Legislature(2011 - 2012)BUTROVICH 205
03/12/2012 03:30 PM Senate RESOURCES
Audio | Topic |
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Start | |
SB153 | |
SB123 | |
SB159 | |
SB181 | |
SB205 | |
Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
*+ | SB 123 | TELECONFERENCED | |
*+ | SB 159 | TELECONFERENCED | |
*+ | SB 181 | TELECONFERENCED | |
*+ | SB 205 | TELECONFERENCED | |
= | SB 153 | ||
SB 159-SUSITNA STATE FOREST 4:05:21 PM CO-CHAIR PASKVAN announced the consideration of SB 159. SENATOR LINDA MENARD, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of SB 159, said that MatSu Borough has 16.1 million acres and 9.5 million acres of it is forestland; the Susitna State Forest is 763,200 acres and would represent 4 percent of it. She said that Article 8, Section 4, of the Alaska Constitution addresses sustainable yield including: fish forest, wildlife, grass lands and all other replenishable resources belonging to the state shall be utilized, developed and maintained on the sustainable yield principle subject to preferences among beneficial users. SB 159 seeks to further accomplish this constitutional mandate by creating the Susitna State Forest. Through SB 159, the Division of Forestry will be able to manage the state forest for a long term supply of timber to local processors and retain the land in state ownership for multiple uses such as trapping, mining, fishing and hunting. SENATOR MENARD said the proposed state forest includes 32 parcels totaling about 763,200 square acres. The parcels are forestry classified lands and are located in four large management blocks. She explained that legislatively designating a state forest would ensure that some land will remain available for long term forest management and that the region will retain large open spaces of public lands to benefit residents of the region who currently enjoy them for multiple uses. A state forest designation gives the Division of Forestry the assurance that lands they are managing will be there in perpetuity, and importantly, it will therefore be more apt to invest money and resources towards permanent upgrades. There is also a need to more actively manage lands and vegetation to promote a variety of forests ages to provide for diversity and healthy habitats for wildlife. At the same time, active management will also help to reduce wild land fire risks by breaking up large fuel types and encouraging initial regeneration of hardwood species. SENATOR MENARD said that SB 159 will set aside ground work to accomplish all of this. Besides professional mills, the state forest will maintain a supply of hardwood for personal use. For instance, right now Susitna Valley High School is looking at woody biomass that could heat their entire school and chips and pellets have become more common and sought for residential space heating. It's important for Alaska residents to have a place managed for them to obtain their material. By passing SB 159, Senator Menard said, they will make the Susitna State Forest (second largest) the fourth state forest in Alaska and it will be joined by Tanana Valley State Forest (largest), the Haines State Forest and Susitna Southeast Forest. The Division of Forestry will manage the Susitna State Forest as part of the State Forest System under AS 41.17.200-230, the statute that governs the creation of the state forests. SENATOR MENARD related that the division is required to prepare a management plan for the forest within three years of its establishment. She said the division had put years of work into this plan and Alaska is ready for its fourth state forest. She noted letters of support and a resolution passed unanimously by the City of Houston in support of this bill. SENATOR FRENCH asked if there was any opposition to the bill. 4:11:29 PM MICHAEL ROVITO, Chief of Staff to Senator Linda Menard, Alaska State Legislature, answered the bill had no opposition. CO-CHAIR PASKVAN asked the purpose of identifying the particular parcels in the bill. SENATOR MENARD deferred to the state forester. 4:12:14 PM JOHN "CHRIS" MAISCH, Director, Division of Forestry, Department of Natural Resources (DNR), explained that these are legal descriptions that need a high level of detail, because they become a matter of law. A lot of effort goes into the legal descriptions. He noted that a future CS will address inholdings. CO-CHAIR PASKVAN asked when that would be complete. MR. MAISCH replied shortly. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI said some of the parcels are not contiguous and some are not touching at all and asked what the law requires as far as parcels being contiguous, how these parcels were selected, what kind of public process this had gone through and what further process he anticipated. MR. MAISCH explained that all the land on the map was owned by the state already. Two area plans pertain to that area: Susitna management plan (recently signed and approved) and the Southeast Susitna area plan, and they both talk about access and access corridors. In addition, if this bill passes, they must prepare a forest management plan for the state forest and address access issues in that. Right now they have the capability to cross other state lands to access disparate parcels. He said they are interested in access to the better forest lands, and an example of small corridors was between the Skwentna and Mount Susitna. Problems with access are not anticipated, he added. With regard to the second question about the public process that has taken place, he explained that as part of the area planning functions seventeen separate meetings were held for the Matanuska Area planning process. In addition, in the last two weeks he had been to a number of public meetings in the Valley and met with the Willow Dog Mushers Association, the Houston City Council, the Talkeetna Community Council, the Matanuska Susitna Borough and Senator Menard had hosted an open house. Division of Forestry staff were present at all of those meetings. MR. MAISCH explained that the area plans classify lands as either forestry, agriculture, settlement or a few other categories. The concept of state forests was brought forward in this area planning process. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI noted a number of prolific salmon areas and asked him to discuss setbacks on salmon streams when logging is done. MR. MAISCH explained that the major systems have buffers of a quarter mile. In addition, the State's Forest Resources Practices Act divides the state into three different geographic areas: the Interior (Region 3), the Southcentral (Region 2) and Southeast (Region 1). There are various salmon and high value resident fish protection standards based on the kind of stream - a large glacial braided system or a small narrow fresh water clear system, for instance. The buffer standards in the Forest Practices Act are tailored to the type of fish and the type of stream in the three different regions. Those standards affect both public lands and private lands. 