to us.
Finally, I want to say I am proud of the division. We've gone from
200 acres a year to several thousand while being sued and sometimes
beat up in different places. I think we've lost six or seven
foresters to budget cuts during that period of time, since fiscal
year 94, while at the same time forest practices on private land
has required greater and greater amounts of work. During the same
period we have improved our documents to where I think they are
becoming both entirely responsive and also perhaps bullet proof.
We'll see what the judge tells Trustees and us later this fall.
There are some things that we have been unable to do. One of those
is that we have not been able to find a wildlife manager who
believes that the spruce bark beetle epidemic will be detrimental
to wildlife in the long term. Likewise, we have not been able to
find a fisheries biologist that believes that the epidemic will
have a long term impact on fish habitat or water quality. Also,
the wildlife managers and fisheries biologists we know are
reluctant to say that logging, even if done well, will have fewer
impacts than letting the epidemic run its course. I have an
excerpt here that I want to read. It comes from a memo that Fish
and Game Commissioner Frank Rue wrote to the Governor last July,
and while it's probably not good to take it out of context, I think
it summarizes very well what fish and wildlife managers have been
telling foresters about the beetle epidemic on the Kenai for some
time. Commissioner Rue wrote: "However, from a fish and wildlife
perspective, the loss of large mature spruce trees will not have an
impact on fish and wildlife species of primary interest to
Alaskans. Fire and bark beetles are an integral part of the boreal
forest and the animals that live there depend on the periodic
renewal of the forest. We are not aware of any state strategy to
deal with bark beetles, other than logging the trees before or
after they are dead. However, this has its own problems." Mr.
Chairman, I think you can see why DNR has not relied on impacts to
fisheries or water quality, lost wildlife habitat, or for that
matter lost tourism dollars, danger to recreation sites and real
estate devaluation to justify our Kenai salvage program. DNR
produces net revenues as well as jobs from state resources, but it
has to deal in the real world of appeals and litigation. If we
don't have at least a consensus among credible professionals for
what we propose then we head in another direction. As stated a
moment ago and at the top of our briefing paper, our goals for the
state's bark beetle program are to accelerate reforestation,
maintain diverse forest types and ages to support a wide variety of
public uses, and capture economic value from infested trees before
they decay. I'll wrap this up, Mr. Chairman, by telling you where
DNR will go from here. We'll continue to prepare and offer the
sales in the 5 Year Schedule of Timber Sales as the budget permits
so long as there are buyers for our sales. That includes the Kenai
Peninsula salvage sales in the Governor's capital budget that was
signed into law last summer. We will continue to reforest all of
our timber sales including salvage sales. At the same time, the
prospects for doing as much timber production in the future as we
have done in the past are quite small. As I stated earlier, we've
lost six foresters to budget cuts since fiscal year 94 when our
Kenai salvage program began. we lost a total of seven positions,
not all of them foresters, in this fiscal year alone. At the
present time, I've been directed by the legislature to come up with
a way to replace Division of Forestry foresters doing Forest
Practices Act inspections with a program in which timber landowners
would hire certified consultants, and the budget realities that
state government faces dictate these sorts of examinations even if
I had not been specifically directed to do so by the legislature.
The estimated five or six forester positions that we would be able
eliminate, all but one of them filled right now, once the program
of certified consultants is up and running, also lay out timber
sales from Ketchikan to Kenai. So our timber sale program,
including Kenai salvage sales, is definitely not on the increase.
We'll continue to participate with the United States Forest Service
in their annual forest insect and disease survey. We will continue
to contribute to the group of scientists called INFEST that is
looking at the bark beetle epidemic from an historic and scientific
perspective. We will continue to distribute information to
homeowners and landowners on bark beetle remediation and defensible
space. These efforts are pretty much all federal funds so I cannot
choose to cut them instead of timber sales. Over the years, I've
talked to many groups in public meetings about the beetle
infestation and our program - the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee
Council, the Resource Development Council, the Board of Fisheries,
various chambers of commerce and many others - and I'll continue to
do that. We'll continue to keep the Board of Forestry involved.
We'll continue to defend the state vigorously in court. Finally,
Mr. Chairman, DNR also enforces the Forest Practices Act on private
and municipal land, along with our state land responsibilities for
the private landowner response to the spruce bark beetle has
brought an increased work requirement and we'll continue to live up
to the law on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'll be happy to
answer any questions you might have at any time.
Number 2902
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you Tom. You bring a certainly different
perspective than we've heard earlier. You mentioned a couple of
things that perked my interest, the fact that you're schedule is
somewhat predicated on a buyer and the ability to escape the stays
of the Alaska Center for the Environment. You mentioned that the
ADF&G commissioner had indicated that there was no adverse effect
on habitat. And I'm wondering on that basis if Mr. Trasky, would
you mind going next to kind of keep that thought in mind? And then
we'll continue down as we've got them listed. Certainly, I hate to
change that, but it seems like that's a kind of a package.
Number 3002
LANCE TRASKY, SUPERVISOR, SOUTHCENTRAL REGION, DIVISION OF HABITAT
AND RESTORATION, DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME: Mr. Chairman,
members of the committee, my name is Lance Trasky. I'm the
Regional Supervisor for the Habitat Restoration Division,
Department of Fish and Game, and our division has primary
responsibility for forest practices and, as Tom Boutin pointed out,
we work very closely with them in logging bark beetle issues. I
guess the question that I was called here to answer today is, "How
was the spruce beetle outbreak affect fish and wildlife populations
in Alaska. And we've really done -- the department has four things
to look at that. First, we searched the vast body of scientific
literature for information on the impacts of spruce bark beetles
and other similar insects on fish and wildlife populations. We did
this through a computerized search of all the national biological
data bases, so it was very extensive. As you are aware, the
department has conducted long-term surveys of fish and wildlife
populations throughout the state. Monitored these populations very
carefully because that's how we managed the harvest, and so we have
records in areas where we've had spark before and after these
spruce bark beetle outbreaks have occurred in these areas. Third,
we've looked at the historical literature on spruce bark beetle
outbreaks in Alaska and as probably most people are aware, there
has been thousands of them over the years and in particular there
has been some pretty severe ones on the Kenai Peninsula and in the
Mat-Su Valley in the early 1900s. The other things is we've
considered, you know, what the experts within the department know
about the life history of the animals that Alaskans are really
interested in how these intuitively might be effected by loss of
mature spruce trees. What we found is that there was really no
scientific information in the literature to indicate that spruce
bark beetles or other similar insects have caused declines in fish
and wildlife populations in interest of Alaskans. And I have to
define are the ones that are primary interest Alaskans are moose,
black bear, brown bear, salmon and some of the recreational fish
species. Certainly, species that are dependent on mature spruce
trees like pine squirrels, spruce hens, marble merlots(ph.) are
gonna be harmed by the loss of mature spruce trees. No question
about that, but fortunately those are not of primary interest to
Alaskans and we don't really manage them. So there are no ADF&G
surveys of data that we have in these areas where the beetles have
taken their toll on spruce trees which indicates that have been any
declines in salmon, moose and bears in the areas effected.
Actually, because of the very good weather conditions they probably
favor the spruce, actually I think our salmon populations have been
near historic records. And brown bear are declining on the Kenai
Peninsula, but that's primarily because of defense of life and
property. There is so much habitat now that there is more bears
killed because of defense of property that are produced. So they
are declining, but it has nothing to do with spruce bark beetles.
We have also looked at historic mostly Forest Service reports from
the early 1900s on very large bark beetle outbreaks on the Kenai
Peninsula and I think you may have heard a little bit about this in
Kenai. There was a report that we have, and I have some copies
with me if you'd be interested then, most of the trees in the Homer
area were dead by 1900 from an outbreak that occurred in the mid
1800s on both sides of the bay. Probably a lot of us are familiar
with what it looks like before the latest bark beetle outbreak. So
there was obviously a lot of recovery during that period of time
and there is also records from the stumps down there about when
diseases occurred, so there is some information on that. There was
also a very interesting outbreak in the valley, in the early 1900s,
that centered in the Willow Mountain area. It was very widespread
and the forester predicted that it might wipe out all the spruce
trees in the valley. Of course it didn't do that, but one
interesting effect of it was it was centered on Willow Mountain and
what happened on Willow Mountain is it did eliminate all the spruce
trees. Willow Mountain came back in almost complete willow cover
and as a result it's probably some of the moose habitat in the
state, and the legislature actually designated it as a critical
habitat area because of the importance of that area for moose. So
some species such as moose depend on deciduous vegetation, not
spruce, actually could benefit from something like this on certain
sites. It depends on the site, as the forester said, what you get
back. As I said, the loss of mature spruce trees will likely favor
species which thrive on successional change and there is a lot of
species such as moose, black bear, rabbits, ruffle grouse, that do
benefit from this. And probably from the healthiest thing from a
fish and wildlife perspective, actually have a mosaic of a forest
where you have everything from early successional to mature trees
and patches of this so the animals can move around. They have the
edge effect. It gives your maximum production most long-term
stability. So that's, from our perspective, that's the best
situation. The spruce bark beetle epidemic will harm species, as
I said, like certain birds, pine squirrels, marbled merlots, and as
far as fish like salmon and stuff, it's probably a wash. If you
just -- without any other effects, the loss of the trees, the
riparian zones are important, but the vegetation there will
probably still function and filter out cell turbidity and
pollutants. We will get probably a lot big slug of large woody
debris in streams. We would like to see it go in over a long time,
but a lot of that wood in the smaller streams we found will stay
there 100 to 150 years if it's not blown out in bigger steams and
that comes from the U.S. Forest Service. So that's probably not a
disaster. We understand there is a concern about changes in
hydrology. That can happen when you move the forest cover within
a drainage that you can see changes in hydrology. I think, you
know, usually that's associated with extensive clear-cut logging
where you get that sort of thing, but I suppose the bark beetles
can have a similar effect. We have been monitoring the Kenai
River. We haven't seen anything like that happen, but probably my
guess is that the natural fluctuations of (indisc.) we've seen in
recent years would mask that anyways unless you just removed all
the vegetation from the hillside. So as Tom pointed out, we have
been working with the Division of Forestry in laying out timber
sales. Our objective there has been to protect fish streams on the
Kenai, because of the value of the fish produced there and also
there has been some opportunities to improve moose brows by
encouraging birch, cottonwood, those species and we've been pretty
satisfied. Mike Weaver and Steve Albert that have been working on
those are here today. I guess in closing, I'd say if the
department found and found indications that the spruce bark beetles
were harming fish and wildlife of interest to Alaskans that we'd be
the first ones to squawk. We'd be the first ones to ask, you know,
somebody to do something about it if there was something that would
improve the situation. But to date, we haven't seen a serious
problem and we don't know of any solutions, you know, that would
make the situation better. So anyways, I'll answer any questions
you have. I hope that's -- covered most of the bases here.
