Roadless Rule
Dear Editor: While Alaska is losing residents, our infrastructure still needs to be paid for. Fewer taxpayers means the costs for each keeps going up. Meanwhile our infrastructure is falling apart, and our services are going down. That means even more people will be financially forced to pack up and leave, making things that much worse for those still hanging on. It’s a downward spiral, and we’re in the middle of it.
If we are going to turn this around we need well-paying, year-round jobs that support families. All the yammering about sustainability has made this country unsustainable. We have young people who have nothing to look forward to. There are precious few jobs that can support them and their families. Too many of them have nothing in their future to look forward to other than drugs and welfare. All this is being done under the false name of sustainability.
The Tongass National Forest is 16.9 million acres. Ten million of those acres have already been locked up in wilderness, never to be touched. Of the remainder, not all is able to be commercially logged. There are 200-foot buffers around streams, 1,000-foot buffers along the beaches, some is rock, meadows, muskeg, water, steep slopes, etc. making them unable to be commercially logged. For every 25 acres that could be logged, 10 acres are removed and added to the wilderness areas, 14 acres are designated as non-logging recreation and subsistence areas. That leaves one acre out of 25 to potentially be commercially logged.
In 70 years with two pulp mills, several saw mills, and various other small enterprises, just 10% of the potentially logging acres were logged. That represents just 2% of the entire Tongass National Forest. During the next 50 years an additional 10% is scheduled to be logged. That will mean in 120 years only 4% of the entire forest will have been impacted by logging. That will leave 96% untouched, and after 120 years the new trees in the first logged areas will be quite large.
There is a huge demand for Tongass trees. Because of our wet and temperate climate they are stronger and usable for more products than the Douglas Fir of the lower Pacific Northwest. The problem is due to the so-called environmentalists groups, and their constant lawsuits, the supply of timber has been made artificially costly as well as unreliable.
Logging does not adversely impact any of the other uses of the forest; in fact it can improve those uses.
An old-growth forest can not sustain as large of a deer population as a mixed forest can. Deer are under-story feeders. In logged areas there is more food available for them. While the older growth forest provides shelter from heavy snows, it does not provide enough food to support a large deer population. A mixed logged forest provides the best of both worlds. Fishing is not adversely impacted by logging. Recreation is enhanced by logging. The roads make it possible for more people to enjoy hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, etc., and yet with 96% of the Tongass left untouched there is still plenty of places for the purist to enjoy.
Keeping the Tongass roadless is not environmentally sound, nor is it in best interests of the communities, or the people that live here. In addition to the timber industries it prevents mining, and alternative energy projects.
For more information and a better understanding about what is, and has been going on in the Tongass, https://www.akforest.org/facts.htm.
How did the Tongass become roadless, https://www.adn.com/opinions/2019/10/20/trump-administration-right-to-pursue-tongass-exemption-from-roadless-rule/.
For more information about what is really driving the roadless rule check out the Wildlands Project, https://nwri.org/the-wildlands-project/.
The Wildlands Project (Biodiversity Treaty) was stopped in the U.S. Senate because of its dangers; however, in spite of that, it has been slowly implemented through items such as roadless areas, executive orders, agencies with their unelected bureaucrats, and activist judges.
Theresa Helem, Sitka
Holiday Sharing
Dear Editor: When the Salvation Army closed on Dec. 24-25 and Dec. 31-Jan. 1, a plan was hatched by the group assembled at the Candlelight Vigil to deal with this closure. The need for a meal was vital for our local citizens who depend on the Salvation Army for their daily bread.
On Christmas Eve, at the Crescent Harbor shelter, the community of Sitka responded with a meal that just kept coming. Venison stews, pots of rice, brownies, and a young teen planned, prepared and presented his family favorite recipe, a halibut cheesy potato casserole.
The response was equally matched on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Word of mouth, a plea on Sitka Chatters, was all it took for Sitka to respond in generosity and caring. A local church also moved the feast indoors to be better enjoyed.
This is our community of Sitka, one that takes care of its neighbors, and does it with a joyous and generous spirit. Thank you to all who donated and to the Salvation Army for all they do every day.
The Sitka Homeless Coalition