4:19:00 PM SENATOR STEDMAN observed that it's a good idea to create forests and commented that the Tongass National Forest with 1,800,000 acres, another at 763,000, the Haines Forest at 286,000 and the Southeast Forest at 48,000 - just a fraction of what we have - also has the potential in southern Southeast of having the best quality timber. It hinders Southeast timber development. He provided some back ground saying that at the time of statehood Southeast didn't really get to participate in the land selection process and 50 year contracts were put in place in the Tongass. Those, along with fishing, were the major anchors for jobs in Southeast communities. Now, Southeast has no long term timber contracts and both pulp mills were removed going on 20 years ago. He thought they should maybe take the opportunity in this piece of legislation and encourage the administration to negotiate with the federal government to either get some land out of the Tongass with remaining statehood selections or just flat out buy it and get some of the Southeast land into state ownership so we could have a better opportunity to stabilize the community and create some growth, and basically have livable- wage jobs. The window of opportunity might be better today than it was 10 years ago with the federal government's fiscal position being substantially weaker than it was and Alaska's substantially stronger. SENATOR STEDMAN said there are 48,000 acres in southern Southeast and 13 million board feet a year could come out of that. MR. MAISCH confirmed that the allowable cut is 12.8 million board feet a year. 4:22:56 PM SENATOR STEDMAN said that's about one-third of what a medium sized saw mill would need. He said it's difficult to get financing without having at least a 20-year supply of fiber. He said he would discuss this further with the bill sponsor. MR. MAISCH added that the Tongass Timber Task Force is considering this same question and that report is due to the governor in July, but they have a self-imposed deadline of May because of the urgency they feel. SENATOR STEDMAN said his understanding of that concept is the state may manage some of the Tongass forest, but the ownership would remain with the federal government. That is better than the current situation, but it would be better to own the deed. "Otherwise we're still always going to be in the king's forest..." 4:25:35 PM CO-CHAIR PASKVAN commented that possibly language could be included in the future CS. From what he has heard about the forests of Southeast Alaska, one would think their acreage would be much greater than Interior Alaska as a primary timber resource of the whole state. 4:26:36 PM SENATOR MCGUIRE said she would support that idea and citing the most recent DOR recreational remote cabin site pamphlet noted that it was controversial when first introduced. Finally it passed, and now Alaskans all over the state are taking advantage of this opportunity to get out into the forest and establish cabin sites. She agreed with Senator Stedman that too much land is held by the federal government. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked him to explain the practical implication of making this a state forest and the impacts on hunting, fishing, and other recreation in this area. MR. MAISCH replied that all those activities will continue and based on his experience with the Tanana Valley State Forest, more access would be developed over time with a mixture of all- season roads and winter access. The division's perspective on the long term nature of designating this as a state forest is that it is important for long term sustained yield with different types of multiple use opportunities for wood products; for instance, Talkeetna High School using wood biomass for space heating. In turn, the state will make long term investments in roads, bridges and access developments that they don't currently make, because that land could be reclassified for some other use at a future point. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked what kind of timber is found in the area. MR. MAISCH answered that it varies in different parts of the Valley; generally speaking the forests are toward the over- mature side in terms of age class and size. This means the hard woods are declining in quality. Fire is one of the main ways these forests are regenerated and it has been quite some time since a large scale stand replacement fire happened. So, any kind of forest management activity they can do to break up conifers is beneficial from a wild fire and habitat standpoint. From a hunting standpoint, various age classes are better for wildlife habitat. In the Valley, the wildlife professionals say there are not enough younger age classes of hard wood species for a lot of the ungulates, which in turn affects hunting opportunities. 4:32:07 PM CO-CHAIR PASKVAN asked why the mountaintops aren't included within the forest. MR. MAISCH said the state forests are focused on areas that are good for timber production. Another issues is that the steeper ground is more difficult to access. SENATOR MENARD suggested that a strong Senate resolution would encourage the governor to allow these federal lands to benefit all state forests, but she thought this was good legislation and wanted to see it move. CO-CHAIR PASKVAN held SB 159 in committee.
Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
---|---|---|
SB0123 vs M.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 123 |
SB 123 Research & backup.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 123 |
DRAFT CS SB - 153 - Version D.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 153 |
SB 159 RFH.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 Sponsor Statement.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 Sectional Analysis.PDF |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 Expanded Bullets on SSF area plans public process.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 Susitna State Forest Briefing Paper.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 Susitna State Forest Briefing Side by Side.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 Suuport Docs.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 159 MAPS.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB 181 Hearing Request Memo.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 181 Sponsor Statement.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 181 ver M.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 181 Sectional Analysis.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 181 Supporting Document-Certification Letter Comm Sullivan DNR.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 181 Supporting Document-Findings of the Commissioner DNR.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 181 Supporting Document-Letters of Support with Index.PDF |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 205 hearing request.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB 205 - SS.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB 205 - version M.PDF |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB 205 - Advisory Committees by Region.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB 205 - Regional AC's regulations.PDF |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB 205 Letters of Support.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB159-DNR-FMD-03-09-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB205-DOR-TRS-03-07-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB205-DOA-DOF-02-22-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB205-DCCED-DCRA-03-09-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB205-DFG-CO-03-09-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
SB 181 Supporting Document-AMA Letter, USDA Letter.PDF |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |
SB 159 Ruffed Grouse Soc.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 159 |
SB123-DOA-FAC-3-11-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 123 |
SB181-DNR-MLW-03-07-12.pdf |
SRES 3/12/2012 3:30:00 PM |
SB 181 |