Number 3718
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Well I appreciate that Les. Thank you very
much. Next we have Greg Encelewski, Ninilchik Native Corporation.
Number 3728
GREG ENCELEWSKI, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT, NINILCHIK NATIVE
CORPORATION: Hi, I'm Greg Encelewski.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Do you want to come up so that the people on
teleconference can be sure and hear you.
MR. ENCELEWSKI: Sure. It's an honor to be able to speak here
today. Yes, I am with Ninilchik Native Corporation. I serve as
the assistant to the president. And as private landowners on the
Kenai Peninsula, no one wants - no one more than us wants to see
healthy trees on our lands and that's our goal. However, we have
different response to the spruce bark beetle than the state at
large has. We were aggressively harvesting our lands and pursuing
timber harvest and trying to reap economic value off of these dead
trees and in the process were having improvements put upon our
lands in the way of roads and access to our lands and that will
serve well for future things like hunting and access there. We
also have been able to put shareholders to work and local people to
work and help out the local economy, and of course the stumpage
value that's derived from the saw logs and the pulp. Ninilchik
Native Corporation has approximately 100,000 acres that have been
patented to it and, of that, roughly 70,000 is on the east side and
30,000 on the west side of Cook Inlet and we're still 65 to 70,000
acres shy of our entitlement that still hasn't been conveyed to us.
Presently, we have actual ownership to about 65,000 acres due to
some buying and selling and distributing some 40 acre parcels to
our shareholders, and of that 65,000 acres I'm told that 50,000
acres of it has been infested by the beetle - so an astronomical
percentage. And so we believe that the best approach is to do what
we can to get some economic value out of that and, obviously, we
want to see new trees come back. We have the greatest vested
interest being the landowner. And one of the things that has
helped us to be effective is having actually - having the presence
down there and having people in the field to tour the logging
operations every day, drive the roads, inspect things, and that has
helped us in the areas of quality roads and cleanup and... Hasn't
always gone perfectly, there is a learning curve, but over time
we've learned more and more and so we're getting better. Also,
there is the Forest Practices Act which has specific requirements
regarding reforestation and stream side buffers. And so not only
do we have our own guys who are patrolling and monitoring things,
but we have the different state agencies reviewing the sales and
going on inspections. Another thing that we have noticed
differently is that we have actually had timber buyers literally
knocking down our door to buy our timber. We've had a tremendous
deal of interest. We manage the large timber tracks of Cook Inlet
Region, Incorporated, and manage and market their timber and have
noticed an incredible amount of interest in purchasing our sawlogs
and pulp. And we've also noticed that a lot of our logging areas
end up looking quite well and are not unsightly. Just this fall,
I was moose hunting and driving through many of those roads and
they're not an unsightly site. We engage in what's referred to I
believe is selective harvesting. We cut down to a 6-inch top. And
then in CIRI's case they have with their high value recreational
lands, they only cut down to a 9-inch top, and then in both cases
we leave two seed trees of 12-inch DBH. However, the beetle has
absolutely no remorse. The beetle kills the two seed trees that
are left. The beetle kills the trees in the high value recreation
areas where we leave the trees at 9-inch DBH or less. The beetle
kills those even under 6 inches, the beetle kills those trees as
well. As far as reforestation goes what we've noticed is the areas
that have where the ground has been disturbed by the different -
whether it's machinery or logging equipment in there, those are the
areas that tend to have the best results as far as regrowth, that
the natural disturbance of the soil and turning up the nutrients
ends up working best. As an example, the summer logging tends to
have better results as far as regrowth because the tires or
whatever it is, the equipment can penetrate the soil whereas winter
logging we haven't had near the success in regrowth. However, we
do have loggers go back in the summer and scarify those areas that
were winter logged. We do take part in seed cone collections and
have a nursery in Washington that has a stock - a seed source
stock. And so anyway, we believe that this is the best course of
action and it's providing - it's providing jobs that were able to -
- one of the few Native corporations in Alaska that are able to
provide dividends to their shareholders due to this and -- so
anyway, I'll close with that.
Number 4404
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you very much Greg. The next person we
have to hear from is Larry Hudson, U.S. Forest Service.
Number 4411
JIM CAPLAN, DEPUTY REGIONAL FORESTER, NATURAL RESOURCES, U.S.
FOREST SERVICE: Mr. Chairman, my name is Jim Caplan. I'll be
taking Mr. Hudson's place today.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Could you spell your last name?
MR. CAPLAN: Certainly, it's C a p l a n.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Just like it sounds.
MR. CAPLAN: Yup.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you.
MR. CAPLAN: Although frequently spelled with a K.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay.
Number 4426
MR. CAPLAN: Larry was kind enough to take my place on the trip to
the Kenai yesterday, so I'm taking his here today. I'm the Deputy
Regional Forester for Natural Resources with the Forest Service
here in Alaska. I want to thank you for the opportunity, you Mr.
Chairman and the members, for being able to appear here today and
talk about the Forest Service and it's management of the national
forest here with respect to the beetle. You have already heard
from many people, and I won't repeat, the contributions that my
agency has made since after the turn of the century with respect to
this infestation. It's been a fact of life for us beginning when
we arrived here as managers in 1902, and continues on now. It has
always been a considerable concern to foresters and forest managers
here. You've heard about he State Private Forestry Division and
it's contributions to the state - money that's put forth for state
programs. Also how entomologists with State and Private Forestry,
including Dr. Holstein and our Research Division, has been
responsible for much of the information that we have available to
this when we're trying to manage the forest with respect to the
beetle. The national forests in Alaska are at one time national
forests, they are Alaskan forests and they are community forests.
We respect our relationship at all those levels and that forest
health has long been an issue, nationally, that the Forest Service
has taken up and has lead the discussion, along with a lot of other
interested parties, about how to manage forests into a certain
condition of health. Health is defined as the ability to heal, and
thus, in many cases what we talk about is how we can restore an
ecosystem or a forest to a practical level where it is responsive
to management over time and can respond well from devastation. You
hear mixed views about the health of the forests in Alaska,
particularly when you see an infestation like the beetle....
TAPE 96-82, SIDE A
Number 001
MR. CAPLAN: ...jump up and run a marathon today although a few
folks here look that way. And I guess the story to be told there
is that we have to decide, collectively, as national forest - as
Alaska's national forest and it's community forests of what state
of health we want for these forests. The Forest Service frequently
practices various kinds of removal of trees and recreation areas,
for instance, in order to maintain public health and safety in
those recreation areas. Our campgrounds and so forth regularly get
silvicultural treatment to remove dead trees or beetle affected
trees. This is because we are managing them for a state of health
that respects the public and its need to be safe while it
recreates. When we get into a broader applications, frequently we
find that people in the state of Alaska, national organizations and
even some community leaders oppose large scale treatment of forests
to remove the beetle and beetle kill timber. You certainly find
this all across the United States, so it's not peculiar to Alaska,
but it's certainly a part of the condition of managing forests
here. And failing a lot of agreement in our communities and among
the many professions that now are involved in the management of
national forests and the ecologists, various kinds of forest
managers, silviculturists, entomologists and others, but failing
the ability to bring a consensus to how that should be managed at
the community level, we find it very difficult to proceed with
large scale applications. Many people are concerned about what
they see as a penetration of wild lands by roads and by various
kinds of ground disturbing activities. I don't expect that to
abate unless we see leadership coming from many sectors of our
society in trying to deal with this problem. On the Chugach
National Forest, which is where a majority of our management occurs
that's connected with the beetle, we've offered several timber
sales in the last year and some of that work has been done. Other
sale offerings were withdrawn when they were appealed and then when
we realized that national direction had been put forth by the
secretary of Agriculture, which limited our options at least until
the first of the year. We intend, as an agency, to reoffer some if
not all of that timber volume after the first of the year, but
frankly we too are confounded to some degree by a lack of a
receptive market for that product should it be offered, we'll see.
In the past we've offered and had it not sold, since that's been
our method for gaining removal of the trees were, you know, kind of
stuck if we don't have somebody who shows up and bids on it. One
of our success stories, and I think it's a notable one, is the area
around Cooper Landing and that was a joint effort between state and
private forestry in the national forest system folks -- and they
gained a great deal of community support for treatment in that
area, worked closely with the community to get what they wanted out
of the local forest and, in fact, I think did a very fine job of
treating that area. That model I think is one that we should study
for the possibilities that it might offer elsewhere. Those are my
remarks today, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Number 406
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you Jim, appreciate that very much. We
also have from the Alaska Cooperative Extension Mike Fastabent.
Would you care to make some comments?
Number 419
MIKE FASTABENT, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, FAIRBANKS - ALASKA
COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE: Sure. This spelling really isn't
close.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Oh it isn't. Is the pronunciation even close?
MR. FASTABENT: The pronunciation is right.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: How do you spell it?
MR. FASTABENT: F a s t a b e n t - Fastabent. Again, it's a real
honor to be here. It's a really unique experience for me as I have
never been involved in something like this before. I work for the
Alaska Cooperative Extension which is the educational outreach
branch, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Number 457
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Excuse me just one moment. You speak rather
softly. Can the teleconference sites hear.
