Chugach Forest plans big fee increases

The five-year plan for recreation facilities on the Chugach National Forest shows they are tackling a budget deficit by increasing fees dramatically, and pursuing partnerships with citizens to help with maintenance. One cabin, at Pete Dahl Slough, on the Copper River Delta, is also scheduled for decommissioning.

The overall maintenance and operating costs for facilities on the whole forest is listed at $1,543,053. Yet, the appropriated funds available from Congress are only $918,284. So, bills have been piling up through the Bush administration. The plan, signed in 2006, shows a $1,418,090 maintenance backlog on the various cabins, campgrounds, trails, signs, and visitor centers on the forest.

According to the plan, the average fee at cabins is going up to $75 during peak season. That's a huge jump. It ventures into the realm of unaffordable for many families. Overall, the plan is to raise $635,759 from fees each year, more than triple the current total. Yikes. 

This is a National Forest, not a private park. Right?

I honestly don't know what to think of the plan, beyond the obvious thought that these Republicans Stevens, Murkowski, Young, and Bush have really left us in a pickle. Example: while this was happening, Stevens spent $10 million to build the Whistle Stops project, which primary purpose was to be a photo-op for himself cutting a ribbon—ANY ribbon— on the forest's 100-year anniversary.  Recreation on the Chugach costs peanuts compared to the jillions of dollars being squandered by the Feds on REALLY dumb things, like the war. 

But on the other hand, there is real stewardship responsibility in citizens for our public lands. We don't have to let the cabins and outhouses fall apart, just because our president is an idiot.

So, read the plan. And let me know what you think!  

/Chugach5yrplan.pdf

Cascadia sues BIA for release of information

Cascadia Wildlands Project filed a freedom of information act lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs today, in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon. We are demanding that the BIA turn over all documents related to the proposed Shepard Point Road in Cordova, Alaska.

The BIA recently made a decision to construct the controversial road and port project (see our previous post). Unfortunately, they chose the most damaging, most expensive, and least effective alternative location for the facility—at the bottom of an avalanche chute, at a place called Shepard Point. 

We suspect the recent decision was motivated more by political favor-trading, than by project criteria of what location would be best for oil spill response. The documents we requested are expected to reveal some of the back-room machinations behind this decision. Separate, previous FOIA requests have showed high-level involvement, including by former Governor Murkowski, Sen. Ted Stevens, and now-Federal Gasline Coordinator Drue Pearce. 

Legally our case is open and shut. I expect a speedy resolution. The BIA has just flat ignored the law. 

Today's FOIA lawsuit is the latest chapter in the project's divisive history. We hope it's one of the last. Re-directing this pork-barrel project to one of the alternative locations closer to town would better serve spill response, avoid environmental and safety problems, and cost only half as much as BIA's proposal. 

BIA's project has big problems. Sooner or later, they'll have to stop hiding and face up to them. 

Read the Complaint

/FOIA%20Complaint.pdf

Tongass National Forest opened to more logging

CORDOVA—The new plan looks an awful lot like the old plan on the Tongass National Forest, in Southeast Alaska.

The Bush administration plan released today is designed to get the cut out, at the expense of residents, wildlife and conservation. 

This can't be called a surprise. Over the last few months we've been dealing with a series of timber sale proposals of exceptional size and viciousness. Apparently, this is their long-term plan.

A glance at the new Forest Plan Record of Decision map shows they propose to log hundreds of thousands of acres. It's more of a logging plan, than a forest management plan.  This is a last-ditch attempt to revitalize the failed old-growth logging industry in Southeast Alaska. 

 

The truth is, the highest future value in Southeast Alaska is in fishing, tourism, subsistence, and quality of life. Logged-over public lands are a dime a dozen. People come from all over the world to see unspoiled forests teeming with deer, wolves and salmon. 

There are useful things the forest service could be doing to help ensure this prosperous future. Restoration thinning for deer winter habitat, and thoughtful road restoration, are a better use of taxpayer money and Forest Service energy. 

The new plan does nothing to address a pair of looming crises: lack of winter deer habitat, and a money pit on the highly-subsidized system of logging roads. 

Deer Population on the Brink

Subsistence is the highest and best use of the wild, old-growth forests of the Tongass. Continued subsistence opportunities are threatened by a several generations of intensive logging, leaving very little winter habitat for deer.

