JUNEAU, ALASKA (2011-03-07) It’s unclear whether the federal government will appeal a judge’s decision to apply the roadless rule to Southeast Alaska’s Tongass Forest.
A federal judge on Friday lifted an exemption to the nationwide logging-limiting rule that had been in place since the Bush administration. Plaintiffs say the ruling will protect fishing and tourism jobs. Critics say it will hurt the timber industry, as well as mining and hydropower development.
Logging has taken a lot of the forest out of Kuiu and Kupreanof islands, in central Southeast Alaska. Critics say harvests on Kake Tribal Corporation, Sealaska and Forest Service land have damaged places where the region’s original residents hunt and fish.
Mike Jackson is a natural resource officer for the Organized Village of Kake. He says the tribal government went go to court to limit further large-scale logging on undeveloped parts of the islands.
"The cumulative effect in the past has been really devastating to our fish and deer habitat. And if the preset sales were going to go, with the industrial style logging, it would really impact some more on our customary and traditional gathering," he says.
Jackson and about 10 environmental groups and ecotourism businesses just won their case. U.S. District Judge John Sedwick ruled the Tongass’ exemption to the Forest-Service-wide roadless rule should be lifted. (Read the decision.)
The rule was put in place as a conservation measure at the end of the Clinton administration. The Bush administration later decided it should not apply to the Tongass because it had just developed a land management plan, addressing the same issues.
Robert Dillon, spokesman for Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, says the decision is troubling. He says it leaves few trees left for Southeast loggers.
"The roadless rule removes 9.3 million acres of the roughly 10 million acres of available timber. Half of what’s left is second-growth and it won’t be harvestable for 40 to 50 years. That leaves just one percent of the harvestable timber left for sale. That’s not enough to sustain an economically viable timber industry in Southeast,' he says.
Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Begich agrees. Spokesman Bob Weinstein says the rule is a cookie-cutter approach that does not recognize regional conditions.
"The senator’s feeling is that the forest should be managed by a plan that’s specifically tailored to the unique needs of the Tongass National Forest, the communities in the national forest and the residents of the national forest," he says.
Environmental groups say that plan and the later rule exemption were flawed. They challenged assertions that the rule would block utility corridors, mine development, and even personal-use firewood gathering. (Read the original lawsuit.)
"That’s why the judge ruled in our favor in the case," says Tom Waldo, an attorney for Earthjustice. The nonprofit Juneau firm represents the Organized Village of Kake, the Alaska Wilderness Recreation & Tourism Association, The Sierra Club and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.
"When the temporary Tongass exemption was adopted, the Bush administration made a number of these claims that upon analysis were just not supportable at all. And the judge just called those arguments implausible and that was the reason he threw out the Tongass exemption," he says.
Timber industry supporters say the devil’s in the details. And those could block construction of a Kake-Petersburg road, expansion of Admiralty Island’s Greens Creek Mine, and a new hydropower plant near Ketchikan.
The Forest Service could appeal the judge’s decision. But so far, it is not saying much.
Calls on the case were referred to Wyn Hornbuckle of the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. He declined an interview, writing, quote, “We are currently reviewing the opinion to determine the next appropriate steps.”
Alaska Forest Association Executive Director Owen Graham says his group will urge the agency to appeal. But this legal round will not hit current timber sales.
"I expect in the long term it will have a huge impact. In the short term the Forest Service hasn’t been including much in the way of roadless acreage in any of their timber sales anyway, so the short-term impacts are pretty minimal," he says.
Forest Service officials have cut roadless areas out of several large sales to avoid legal challenges.
Back in Kake, Natural Resource Officer Mike Jackson is downplaying the importance of the decision.
He instead points to recent collaborative efforts involving the tribal government, contractors, environmental groups and the Forest Service. That’s leading to limited logging near his town’ roads, and promises that locals will get jobs.
"We would rather talk about it with the parties and try to get it resolved that was statement by a federal judge. I don’t think it’s a major victory but it’s a statement by the federal judge," he says.
The timber industry says the decision will cost the region logging and support-industry jobs. Jackson and other plaintiffs say it will save fishing and tourism jobs, as well as subsistence resources that are equally valuable to the region.
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