Number 503
SENATOR ROBIN TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, this is Senator Taylor down in
Sitka and he's really hard to hear down here. He's breaking up
pretty badly. If you could, when this witness is done I'd like to
make a comment or two as I'm gonna have to leave.
Number 417
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: If you could be brief sir.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Just after the witness will be fine.
Number 520
MR. FASTABENT: I'll try to be brief, I know we're running a little
late. My position is educational outreach. It was created - is
funded by State and Private Forestry and what I do is just that -
educational outreach to private landowners on how to manage for
spruce beetle. Whether or not it's mitigated a disturbance that's
actually occurring on their property to try and protect - increase
the health of their trees keeps beetles from coming into their
property. There has been a huge public response to this
educational outreach service. Over the past 15 months we've gotten
over 3,000 phone calls at the extension office. We had dozens of
classes. There is a huge educational need of the public who is
very well aware of the spruce beetle activity that's going on. I
also do site visits. I work with landowners a lot and I guess what
I can bring to the table today that is different than what you've
heard is just the concerns that I'm hearing from the public.
Admittedly, the public that is contacting me is biased in that
they're proactive and that they want to be doing something, but I'm
working with an awful lot of people that are spending an awful lot
of time, an awful lot of energy, in some cases an awful lot of
money, because to the private landowner it doesn't matter whether
this is a natural disturbance, it doesn't matter whether or not any
of this other stuff -- they see it come on their property, it has
definite negative effects. Losing large spruce trees on private
property can affect everything from real estate values. It becomes
hazard trees, not to mention that many people have great emotional
attachments to the larger trees. A lot of people have built their
houses, designed their property around existing large spruce trees.
They see this as nothing less than disaster that's coming. And the
concerns that I'm getting is these folks are spending their own
time, their own money, their own energy, to deal with this and yet
they look around and they see the spruce bark beetle sort of
walking unhindered across public lands right on to their private
properties. They realize that these beetles did not start on
private land, they started on public land and marched across any
number of overlapping land ownerships. They're wondering why if
they recognize it on their property as a disturbance why there has
been no activity against it especially in the more urban rural
interface where all of the different types of concerns that are
raised about putting in access into roadless areas or go into
pristine areas really don't apply at all. We have access in the
Anchorage bowl. There is no place here that we could not get to
and treat that would cause a large disturbance to get to. They
realize that. Still they see no action. And I guess if anything
that is what I would hope to bring to the table today - just the
concern that the private citizens have or what they see as whether
or not it's a natural predictable occurrence, is really a moot
point. They see it as something that's coming in and destroying
their property, they're seeing it destroying the aesthetics of
their park plans, they're seeing all the large trees at Kincade
die, they're seeing all the trees along the hillside die. I'm on
site telling them that they're are lots of things that you can do
from chemical insecticides to any number of good argiculture(ph.)
types of things. They have this information that there are
techniques, they want to (indisc.).
Number 948
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you. That's probably a common question
to you, I can understand that. That brings us then to Jack Phelps
the Executive Director of Alaska Forest Association.
Number 1001
SENATOR TAYLOR: Representative Green.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Might I make a comment or two, I'm gonna have to
leave here. I have to leave here, I have another appointment I
have to go to.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: I apologize Senator Taylor. Please go ahead.
Number 1009
SENATOR TAYLOR: No problem. I wanted first to thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and the Resource Committee members for bringing this
matter to our attention again. I was making speeches on the floor
of the House on this subject seven years ago. Terry Martin started
joining me in that effort when Cooper Landing became very obviously
hit back over six years ago. I think that this entire educational
process that you have going on today is to be applauded and
especially I applaud those professionals who have come forward
today and told us very clearly and very candidly where the problem
lies and that this is not something that's untreatable. It doesn't
take rocket scientists to handle this thing. It's merely a matter
of going out and allowing our professionals to have the budgets
they need to do the work that is necessary to be done, but this
entire process is strong evidence, in my opinion Mr. Chairman, of
a gross failure of stewardship and an indictment upon all of the
public agencies that are responsible for the health of these
forests. It seems as though anymore we're much more concerned
about doing polls and listening to some group of people who are not
experts in the field who merely have some emotionalism to expound,
And in the process we have allowed a great and vast forest resource
to decay, rot and be destroyed. I applaud you for bringing this,
again, to our attention and I hope that I can rely upon you and the
members of your good committee and those professionals that have
come forward today to provide us with the support and the courage
during the next legislative session to systemically begin to
address this problem for the first time in Alaska, both as a state
and hopefully with the cooperation of the federal government, the
University of Alaska, the boroughs and also those private
landowners that are impacted within the area. I'm sorry if I've
taken longer than I probably should have, Mr. Chairman. And I've
been sitting here though throughout the meeting and I really
appreciate the good work your doing and the good testimony that
we've had and I thank you very much for taking our time to do that.
Number 1235
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes, thank you. Senator Leman has a response
to that sir.
Number 1240
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Thank you, Senator Taylor, for that comment. I
don't know if you've heard the, Robin, the introductions in the
beginning, but we are also joined by the Senate Resources Committee
and Senator Halford and myself are present here today. And I
appreciate you consistent approach toward the spruce bark beetle
challenge. I recall those speeches on the floor of the House and
they were extensive. I appreciate your interest.
Number 1305
SENATOR TAYLOR: Yes, thank you too Senator Leman. It was mere
oversight on my part and I did hear the introduction and I didn't
know if you and Rick were still there or not, but thank you so much
for taking your time today to do this. I really appreciate it.
Number 1318
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you. Jack.
Number 1320
JACK PHELPS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA FOREST ASSOCIATION: Thank
you Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Jack Phelps, the
Executive Director of the Alaska Forest Association, also a member
of the Society of American Foresters. I've worked in the forest
products industry on and off since 1969. The association
represents the timber industry throughout Alaska. To that end, we
support efforts that enhance economic opportunities by making the
forest resources of Alaska available for sustained harvest. We
believe that timber harvests are an appropriate management tool for
public land managers both to maintain forest health and provide
public benefits from publicly held land. Today I will be
discussing with you the market situation with respect to Alaska
timber generally, and beetle killed and beetle damaged timber in
particular. I also want to talk about the constraints that
complicate the problem of marketing beetle killed timber from
public lands in Alaska, and offer some thoughts on what you might
be able to do about those constraints. As you have heard from the
various experts today, the spruce beetle problem in Alaska is
widespread and crosses all ownership boundaries. As you might
expect, the private landowners have been the most responsive to
this forest health situation. Regional and village Native
corporations own large tracts of beetle infested land. Those firms
have been logging and reforesting their beetle invested land for
the last six to eight years. They have been able to sell into the
general market and several niche for both round logs and chips.
Alaska white spruce has some qualities that make it very desirable
commodity in some markets. For example, the principle purchaser of
white spruce on the Kenai Peninsula today is Anchorage based Circle
DE Pacific which has a chip handling facility on Homer Spit. The
company sells wood chips to two Japanese paper companies for use in
newsprint and high quality bond paper. Since 1993, the company has
progressively increased its shipments from 100,000 bone dry units
in that year, to 135,000 bone dry units this year. It expects to
increase shipments yet again in 1997, to 150,000 bone dry units.
The port facility is capable of handling twice that volume. Circle
DE Pacific's customers find the Alaska chips particularly desirable
because of their white color. There are economic and environmental
advantages to using chips that do not have to be bleached. Alaska
has an advantage in this market, in that the year-round ice free
port of Homer is 2.5 days closer to Japan than is the United States
West Coast. A potential competitor for this market is Russia, and
it behooves Alaska to develop the market as much as possible, so
that we can maintain a competitive edge. One factor important to
that purpose is timely timber sales and to be best suited, the
spruce must be harvested soon after its demise if it is from a
beetle infested stand, which in the case of our Southcentral
timbers is most of it. The Alaska Forest Association has recently
released a study of the Pacific Rim market demand for Alaska timber
which I have provided for you today along with my written comments.
Now while that report focused primarily on Tongass timber as being
well positioned to satisfy market demand in the Pacific Rim, the
findings of that study have implications for other timber coming
from Alaska. The study shows that countries of the Pacific Rim are
are expected to increase imports of timber and lumber over the next
several decades. It shows that the traditional sources of supply
for this market, particularly the Pacific Northwest, are not in a
good position to respond to the growing market. For instance,
production from federal lands in the five state region of the
Pacific Northwest has decreased in the last six years by 82
percent. Private production of timber in the same five state area
has declined by 19 percent, and that on state lands have declined
by about 35 percent. The study also shows that the often predicted
increase in supply from the American Southeast is unlikely to
develop, leaving a significant opportunity for another American
region, such as Alaska, to step to the plate. Our geographic
position is a decided advantage. Direct competition from countries
like New Zealand and Chile who are increasing their harvest, is
likely to be minimal, since the type of timber available from them
differs considerably from that grown here. Now Scandinavia and
Russia, however, are direct competitors. Given our geographic
advantage over the former we should be able to compete effectively,
if other constraints do not hamper our efforts. Now all is not
rosy on the market side as you might know. As you are aware I'm
sure the current market is in a serous slump. Pulp prices,
especially, have been extremely low in recent months. Those
companies, such as Circle DE Pacific, who have long term agreements
with purchasers can weather such a slump. It is tougher on others.