Last winter saw major reductions in deer populations on the Tongass, leading to emergency closures of hunting. The major limiting factor for deer is the amount of winter habitat during severe winters—namely, low-elevation, especially south-facing, old-growth forests. 

These big trees are exactly the same areas targeted in the plan for logging. Yet, the new plan, like the old one, contains no assurance of continued subsistence opportunities. The Forest Service is willing to promise timber volume for mills, but is not willing to promise deer for subsistence users. 

The situation is made worse by Forest Service reliance of flawed computer models regarding protection for deer on individual timber sales. This head-in-the-sand approach leaves deer populations only two consecutive hard winters away from a catastrophic collapse.

Legacy of Road Maintenance

A major cost of the logging-centered approach are the tens of millions in federal subsidies needed to build and maintain the system of logging roads. 

There are tens of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance on the road system. The new plan doesn't propose to do much of anything about it. Instead, it proposes to dig the hole even deeper by building more new roads.

These roads kill fish by blocking migration and through erosion.  High road densities also basically ensure that wolves will be killed off. 

Ironically, the Forest Service is so far behind on road maintenance already, that they have to close roads as soon as they build them for lack of maintenance ability. Taxpayer-funded roads are built and opened for logging trucks, then closed to use by locals. 

So, expect the controversy over logging on the Tongass to continue. Cascadia will continue our work reviewing and challenging illegal timber sales, while pursuing and encouraging road restoration opportunties. 

For More Information, get in touch: 

gscott@cascwild.org  (907) 424-3835

or for more detailed information on Tongass Forest issues, go to the excellent page of Sitka Conservation Society.

-GWS 1/25/07

Alaska Pipeline Threatens Downstream Residents

A new expert analysis commissioned by the Cascadia Wildlands Project shows a chilling downstream exposure to oil spills from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline into the Copper River.

The jaw-dropping results of the analysis show, using the oil companies’ own response planning assumptions, that an spill into the Copper River watershed could reach as far as Cook Inlet and Kodiak.

Author James Brady, of North Cape Fisheries Consulting, was selected to do the analysis because of his first-hand experience. Brady was the state’s area fisheries manager  before, during and after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He writes that Aleyska’s planned response to a spill from the pipeline into the Gulkana, Tazlina or Klutina Rivers would:

• Send a plume of oil smearing west along Alaska's coastline, as far as Cook Inlet;
• quickly close the popular Copper River commercial, subsistence and sport fisheries;
• send shock waves through markets;
• have long-lasting impacts to subsistence users;
• Even for a small spill, Brady writes, "subsistence fishers would see oil on the water and oil fouling their fish wheels or dip nets." 
  
• expose state agencies to massive costs trying to keep downstream fisheries open;

We had long known that the Copper River was exposed to a spill from the TAPS, but the fact that oil could travel as far as Kodiak, even the Alaska Peninsula, was a surprise. These are the exact areas still suffering from the Exxon Valdez spill. Another spill would be a devastating 1-2 punch for wildlife and residents. It is beyond ironic that the same company, Alyeska, who was in charge of first response in the 1989 incident as well, is again taking risks with Alaska. 

The Brady Report also offers strong opinions about the high value of the Copper River fisheries, and need to protect them. The Copper is one of the world's greatest wild rivers. Whether with a dipnet, driftnet, fishwheel, or paycheck, tens of thousands of Alaskans depend directly on the Copper to put food on their tables.  The lucrative commercial salmon fishery is world-famous. One Copper River King in an Alaska fisherman's net is worth more than a barrel of oil on Wall Street. The Copper River Delta is largest contiguous wetland on the Pacific coast of North America, supporting entire world populations of some species of birds.

The Brady Report was commissioned by Cascadia Wildlands Project as an expert opinion in our legal challenge of the state approval of Alyeska's oil spill contingency plan. It was filed with our witness lists and exhibits December 17, 2007. We are arguing they break the law in refusing to identify or protect the Copper as an "environmentally sensitive area." Under existing regulations this would require a higher level of spill prevention and readiness.  

We are joined in the legal action by commercial fisherman Bill Black, and entepreneur Lauren Padawer, Alaska Glacial Mud Co.  We also have strong support from villages and tribes upriver... more on that later. 

Special thanks for the many whose grassroots financial support for citizen oversight of the pipeline possible—in particular Brainerd and Alaska Conservation Foundation, and Cordova District Fishermen United. 

—GWS  1/16/08