HB 284 - TIMBER THREATENED BY PESTS OR DISEASE CHAIRMAN HALFORD thanked everyone for their testimony and set the issue aside and announced HB 284 to be up for consideration. REPRESENTATIVE MARK HODGINS, sponsor, said that HB 284 relates to diseases of timber and amends AS 41.17.082(d). He said basically when trees die from the spruce bark beetle it takes about three or four years and they turn a bright red color. On the Kenai Peninsula there are several million board feet that have been impacted and the problem he sees is that there have been too many task forces that all decide that something should be done. This bill will give them an incentive to do some things. He showed the Committee a chart of the infestation that has occurred on the Kenai Peninsula. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked how small the trees were that are being impacted now. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS said it's beginning to impact below six inch trees and most of them are fairly vigorous still. The larger trees are not as vigorous and are more severely impacted. SENATOR LEMAN asked if the Commissioner could require selective cutting since they have been told that there's a greater chance of the new growth taking hold with scarification. He supported the reforestation clause in the bill and hoped the legislature could fund that. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS responded that there is quite a bit of latitude in this for the Commissioner allowing him to determine an area to not have any harvest. His first thought was to make this a selective harvest bill and open it up as much as possible to the small timber operator, because that's where you get your highest value from. He said they don't expect to control or stop the beetle with this legislation. They would like the ability to remove some of the fire fuel in places like the Miller Reach fire where there was $45 million spent for suppression and damage done. He said they face the same thing on the Kenai Peninsula. SENATOR TORGERSON asked him how it would impact private lands. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS explained this bill would encourage some selective harvest that will be up to the private land owner. Under the Forest Practices Act, the Commissioner could determine if the infestation was so severe that he could waive any portion of that act if he could, except for the portion around salmon streams. SENATOR TORGERSON said he didn't read it as leaving out private land owners and municipal land and it says the Commissioner shall implement salvage measures. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS responded that on private land, the State could not go in and mandate that something happen. They can work out an agreement with the land owner to make something happen. There could be the possibility of helping land owners with reforestation. The same thing with municipalities; they can not allow the State on their property in which case nothing would occur. SENATOR TORGERSON said his concern is that it says if the forest land owner does not comply with the final order of the Commissioner, the Commissioner may enter onto the land and undertake the actions ordered by the land owner and the land owner is liable for the cost of those actions. Now it's amended to say that he has to implement the proper salvage measures. SENATOR LINCOLN asked him to respond to the letter from the Director of Forestry and one of the fiscal notes for $615,000. TAPE 98-40, SIDE B Their concerns were that DNR already has the authority to do emergency sales and this legislation doesn't help them in that regard. She was also concerned that the authority to waive the Forest Practices Act risks water quality and fish habitat protection, but has little effect on the beetle population. Another area mentioned was the Spruce Bark Beetle Task Force which will issue a finalized report on May 8 which will make recommendations. She said the mayor of the Borough has put together a task force on the infestation which hasn't been completed. She thought they were getting ahead of themselves in making these recommendations. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS responded that this Administration does not want to cut trees and he said this is an infestation on the Kenai Peninsula and with their salvage timber operations there has not been an emphasis to cut trees. They will not control the beetle with this bill. He would like to have the ability to go into areas that the Commissioner deems important enough to do some salvage and go forward with that. SENATOR LINCOLN asked if the reason he put this bill together was to control the beetle infestation. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS answered yes it is, but the reason it will not control the infestation is because there is so much acreage that is now impacted, the cost of controlling it would be approximately $8 million and even that would not completely solve the problem. There is a tremendous health and safety problem with dry fuel standing that could become very explosive. This standing dry fuel, in a wind storm, could knock out a lot of the utilities that range between Kenai and Homer along the highway. There is a tremendous need for reforestation, because without it, these forests are going to become grasslands in several years. The fact that we have habitat that depends on the forest ecosystem that is being destroyed is pretty evident. The Spruce Bark Beetle Task Force hasn't led them to any resolution of the problem. Number 536 MS. MARTY WELBOURN, Chief, Forest Resources, clarified that the Department of Natural Resources is continuing to salvage and reforest infested areas on State lands. For example, on the Kenai Peninsula alone, they have held 23 salvage sales since 1994. They have done this despite a lawsuit that opposes salvage operations. By contrast, the US Forest Service which has a much larger staff and budget has held only two sales during the same period. She reaffirmed their opposition to HB 284. The Department of Natural Resources continues to oppose this bill because it would not reduce the impacts of major infestations, and will be expensive to implement. The bill does not provide effective new tools to address infestation. DNR already has the authority to develop agreements with land owners to waive reforestation requirements under the Forest Practices Act and to offer emergency sales and below cost sales. DNR is already offering salvage sales that don't fully offset the costs of salvage and reforestation. The proposed authority to waive other Forest Practices Act requirements risks water quality and fish habitat protection while having little effect on beetle population. The Forest Practices Act do not significantly hamper salvage operations. Finally, the Kenai Spruce Bark Beetle Task Force, led by Mayor Navarre, has completed its recommendations for near-term action. The recommendations for long term action have been drafted and will be finalized tomorrow. The Task Force has recommended that timber harvest focuses on reducing risks from wild fires near populated areas, but it does not recommend other salvage operations. However, little of the land in the high fire risk areas is State owned. DNR is working to implement the Task Force recommendations wherever possible. They feel the current bill does not reflect the Task Force recommendations. HB 284 would have little or no effect on large infestations, because it does not address the main factors that cause insect outbreaks and limits their control. Climatic conditions play a key role in determining the size of outbreaks and can not be controled by agency action. Pests such as bark beetles occur naturally throughout Alaskan forests and their populations can explode whenever weather conditions are favorable. Wherever you have white spruce, you have spruce bark beetles in Alaska. Feasible salvage harvesting is limited by weak markets for low value timber, by limited funding for timber sales and reforestation and by multiple use concerns about the impacts of timber harvest and roads on other resources and activities. HB 284 increases State costs by requiring the State to develop agreements with private land owners regardless of their interests. Further, it is unclear whether Section 1 (d) would require the State or private land owners to pay for the "necessary salvage measures" on private lands. MS. WELBOURN said implementing this bill would be costly since it applies statewide. In 1997, for example, aerial surveys recorded 17 different types of insects or diseases, each damaged more than 100 acres of forest land in Alaska affecting a total of 2.5 million acres. The fiscal note submitted by DNR is very conservative. In 1996, the Society of American Foresters invited forest health experts from British Columbia to view the bark beetle infestations in Southcentral Alaska. Those experts recommended that the State spend at least $50 million per year to respond to the infestation. She asked the Committee not to pass HB 284 and offered to work with them on ways to implement the Task Force recommendations. Number 514 MS. PAM LABOLLE, President, State Chamber of Commerce, said this is one of their priority pieces of legislation. They have passed a resolution saying they would like an emergency declared by the State on the spruce bark beetle. In the almost 50 years that the Tongass has been harvesting trees, they have harvested about 400,000 acres and in nine years, the spruce bark beetle has taken out 3 million acres (according to her figures). SENATOR TORGERSON asked Representative Hodgins what his intent was for already dead stands. REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS answered that he wanted to remove the fuel source, and he thought an owner would initiate an action like that with the Department. He thought the language in the bill would allow for a better agreement between the private property owner and the Commissioner. He didn't foresee the Commissioner ever coming in and condemning someone's trees for a specific reason if they are on private property. SENATOR GREEN moved to pass CSHB 284 (FIN) from Committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal note. There were no objections and it was so ordered.