Nor is the price of chips the only problem. Low quality sawlogs
have experienced as much as two-thirds drop in market value since
last year. But remember the market is cyclical, and to whatever
degree we can avoid it, we ought to not allow short term problems
to dissuade us from working to develop long term markets for
Alaska's timber. Artificial constraints, that is non-market
constraints, placed on developing timber resources on public lands
in Alaska remain a concern to the industry. Most people believe
that higher logging costs in Alaska are at least partly to blame
for our inability to take full advantage of the market
opportunities that are out there. Part of the problem is that
beetle-caused deterioration in the wood reduces its value, but it
is also true that environmental protections are greater in Alaska
and those protections cost money and right now the entire cost of
the protections is absorbed by the owners of the tree whether it be
private or public. Due to changes in state law made in 1990, state
timber sales are subject to incredibility burdensome and expensive
public processes. The state estimates that it has one public
meeting and produces about 50 pages of new documentation for every
million board feet of timber it offers. Can you imagine that in
the Tongass, Mr. Caplan? Now bear in mind that this often isn't
Tongass National Forest old growth, so what we have done is add
huge extra costs to what is often extremely marginal timber. The
Nineteenth Legislature took some steps in the last two years with
HB 121 and HB 212 to provide some relief to this problem, and we
appreciate especially the work your respective committees and the
work that you did on those bills, but the problem remains. And I
would suggest a couple of things that you folks could do about this
in the near future. One of them is you simply have got to look
very carefully at how you cut the budget. If you look at what
you've done to the Department of Natural Resources relative to what
you've done to some other agencies, I think they've suffered a
disproportionate amount of the reductions in recent years and I
think it's very very important that if you want to do something
about this spruce bark beetle problem, you have absolutely got to
start protecting the foresters in our Division of Forestry in the
Department of Natural Resources. We can't afford to lose any more
foresters and those foresters are good guys. I know them, they're
professionals, they're hard working. We need to make sure that we
have professionals in our Division of Forestry to put up timber
sales. So I urge you to take very very careful look at those
issues when you start cutting the budget, because frankly, for the
last couple of years I think if you look at the facts you'll see
that our timber program has returned a positive return for us and
in addition to helping us with our forest health problem, I think
it's very very important that you take good care of the Division of
Forestry foresters so that we can have timber sale program in the
future. The other thing that you could do is simply put some more
money into the capital budget like we did a couple of years ago to
put up some of these salvage sales. But in doing that, you're also
going to have to include some directives that tell both the
Division of Forestry and the Department of Fish and Game to
cooperate to make those timber sales put up in a way that we can
afford to harvest them. The Thunder Creek sale in Haines is a good
example. They just put a bridge across the Kelsall River instead
of having to helicopter beetle killed timber, they'd probably find
a buyer. I know some of my companies would be interested in
harvesting that timber if they didn't have chop or log it, and all
it takes is a bridge across the Kelsall River. So I would suggest
that the state look at very carefully. I have spoken to
Commissioner Rue about it and he willing to discuss it with us.
Let me point out something else about scale here. Legislators
deliberated about whether the Forest Land Use Plan exemption in HB
212 should be 10 acres or 20 acres. There is little doubt in my
mind that an exemption of 20 acre timber sales or an exemption for
salvage sales from forest land use plans would have brought a veto
in that legislation. But at the same time, some people who want
more treatment of the spruce bark beetle epidemic talk about
logging hundreds of thousands or even millions of acres. Now while
from an industry perspective that might be nice, I think public
support for an increase of that magnitude is probably going to be
tough to generate. But even if you could get public support, I
believe there will be strong resistance from the Alaska Department
of Fish and Game. I think we all need to work together to try to
figure out what we can do with respect to increasing our level of
harvest. Then again, I think you'll have to look at fundamental
changes in the law because it's the law that gives direction to
managers of public land and it's the law that gives public land
managers a place to hide from decisions, which sometimes I think
that's what they want to do, both on state and federal level. Now
on the federal side we have a bigger problem. The Chugach National
Forest suffers from the same inertia that has paralyzed timber sale
programs in national forests all across the country. Congress
provided an opportunity to change that recently when it passed the
salvage law last year. Instead of responding and addressing a
widespread forest health problem, the Clinton Administration chose
to find a legal way to avoid obeying the law. The result here in
Alaska was the Forest Service got a lot of people excited about
sales that never happened. Some of us wonder if any of them were
intended to happen. The problem on federal lands is complicated by
the fact that much of the spruce beetle infestation on federal
lands occurs on lands that are not managed for timber resources.
That is they're not under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service.
They're in park lands, wildlife refuges or other BLM lands. One
action I think that Alaska needs to take is for the legislature to
work together with Governor Knowles to press the federal government
to take action on its lands that will aid in restoration of forest
health while creating some economic opportunities for Alaskans.
It's time for Alaskans to speak up with a loud and consolidated
voice. My association stands ready to assist you, even as we are
currently working with the Governor to get a better recognition by
the national administration of the needs of Alaska's forests and
her people. Recent actions by the White House have been less than
encouraging, but we are not yet ready to give up. Thank you for
the opportunity you've given me to speak today and I'm certainly
willing to answer any questions the committee members might have.
Number 2455
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you Jack. We have two more people to be
heard and we are running a little late, so I would like to give
them a chance to be heard and then we'll it up for questions. So
with that, Cliff Eames of the Alaska Center for the Environment
please make your comments, then we have Catherine Thomas of the
Chamber of Commerce.
Number 2522
CLIFF EAMES, ALASKA CENTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: Representative
Green, Senator Leman, members of the committee, my name is Cliff
Eames, I'm with the Alaska Center for the Environment. We're a
private conservation organization with over 3,000 members. I want
to thank the committees and in particular Senator Leman and his
staff for allowing me to speak to you today. I was also delighted
to learn this morning that the Department of Fish and Game had been
added to the agenda. A major point that I want to make in just a
minute is that I think we need to hear from the broadest possible
variety of both specialists and forest users. A little background,
I too as many other members here around the table have been dealing
with this spruce bark beetle issue for many years, for longer than
a decade. I was the conservation community representative on the
U.S. Forest Service's working group, that's their advisory group
for their Cooper Landing planning project and more recently I
played the same role on the Forest Service's Moose Pass working
group. I was also the conservation community representative on the
state of Alaska's forest health task force. So although I
certainly don't have the answers I'd like to have, I think I know
the questions and a lot of the issues tolerably well. A couple of
things quickly, we don't dispute, I don't think anybody would, that
there are a lot of dead and dying white and Sitka spruce trees in
Southcentral Alaska and other parts of the state. We have eyes,
you know we drive the highway, we get out into the forests, there
is a significant infestation. The question has always been not is
there an infestation, but what's the appropriate response to the
infestation? I also want to make it very clear that I am
addressing my remarks to the public plans, not private plans. In
that regard though I would point out as we've learned today that in
fact a great deal of timber is coming off the private lands in
Southcentral Alaska. It's not as if we're not logging in response
to the beetle, but it's happening on private lands. Yesterday in
Kenai there seemed to be some surprise at the fact that this was
occurring on private lands and wasn't occurring at the same rate on
public lands. To me it was very obvious why that's happening. On
private lands a primary purpose, often the primary purpose of those
lands is to generate direct revenue, often in a timely fashion as
possible. Most of our public lands are the ones that we're
addressing today are multiple use public lands. Commercial logging
is one of the possibilities for those lands, but there are awful
lot of other resources and uses which deserve equal consideration
and the public advocates for those other resources and uses. I
wanted to start off getting into a little bit more of the meat of
it by keying in a press release released by the Senate and House
majorities about this meeting which I think can be very
illuminating. There is a statement in here which reads, "We've all
seen the red trees and we must recognize the impact of this
devastation on wildlife, water quality, anesthetics. We need
scientific information from professional foresters and I believe
this hearing is a good start." Well I think we need to go beyond
professional foresters with all due respect. If I were to purchase
a home - if I wanted to purchase a home I'd go to a realtor and not
a car salesman. Some what analogously, if I wanted advise on how
to grow commercial timber I'd go to a forester. But again
referring back to the press release, if I wanted advise on how to
manage wildlife I'd to to a wildlife biologist; fisheries,
fisheries biologist; water quality or water supply, a pollution
expert, a chemist, a hydrologist; aesthetics, the Forest Service
has viewshed experts and I guess landscape architects, I'd go to a
specialist in aesthetics and scenic beauty and not a forester. And
I think it's really really important that all of our public
decision makers including, of course, the legislature seek out as
many pieces of advice, information, opinion, facts and so on as
they possibly can. I know that in my experience over a decade I
hear very different recommendations from foresters than the ones I
hear from other specialists and similarly users of the forest. Now
the lawsuit that the Center for the Environment is involved in
regarding the state's 5 Year Schedule for the Kenai/Kodiak area is
frequently described as "The Trustees Lawsuit" or the
"Conservationists Lawsuit" or recently here "The Alaska Center for
the Environment Lawsuit," and that's only partly true. Certainly
there are conservationists who are involved in that lawsuit, but
other plaintiffs who have a very serious concern about proposed
logging on state lands on the Kenai Peninsula include the Alaska
Sportfishing Association, Trout Unlimited, and on the peninsula
several commercial fishing organizations who cater to sportfishing
interests. Similarly, we have an association of tourism interests,
the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association. This is
a bunch of mostly business people with Alaska owned and operated
tourism business who have had tremendous concern about some of the
logging that was being proposed on the Tongass and they expressed
their concern very forcefully as well. So I don't think it's fair
to say that it's just the Alaska Center for the Environment or the
Sierra Club who are perhaps obstacles to large scale logging and
road building in response to the beetle. And I don't think Jim
mentioned it today, perhaps he did - Larry did yesterday. What do
some other members of the public feel about large scale logging and
road building in response to the beetle. Larry Hudson said
yesterday on Kenai Peninsula that there was a great deal of public
opposition to the Forest Service's recent proposals to log on
Turnagain Arm and along the Resurrection Pass Trail and Six Mile
Creek, and there was a lot of public opposition and it was all
types of users. It wasn't, again, just the Center for the
Environment or conservation groups. I think you need to recognize
that this still is a very controversial issue and that there is
substantial public opposition to large scale logging and road
building. I would also quarrel with some of the conclusions that
were drawn yesterday regarding the icier study that attempted to
assess public opinions about how we respond to the beetle. As I
recollect that study, it was far from a mandate for large scale
logging and road building, especially in the back country, where
when the question was asked about the back country, the public was
split almost evenly on whether logging and road building was an
appropriate response in the back country. So there is clearly no
mandate. I would also suggest that if we asked the public the
direct question, "Do you support road building and large scale
logging in head waters of some of our most valuable salmon and
steelhead streams like the Kenai River or the Anchor River or Deep
Creek or the Ninilchik?" You'd probably get a lot fewer than the
approximately 50 percent who might have supported it when the open-
ended question was asked. Very important question, which I think
is well resolved, but may be not stated frequently enough, "Can we
prevent the spread of the bark beetle?" I know of almost no
experts who will say that we can prevent the spread of the bark
beetle at this stage. I would actually suspect that it will be
very difficult to have found somebody ten years ago who would say
that we really could prevent the spread of the bark beetle over the
landscape as a whole. For that reason, I question somewhat the
assumption that public land managers are guilty of negligence in
not logging spruce bark beetle killed or at risk trees adjacent to
private lands. I just don't think we really could have prevented
the bark beetle from infesting private trees regardless of what we
did. Fires is a very important issue. I'd like to touch on that
briefly. It's a great concern to many people for obvious reasons.
And I point out one thing and that is that logging can cause
wildfires. The Division of Forestry's fire prevention officer, one
of them, just a couple of weeks ago in a newspaper article said
that at least nine of the wildfires that occurred on the Kenai
Peninsula this season were started by logging operations. We have
to recognize that on the peninsula almost all of our fire starts
are caused by humans. We have, I think, maybe an average of one or
two lightening caused fires each year, so we need to address human
fire starts. Logging operations can cause a fire through slash
piles and through roads. If you look at our fire starts in the
Kenai Peninsula almost of them are clustered around our road
system. As we build more and more logging roads, we are very
likely creating more opportunities for wildfire starts that we
don't want to see started. We may approve of a number of
prescribed fires, but some of the wildfires obviously create
problems. It's a very complicated issue - the fire start issue and
I think we need to be really careful about not talking about
holocausts necessarily. One of my colleagues tried working with
some agency people to arrive at a statement that describes the
effect that the bark beetle might have on fires and the best that
she and the agency people could come up with is that whether living
or bark beetle killed trees offer the greater risk depends on
complex specific changing local conditions. Very very complicated.
We can't really make too many generalizations about the effect that
the bark beetle has on wildfires. Our spruce trees are very
resinous - our live spruce trees and create in themselves a very
serious fire risk if we have dry weather and winds. As far as
fires are concerned, there are a couple of things we can do besides
a lot of logging and road building in the back country. One,
again, is to try to prevent fire starts with public education, fire
closures, you know where appropriate, and the agencies are helping
do this and I commend them for it, help private citizens create
defensible space around their homes and businesses so that if there
is a wildfire, the likelihood of losing the homes or business goes
down dramatically. A couple more points, I appreciate your time
here. I think the question of how much public money it might cost
to undertake some of the treatments that are proposed by some of
the foresters and our forestry agencies is a very important one as
all of us know. Les Reed suggested that we maybe spend $50 to $100
million a year to do this. I think we need to be asking the
Alaskan public how they want to spend scarce public monies, and it
might be that they don't to spend a great deal of money on logging
and road building beetle killed trees on public lands when we hear
from departments like Fish and Game that are telling us that they
don't believe that the beetle is having a serious impact on some of
the resources and values that we care about deeply. I'll stop
there and just once again say how much I appreciate the chance to
speak to you today though - thank you.
Number 3644
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay, Cliff thank you and the last speaker we
have is Ed Thomas, representing the Alaska Chamber of Commerce.
Number 3659
CATHERINE THOMAS, INCOMING CHAIR, ALASKA STATE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:
Thank you, I'm Catherine Thomas. I'm the incoming chair of the
Alaska State Chamber of Commerce. I just wanted to let the
committees know that we are hearing from our local chambers.
They're very concerned about the spruce bark beetle epidemic. We
expect this to be one of the top issues in the next legislative
session, so when our members come to Juneau I think you'll find
them talking about this so you can expect to see us at the table on
this issue. We might be the consolidated voice the Alaska Forest
Association is looking for. Thank you.
Number 3734
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Catherine, could I just interject right
there what Catherine (indisc.) Catherine, can you stay there?
MS. THOMAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What specifically might that united voice be
saying? Would it be saying things like what these gentlemen were
suggesting we need to do some work aggressive expenditures and
capital and also in the operating budget for this or it's kind of
a combination of a lot of things that we've heard today? What
types of things may we do legislatively.
Number 3758
MS. THOMAS: I think you'll hear the combination and I think what
we'd like to see is a plan. The concern now is their tourism,
recreation - if it's effecting the watershed area in fisheries. So
the community concern is their local business, the aesthetics of
their community, and what we haven't seen is a strong effort and a
strong plan. And next week is our annual meeting. There were some
requests to bring this up and try to come out with a resolution.
I'd like to see us work with the committee and with some of the
organizations just until our December meeting and see if we can
come out with a resolution that will help the legislature with a
plan, and I know that that's probably not the answer you'd like to
have had, but I don't have that answer for you yet.
Number 3910
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, we probably can't do a whole lot about
it. I guess this is an emergency, but (indisc.) I guess even more
life threatening or, you know, than it is. We probably aren't
going to do something special session before January anyway, so
that gives you the time (indisc.) appropriate, but I just believe
that we need to be as directive as possible so it's very clear
about what can and should be done. So I just encourage you to
spend some time, get focused and (indisc.)
Number 3940
MS. THOMAS: I understand and that's our intent.
Number 3944
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Well my concern, and then we'll open it up to
any other questions, my concern is kind of after listening to all
this, it is not completely removed from somebody getting a serious
infection of a limb and then turns to gangrene - no relation, and
then it comes to a point of do you cut the limb off or do you let
the patient die and maybe the person doesn't want to have a limb
removed, but the alternative is pretty serious, and we may be in a
situation like that. If we want to save our forest, we may be
beyond the point of saying I don't like the aesthetics or I don't
like this situation. It may be critical enough to - we had to take
action. But I think Representative Ogan, you had a question
sometime back. Do you still have a question?
Number 4022
REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN: Sure, Mr. Chairman (indisc.).
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Excuse me, those people on teleconference,
we'll take a few questions here and then we'll come out to you if
you have any.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Holsten, I have
a question for you. You said that a lot of these lands are turning
-- you've studied them for about 20 years they turned into
grasslands essentially without active -- I think one of these other
gentlemen said without the active reforestation of maybe two-year
old trees or something that - and the disturbance of the soil that
these lands are taken over primary by grass lands. As a hunter,
you know I'm gonna brag here a little bit, I just picked up 60 inch
moose a couple of weeks ago and I moose hunt every year. Every
time I get a moose, it's in the big timber tree line - my secrete
okay, if anybody wants to moose hunt. But that's where they hang
out, that's where the big boys are, and I'm a little concerned, you
know, we're losing our timber and that I recognize that logging
certain areas increases the habitat by new growth coming in and
what not, but I'm concerned that we're suffering probably the
greatest ecological change in Alaska right before our eyes and I'm
kind of dumbfounded that, maybe I'm ignorant, but dumbfounded that
Fish and Game doesn't have any concerns about wildlife habitat.
And it seems to me that it would have an impact, so I don't know
about my question -- I don't know what the question is. I'm just
concerned about some of the conflicting things that I hear here in
my own experiences of a hunter and fisherman in Alaska. Now
logging done properly, and I believe very adamantly in setbacks and
I have problems with some of the lack of setbacks from fish streams
on private lands - there is more exceptions made. It seems to me
that logging and reforestation and reestablishing the forest, as
these gentlemen have suggested, is the most appropriate way to go.
Do you have a comment on that?
Number 4241
DR. HOLSTEN: I'll comment, but I'll let the Fish and Game guys get
into the nitty gritty because I'm not fishery specialist, but I'm
also part of that infest working group - this interagency working
group. We're looking at potential impacts associated to wildlife
habitat and there has been enough concern. The point was was up
until about year or so there wasn't much concern. There has been
concern by wildlife biologists what is actually occurring. There
hasn't been much documentation of adverse impacts to many species,
mainly because there hasn't been - there has been (indisc.) studies
looking specifically at impacts associated with wildlife and spruce
beetles. The other point is that the impact that we're having now
with the present infestation, the infestation rates are
significantly higher than what we have seen in the past. There was
a -- I think Lance Trasky talked about a study that was done in
Homer and what the results of that study did not show that we had
a bark beetle outbreak that took all the spruce out in Homer a
hundred years ago and (indisc.). Assuming there was an outbreak
100 years ago, which they don't know, something disturbed that
forest. Lets just assume it was the spruce bark beetle. The main
point from that study that came out is that a portion of the spruce
was removed. Not 90 percent like we're seeing now, but maybe 20
percent was removed. Residual trees that weren't killed are still
there now being impacted by the beetle. The most important part
coming out of that study, and the person that conducted that study
is a biologist in a wildlife refuge, there is one new regeneration
that has come into that site that he studied as a result of that
disturbance. So these forests are not regenerating. Some of the
benefits of logging that could be -- there is a picture back there
of right behind Jerry there that the Forest Service harvesting some
beetle impacted areas in the Cooper Landing area, also, in many
areas removed the dead spruce. They've also did some silvicultural
techniques, in other words, filled the aspen which promoted aspen
regrowth. So the amount of brow species has responded
significantly in certain areas due to logging practices. But I
think one of the things that the members of this committee, before
I stop here, have to be very very careful with is there has been a
lot of information out there. There is a lot of different agendas
and I've been involved in this for almost 20 years. There is a lot
of information and misinformation going around. So you're gonna
have to be charged at very carefully kind of wading thorough what
you're hearing today. There is some good information, but there is
also some half true information. So I'll just leave it at that.
DR. MOORE: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I might just try and put a
sharp point on this particular issue. It kind of flabbergasted me
actually to hear Fish and Game and environment people saying
they're not concerned about marbled merlots - not concerned about
the habitat loss for marbled merlots, songbirds, squirrels and all
the other species that belong to the forest biodiversity of the
spruce forest. Of course losing all those trees and turning it
into moose pasture is gonna be good for moose, just like logging is
usually good for moose and good for bears and good for deer and
good for all the other species that eat berries and low ground
forage. This killing all these trees is gonna make a heck of a
good place for....
TAPE 96-82, SIDE B
Number 001
REPRESENTATIVE KELLY: ...you got problems with your teeth you need
to see a dentist and all that. But I'm concerned about some of the
things that the man from the Department of Fish and Game said. He
said that if he thought logging or some of the activities of the
Department of Forestry would help that they would be the first ones
to squawk. But I don't understand exactly what he means - that
the first gentleman I heard, which I think was Dr. Holsten, said
that there is almost no regeneration happening in the forests where
this beetle kill is happening. If there is no regeneration, then
there is not habitat coming up for moose and animals like that.
And it seems that there is an incredible habitat encroachment
happening because of this natural beetle kill. It seems to me that
the Department of Fish and Game should be squawking because they
can be the first to help by throwing their weight towards the
argument of creating new habitat for these animals that are
obviously not getting habitat created for them because of the
beetle kill and the lack of our willingness to do something about
it. Mr. Boutin, if you could comment on that. I won't go the
Department of Fish and Game because what he said didn't make sense,
but if you could comment on that Mr. Boutin I'd sure appreciate it.
Number 122
MR. BOUTIN: Mr. Chairman, through the Chair, Representative Kelly,
you know at Department of Natural Resources we have foresters, but
we don't have fisheries biologists, we don't have wildlife
managers, wildlife biologists. And so I guess it sounds like I'm
dodging the question perhaps. I hope it doesn't because I'm not,
but we look to the Department of Fish and Game to tell us what's
best for habitat, what's bad for habitat and that's why we have
them out there with us helping us design our timber sales so that
the negative impacts of logging, which Cliff Eames talked about,
you know so that we can minimize those negative impacts of logging.
You know, if the Department of Fish and Game should come to us and
say, "Well we'd like this area logged." By gosh, we'd be getting
right out there, but we look to them for the guidance on wildlife
and fishery issues because we don't have that expertise whatsoever.
And you know no one expects us to have it. We don't have
biologists in the DNR.
Number 240
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Tom, if I could follow up on that. This is
Representative Green from Anchorage. If there could be a case
shown that it was adversely affecting the fish population, you
would jump in on that and yet I thought earlier you said that the
main thing that is guiding your timber sales is an adequate market
and that you had had some problems with litigation from the Alaska
Trustees. Is that a criteria which would justify additional timber
sales because of habitat situation as opposed to just the mere
killing of additional forests?
Number 325
MR. BOUTIN: I'm not entirely sure I understand the question, but
the concept I meant to get across is that we cannot claim in our
documentation, we don't claim because we don't have anything to
substantiate the claim that the bark beetle is negatively impacting
fish habitat, water quality or wildlife habitat, because the
wildlife managers, the fishery biologists we know -- and I don't
mean to just pick on Fish and Game either because, you know, if
there were federal agencies who do have biologists, you know,
saying that the bark beetle was negatively impacting fish habitat,
water quality, whatever, you know we'd be interested in talking to
them but there aren't, you know. So if the discipline of wildlife
management, fisheries biology, was telling us, you know, that
that's a reason to have timber sales in some places then we'd use
that in our documentation. It would be a reason to have sales, but
since they don't say that, we can't very well use it as a way to
document timber sales because it's not true. That's what I was
trying to say.
Number 438
REPRESENTATIVE KELLY: Mr. Chairman, could I follow up just on one
of the questions I had for Mr. Boutin?
Number 442
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Go ahead, Representative Kelly.
Number 445
REPRESENTATIVE KELLY: Thank you. I guess the point I was trying
to get to is that I don't think I need to go to a fish and game
wildlife biologist to ask this question. Mr. Boutin, do moose eat
new growth - new little sprouts that are coming up from the ground
or do they walk over to a big old spruce tree and take a bit out of
it?
Number 503
MR. BOUTIN: Boy, except that I like to shoot moose and eat them,
I'm not, you know, as Scott Ogan said and I saw his moose rack
(indisc.), and it's every big as he said it is. You know, moose
need cover and they need brows, but gee you've Lance Trasky there
and so it's crazy to, you know, for me to be really telling you
what moose need because I'm sure not a wildlife biologist, but
moose do need both cover and brows. Maybe I didn't understand the
question Representative Kelly, Mr. Chairman.
Number 542
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: I have another question that, it's a shame that
we lost Senator Taylor because of his legal background, but is
there in anybody's mind here or on teleconference a concern that
the state or the federal government might incur, knowing that we
have something killing trees and dead trees are more vulnerable to,
if nothing else, blow or breakdown fire - maybe, maybe not, but is
there any liability that we're exposing ourselves to by knowing
there is a problems and not doing anything about it?
Number 621
MR. CAPLAN: Mr. Chairman, this is Jim Caplan with the Forest
Service. I can respond at least in part. Where we have a concern
with respect to these conditions it's usually when we are
attempting prescribed fire for management and then we might be
considered liable if we have an escaped fire and it does damage.
Otherwise, these are natural processes and at least at the federal
level, generally they're - with a few exceptions, generally there
has not been held that the federal government is liable for
lightening strike type fire and that kind of thing. Equally, as
you're probably aware our fire fighting capabilities, not so much
in Alaska but certainly in the Lower 48, have been strained to
limit in the past few years and even in cases where we've had to
make very tough decisions about what to save in terms of structures
and people's property and what to let go. Even those circumstances
still liability is not a major factor in (indisc.), so one of the
resource features and what lives are at stake and that kind of
things. We try very very hard to protect structures as you're
aware of in fighting fires.
Number 730
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Well the reason for the question was a
statement that was made earlier that in four hours if a fire were
to start in the Potter Marsh area, in four hours it could go up the
hillside and if there were a way, lets say, that we could have done
something to prevent the infestation at the base of Potter Marsh
and didn't. Does that create a problem with the landowner of the
trees, state or federal, between the Potter Marsh area and the
infestation, might become liable?
Number 802
MR. CAPLAN: From the federal standpoint, not that I'm aware of.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN: Mr. Chairman.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes Representative Ogan.
Number 809
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN: I'd just like to bring up one other point.
I think the state of Alaska, as a whole, and the business community
is really missing the boat with value-added industries to beetle
kill timber. I've talked to several gentlemen in the valley area
that are interested in putting in a CDX plant, possibly. They
claim that the white spruce is excellent material for creating
plywood, where we're literally importing every sheet of plywood
from the Lower 48. The plywood mills in the Lower 48 have shut
down and are available for pennies on a dollar and we're really
missing the boat with not utilizing this resource. Chips - the
chip market is down, but chipping is the absolute lowest value you
can add to wood. And I'm a professional woodworker, I've made my
living for 20 years. What I learned as a kid I could turn a $1
piece of wood into a $10 bill and it's now about $3 piece of wood
into a $10 bill. But still there is -- I think we're missing the
boat here. We should seriously look at ways to encourage
sustainable, but make this tremendous amount of material and fiber
available to industries that would be here for a long time, not
just a couple year sale for value-added tailored for a couple of
large companies like the last one was. Then people on the local
level could utilize this resource. That's a political soapbox.
Number 955
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Senator Leman.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: I have a number of what I think to be very quick
questions of several (indisc.). When the time is appropriate, I
guess we have a few minute, I'd like to ask (indisc.) people from
people from being a dissertation, then there be (indisc.). Dr.
Holsten in your comment I was particularly concerned about what's
happening is the take over by the grasses. And then you say these
forests won't regenerate on their own, but if they are planted, you
know, reforested, will they grow if done early enough before the
grasses take hold? And I assume that's a very expensive
proposition if we're losing what this (indisc.) 1.3 million acres.
Is that right? - Of new acreage. I mean that's mind-boggling and
so to go back in to reforest that is a staggering dollar amount.
But it would have to be done early otherwise we're caught up in
that cycle.
Number 1104
DR. HOLSTEN: The 1.3 million, not all all of that 1.3 million
acres are impacted by grass. The grass is more prevalent on the
lower Kenai. In the Copper Center area grass is not a problem, but
alder is. Many of those stands -- that's one of the concerns in
the Copper Center area due to logging without regeneration if they
don't back in or just do the beetles along, once those stands open
up they're occupied by alder with a real paucity of regeneration
(indisc.). The key is to prioritize those areas that need to be
treated and the sooner you can get in to (indisc.) before you have
a problem with (indisc.), the cheaper it is.
Number 1150
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Greg in your comments, you talked about having a
I don't remember what you called it, but either a cone supply or
you're working with somebody with cones - are you actively
replanting or are you making them available for others to replant
when you're harvesting your areas?
Number 1209
MR. ENCELEWSKI: We have done some replanting, yes. We're not
actively replanting at this time.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: But you're doing things like scarifying so it can
naturally replant.
MR. ENCELEWSKI: Correct, right.
Number 1221
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: On that point now if I might, you said that
unfortunately leaving the seed trees hasn't been effective because
the seed trees get killed too.
MR. ENCELEWSKI: Yes, we have noticed that. Some of the seed trees
end up dying and trees left behind end up getting killed as well.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Is this on this point?
Number 1236
JOAN NININGER, OWNER, SECRETARY/TREASURER, CIRCLE PACIFIC: Yes.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Could you identify yourself so...
MS. NININGER: I'm Joan Nininger with Circle DE Pacific. I'm one
of the owners and secretary/treasurer. I just wanted to follow-up
with Greg that this summer only we have reforested about 750 acres
with 480,000 seedlings. We have a gentleman from Arkansas that
souped up the John Deer and he has a big metal plow where he digs
the ground scarifying it. He does not do it in rows, we're doing
it "S" shaped to make it more natural. And then we have a little
truck on the back where they literally drop the seedling down
through a slot and big metal wheels that seal the ground to hold up
the seedling, and then they have a gentleman that follows, like
Johnny Appleseed, with a bag - kind of quality control. If they
need more trees in the area or if one didn't quite make it up, then
he would fix it. We are a private enterprise, but if any of you
ever have any questions of what we are doing, please feel free to
contract our office in Anchorage.
Number 1406
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: What's the approximate cost of doing that like per
acre?
MS. NININGER: It was I think $115.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Per acre?
MS. NININGER: What we did last year is we went out and collected
the cones and then we sent them down to Silviculture in Washington
and they did a hybrid with Sitka and we're hoping that the hybrid,
deluxe spruce will hopefully (indisc.) be a detriment to the
(indisc.).
Number 1436
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: One of the questions I was gonna to have which
is tag (indisc.), you said 750 acres last year?
MS. NININGER: No, that's what we're planting this summer. That's
what we've got in.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay, and how much is that compared to how much
you're losing to the beetle?
Number 1452
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's a scratch.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Okay, so it's just a drop (indisc.). It's a
start, but it's not....
MS. NININGER: The other thing that I would like to say on behalf
of our company is that you also have to take with the jauntiest eye
with the newspaper rights, and also in that article on the
newspaper was the fact it could have been arson that started that
fire down there. There are cabins close by. People go in there on
four wheelers to play and we also have people in there on snow
machines in the winter. And you can do winter logging. You'll
have to go in and scarify if you're worried about having roads
going to the back country, go in in the winter and get back out.
And a lot political stuff goes on with the federal and state
agencies. It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to go
right into viewsheds. We don't have to go on the Turnagain Arm to
get started, but people need to quit fighting and we need to get
together and get educated and get after it. I am embarrassed to
leave this forest for my teenager and my grand kids. And I am very
concerned about the Homer area. We plan to retire down there. I
had my child in Homer, I worked for Dr. Marley down there and we
have property in Anchor Point and I plan to go back. And it's
embarrassing that we're not doing anything. So I just wanted to
make a comment that you're welcome to get a hold of us any time.
It's only a perspective of the big picture that we do, but if we
can be of any assistance.
Number 1624
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: That's what we're all about here. We're really
trying to get things and figures and concepts and see what we can
do.
MS. NININGER: Thanks for your time.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Thank you for coming.
Number 1634
MR. BOUTIN: Mr. Chairman.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes.
MR. BOUTIN: Since Circle DE Pacific is there I guess I'll point
out the other firm I was talking about both when I said that one
firm has found a market and kind of saved all of us public land
managers because absent that market, we'd be getting no bids
whatsoever on our timber right now. And two, they're the firm that
is reforesting places out of their own profits that they're not
required to reforest so they're using their own profits to be good
stewards of the land - land that they don't own, reforesting with
their own money.
Number 1713
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Well just speaking for myself, and I'm sure for
you and other members of the committee, commend you for doing that.
MS. NININGER: And we won't go back into logging. It's for our
future generations.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: I understand that, but that's going to be the way
that we're going to be able to succeed in attacking this is if we
get people to come together and approach it in a very positive way.
Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of other questions. Jack, you've
mentioned the bridge across - I jotted I said Kelsall - is that
right?
MR. PHELPS: Kelsall River.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Okay. I think you averted from your prepared
script. Is that something that the state did or something that
your loggers did - put a logging bridge across and made it less
expensive access, therefore, you can go in and do something. What
was the point you were making?
Number 1807
MR. PHELPS: The reference there, Senator Leman, was to the salvage
sale in the Haines state forest that you folks put into the budget.
The process was initiated by Representative Williams a couple years
ago. And they put up 14.6 million board feet of beetle kill
timber, but the sale was designed as a helicopter sale because it's
in a roadless area on the opposite side of the Kelsall River. My
comment was that had they designed the sale as a road logging sale,
as a conventional sale instead of a helicopter sale, it would have
required a bridge across the river and some roads put into that
part of the forest, but it would have made it an economically
viable sale. As a helicopter sale, nobody can touch it.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: And it might have worked.
MR. PHELPS: I believe it would still work. It's not beyond
solving the problem at this stage.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: I remember at one time, it may be a bridge to
somewhere now, but there was a bridge in Valdez across Mineral
Creek that was a very expensive bridge. This was back when the
state had money to do things like this and it went -- nobody was
there on the other side.
Number 1921
MR. PHELPS: Well if I may, Senator, it doesn't have to be a
permanent structure. They could put in a temporary bridge. They
could close the roads when they're finished.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Is Mr. Eames still here?
Number 1932
MR. EAMES: Yes Senator.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: No, you can stay there. I was just going to
comment that you were talking about the people you go to for
certain things and on water quality and things like that what you
didn't say, but should have and probably will from now on, is you
can go to a civil engineer. (Laughter) No you did say
"hydrologist," and that is certainly one of the elements of civil
engineering. That's all.
Number 2007
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: What I would ask of you people that are here
representing major landowners, if you could take a few moments - we
don't need to do it now because you may not have the figures, but
as a member of the Resources Committee I've got three questions I'd
like to pose to you and perhaps you could fill me in either by
phone or letters. How many actual acres have you completed
treatment on for the last two years, if any? And how much land, in
numbers of acres, of the land that you are involved in is infested?
And we got started here on Circle DE, but what percent of the
number of acres on you land do you plan to treat in the next two
years? If it's different, if you've got a plan that's gonna be
nothing for two years and a great huge plan in three, don't say
"nothing." I mean let us know because we're trying to get to the
bottom of this and what I would suggest is that what I've heard
today in the form of timber sales or development, we're looking
only at that area or areas that are economic and I'm concerned that
if you have some suggestions that we could use, we may have to take
matters beyond just whether or not it's economic. If we truly have
a crises and this something that is beyond private industry's
economic standards, there may be something else that the state or
the federal government has to take action on. And so what I don't
want to do is to limit our scope of thinking to only those avenues
that lead to some economic return. Break even, even slight losses,
I think those things are things we should at least look at and if
it's not practical, at the evaluated at that time on it's merit,
not necessarily on it's economics. So I would really covet your
input, both from the private sector and from the private
landowner's areas and also from the Department of Natural
Resources. And Tom, I would certainly covet the input from both
you and the DF&G whether or not we come to an agreement as to
whether dead trees create or don't create a problem for fish
habitat or wild critters. I think if we can inequitably prove
that, but if it's a question mark I think we ought to go beyond
that to what can we do then to prevent this problem. Are there any
questions from any of the teleconference sites? Don't be bashful,
we've go the experts here.
PETER ECKLAND, LEGISLATIVE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO
REPRESENTATIVE BILL WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, can you hear me?
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes.
Number 2259
MR. ECKLAND: Mr. Chairman, this is Peter Eckland, staff for
Representative Bill Williams and Representative Williams apologizes
he had to be out working at his other job today so he wasn't able
to attend this afternoon. I've got a couple of quick questions, a
lot of my questions have already been asked, but I was wondering
Mr. Trasky from the Habitat Division talked about how the beetle
outbreaks don't seem to have any negative impacts on species that
are just - or animal that our particular concern - our interest for
Alaskan's. I think that's kind of an interesting comment and in
light of our differing battles down here on the Tongass where it
seems like we're always concerned about species from a nat all the
way up to the grizzly bear and everywhere in between. But I'm
wondering if you talked about the beetles and the kill not having
a detriment affect on some animals and I'm wondering if when we
have these large fires if that has adds sediment to the streams or
not? It may be beneficial to streams, I don't know. But I'm
wondering if you can answer that please.
MR. TRASKY: The question is whether large fires benefit streams?
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Excuse me, can you hear Lance alright?
MR. ECKLAND: Yeah, and the question is when we have these large
buyers, does that add sediment to the steams? And is that
detrimental or does have positive impact for streams for habitat
for fish? Or is there just no impact?
Number 2434
MR. TRASKY: That's a good question. I don't think we have
collected information on that particular phenomenon. My intuitive
response would be that because of ground cover -- if it is hot fire
and burns down the mineral soil, you certainly would get increased
runoff and you would get a lot of sediment going into the stream
after a large fire.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Peter, you said you had a couple of questions.
Number 2501
MR. ECKLAND: Yeah, just one other maybe for Mr. Boutin. I'm just
curious, he mentioned that under the Forest Practices Act there is
no requirement to reforest on salvage sales. While reforestation,
I'm sure, is probably a good idea I'm just wondering who made the
decision to require that on salvage sales and when that decision
was made.
Number 2525
MR. BOUTIN: Yeah, there is no requirement in the Forest Practices
Act and it applies to land of all ownership, state, municipal,
private, to do reforestation after salvage logging. In the case of
the state sale, in going through the public process, it was real
clear to DNR and certainly, you know, the decision was made
throughout DNR, but I was part of that decision and think it was a
good decision - and think it is a good decision, going through the
public process we could see that given the rationale that we have
for logging these areas and for having created some of the negative
impacts of logging, particularly roading, you know that given our
goal of bringing back a mosaic of different age classes of timber
after the bark beetle that it wouldn't make much sense to go in
there and log and not provide for reforestation. So, you know, we
are committed to it on state land that after salvage sales just as
on other kinds of sales we do reforestation, but it's not a
requirement in the law. It's a policy decision that's been made at
DNR for state land that DNR manages.
MR. ECKLAND: A quick follow-up Mr. Chairman.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes, is that you Pete?
Number 2552
MR. ECKLAND: Yes, I'm just wondering does that have an effect on
the possible bidders and the economics of some of these sales.
MR. BOUTIN: It sure does, Pete. We do require the operator to do
most of the reforestation - pick up most of the reforestation
costs. And so that just about always includes the scarification,
but it very very often includes also the planting and we take
responsibility - that is the state takes responsibility for
providing the seedlings which is not a large part of the
reforestation cost. And so you bet, when a bidder is bidding on
the timber on a state sale they have to, of course, build all the
road. And down on the Kenai we committed to all roads being erased
after the logging and reforested. That was too something that is
very important to the public and to the various agencies, but the
bidder does commit also to doing some material portion of the
reforestation - whatever we put in the bid perspectives. And so it
does impact the economics of our timber sale program, you bet.
Number 2805
MR. ECKLAND: Thank you Mr. Chairman.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: We've got a couple of minutes left if anybody
has any other questions or comments to make. Can we pick up
anything from the satellite stations first. If not, we have a few
more comments from here, Representative Ogan.
Number 2823
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN: I'd like some, Mr. Chairman thank you, some
clarification from a -- there is some inconsistencies in the
testimony here today. There was some discussion of the beetle kill
in the Homer area and the Kenai Peninsula in the 1900s and I'd like
to see how...
MR. TRASKY: You can read it yourself right here. It was 80 to 100
percent. You can read the report yourself. I have other copies
for everybody here.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: Mr. Chairman, (indisc.) on that point. Senator
Halford were wondering earlier in the meeting and maybe it was
addressed (indisc.) or somebody. What has happened to that timber
that we purchased from Seldovia Native Association across the bay,
across Homer? I mean is that fully devastated or largely
devastated and is that essentially a worthless stand of timber now?
Number 2925
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Been following that. The beetles have moved
into that area quite heavily in the past few weeks. So
probably....
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: (Indisc.)?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well no, into the (indisc.). Three or four
years ago, very little beetle activity, but now it seem pretty
substantially infested.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Any other comments in closing?
Number 2956
MR. BOUGHTON: If I could make a closing comment. Yes, this is
Jerry Boughton, again, Chair of the Society of American Foresters.
In the opening comments that I made I encouraged the committees to
try and overlook some of the what I referred to in the Kenai
meeting as chasing hoochies and getting involved in little details
and keep a perspective on the big picture of this, and I'm really
encouraged to hear the comments from the committee members and I
think you're trying to do that. What I heard in the testimony
today here is probably what I expected. I heard a number of agency
individuals expressing basically normal processes. They described
what has taken place. They talked about having a variety of
meetings and two year listings of things on sale schedules and this
is what has been done kinds of things. I didn't see a lot of
urgency expressed in that testimony. Some of the other testimony,
I guess that's a human nature to go through denial when you have a
arm that needs to be cut off, you go the last minute before you're
gonna do that, you know you're gonna deny that you really have that
bad of a problem that you gotta do something. I think I heard a
lot of that. I heard a lot of "Well we haven't looked into that,
well we don't know for sure, well we've done some anecdotal
monitoring but we really don't understand these relationships for
sure." I think we've got to get past that denial and we've got to
say, "We've got a problem that -- lets dig in here and lets figure
out what's going on and figure out what the appropriate actions
are." I also asked in my opening comments there I say, "You know
this gets often characterized as should we log or shouldn't we log.
Should we cut a tree or not cut a tree." That needs to be looked
at more than that which is what Les Reed tried to indicate. He
talked about ecosystem restoration. There is a whole bunch of
values out there and there is a lot of things besides getting
entrapped with, "Should we log or not log?" Many of the comments
came right back down to that, if you noticed that. I didn't hear
any discussions about other treatments. We really didn't hear --
a little mention from the Forest Service, but not much about
prescribed burning - or should we go out and do some reforestation
where we don't cut any trees. Should we do some particular thing
for habitat restoration for whatever species. None of that really
came up too much. I think that's an area that's really gotta be
looked at and not get entrapped into. This is a logging or not
logging question. It's an ecosystem restoration issue. In terms
of the time, we heard about comments and I think a lot of these
discussions are similar to the discussions that have happened for
years. Many of your committee members and on the satellites, would
you believe we've been talking about this for years? And that's
true. We don't have years anymore. You see this spike on the end
of this chart. I mean this baby has gone in about three years from
a few 100,000 acres to 1.4 million acres. I mean we are in a
crisis situation. Normal processes taking many many years. In
fact, investing in long term studies to get some of these answers
is not gonna be a part of a viable solution. We have a very
serious situation that in recorded history with actual data -
facts, there may be anecdotal information there that might indicate
something different - hard to interpret. But this is actual
surveys and measurements. Nothing like this has ever happened in
Alaska before. It's a very serious serious situation. I would
certainly agree with some of the comments that were made in terms
of involving all stakeholders and shareholders and people of
expertise. However, as was indicated, when you don't have a lot of
data and you'll get a lot of different opinions, you've got to
really sort through that and try and figure out based on what you
can see and what hard data you have what's really going on and make
a decision based upon that. Again, ecosystem restoration has got
to be the focus of this and I'm encouraged from the testimony from
a number of individuals and from the questions from the committees.
And I just offer SAF is another one of those objective sources of
input into your committee. If you're considering legislation, we
do have a legislative liaison position, Mr. Wayne Nichols, who has
worked with a number of your committee members, I think before.
And we would certainly offer that service into the next session.
Number 3509
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes, Jack.
MR. PHELPS: Yeah, I just had a final comment on economics. When
it was mentioned a few moments ago about Alaska law not requiring
reforestation on salvage sales, I agree with Mr. Boutin that it
makes good sense, it's good policy to reforest in those areas given
the discussion we've had today. It may be critically important.
It may be one of the best reasons for having timber sales, but I
would point out to you that Alaska law makes a provision for 25
percent of stumpage receipts to go back into reforestation on our
state lands. We have not historically funded that, gentlemen, and
I think it's very important that when you start designing sales on
marginal timber and you build reforestation costs into the
stumpage, you may kill the economics on sales. Maybe the state
ought to look at on those salvage sales - saying up front, "We're
not gonna build that cost. We're not gonna put that cost on the
stump, we're not gonna build that cost into the operators
expenses." We're gonna say, "We're gonna sell it at a free market
value and we're gonna commit to take 25 percent of the stumpage
receipt on the state general fund and put it into reforestation."
I think you might be able to solve some of you economic problems of
selling timber sales if you do it that way.
Number 3532
CHAIRMAN LEMAN: We're you looking over my shoulder when I wrote
that note to Joan just a few minutes ago.
MR. PHELPS: No, just great minds Loren.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: I champion that and that's what I had in mind
when I was talking about lets look at the possibilities of the full
spectrum of possibilities and then we could sort through whether or
not the state gets involved, whether it can do it some other way.
Maybe we're looking at incentives for other industries. Maybe
there's got to be an incentive for logging dead timber, I don't
know. But we shouldn't look at only those places that are
economically (indisc.). Yes.
Number 3700
MR. TRASKY: Just one last comment. Our research into this bark
beetle problem - very extensive and Steve just reminded me we wrote
157 letters to all the Canadian provinces, all the universities
that have Forestry Departments, the Forest Service and everybody
else, asking for them to provide us with the information on the
impacts the spruce bark beetle outbreaks on fish and wildlife. We
did not get anything back. Nobody had any substantial information,
so we really exhausted that. If people have scientific
documentation of impacts, we'd like to know about it because we're
concerned. If it is having an impact, we're not seeing it in our
research or anything else, but we would like to know about it and
if there is, we'll press for whatever measures we feel are
appropriate and we haven't seen that. And you know I could say
there is an information out there...
Number 3747
SENATOR LEMAN: My kids could show you a way to get that a lot
faster, get on the internet.
MR. TRASKY: We did search the internet.
DR. MOORE: Mr. Chairman, just again on this issue, I think it was
made very clear by the representative from the fish and wildlife
that this does have a severe impact on many species such as marbled
merlots and songbirds. Obviously, just have to look with your
eyes, if the trees are gone there is not a place for the tree
living species to be any more. So it definitely has a negative
impact on all those species that require the canopies of the trees
and the cover of the trees and the seeds of the trees and the
nesting sites in the trees, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There
is simply no question about that and just because you write letters
to all these people and don't get any answer back doesn't mean that
there isn't a real effect in the real world when these trees are
dead.
Number 3838
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Now is there salvageability to a tree as long
as it's standing or does that diminish immediately with death?
DR. MOORE: Three years you can make good sawlogs out of it, 8 to
15 years you can still make chips and oriented stand board and
other reconstitute type products out of it. Once it falls over on
the ground, it starts to rot quite quickly, but even then it's
quite often salvageable.
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Yes.
MR. REED: I was impressed yesterday and again today with Ed
Holsten's sense of time. It's time scale we have to keep in mind
here. You're not gonna learn very much about impacting wildlife a
year after the tree dies, but what he's saying to me is this: "You
have subsequent breakup of the stand, and there are pictures here
to demonstrate this, you have succession in many areas to grass,
you have fire risks which are inordinately high, and you have in
this particular case a special scale of disturbance which is
unprecedented." I would just say that here is the Copper River
drainage and all those blue, now you're gonna take all of the
spruce cover out of there and then you, you know, intuitively we
don't need an expert to tell us that the moose are gonna be in
trouble for winter shelter or for whatever. So I would urge you to
keep, as I used to my students say, don't forget to distinguish
between the short term and the long term. And the long term in
this case may take you 10 - 20 years or more to get to that full
impact. So it's gonna be there, may take awhile. Finally, I will
undertake to go back to some university researchers and industry
people who have had a lot of first hand experience with insect
outbreaks, doesn't have to be the spruce bark beetle, it can be the
mountain pine beetle, the spruce bud worm, a hundred other kinds of
insects and I can tell you I know right now what the answer is.
The impacts on wildlife and fish habitat are enormous. I want to
thank, on behalf of Patrick and I, you people in the legislative
committee for having the kindness to invite us and to let us speak
frankly. So before we go, I just wanted to say that on behalf of
our (indisc.).
Number 4209
CO-CHAIRMAN GREEN: Well thank you for coming. Thank you for
actually getting a very good discussion, I believe, starting. I
will vow that I can't, on my own, keep it going, but I certainly
will not (indisc.) for wanting to keep the fires going because I
think it imperative that whatever the answer is, we come up with
something. I think you've got the right idea, whether it's a
spruce bark beetle kill or some fungus or something else, if the
tree dies what happens to the rest of the environment - and there
is data on that, then lets certainly have it. I would appreciate
that very much. Thank you all for coming.
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