Three remaining medium-sized sawmills in Southeast Alaska, the shrunken remains of a once-robust wood products industry in the region, are hoping to limp through the winter with wood supplied from state lands and state Mental Health Trust lands.
Some wood could also be supplied from noncontroversial area in the Tongass National Forest, according to the mill operators.
Mills owned by Pacific Log and Lumber Co. in Ketchikan, Silver Bay Inc. in Wrangell and Viking Lumber Co. in Klawock are experiencing serious shortages of wood supply after an environmental lawsuit tied up timber the mills had contracted to log from sales by the U.S. Forest Service.
To help bridge the supply gap and get the mills through the winter, Gov. Frank Murkowski ordered the state Division of Forestry to accelerate sales of timber from state-owned lands in the Southeast Aug. 13, and also encouraged the state Mental Health Trust to make timber available from trust lands in the region.
The Mental Health Trust manages its lands, with receipts dedicated to the support of state mental health programs.
"The state has done a wonderful job in making timber available," to help the mills through the winter, said George Woodbury, president of the Alaska Forest Association, the industry trade association.
It's been nip and tuck for the Silver Bay mill in Wrangell in getting enough logs to keep operating, and the situation isn't much better for Pacific Log and Lumber's mill in Ketchikan, according to Owen Graham, the association's executive director.
Pacific Log and Lumber had hoped to gain access this winter to the Orion North area near Ketchikan, a part of the Tongass National Forest where the company had contracted with the Forest Service to log 380 acres of old-growth timber.
But the company's hopes were quashed when environmental groups sued to stop the Forest Service from building a road to the sale area. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a request for an injunction Oct. 31 by the plaintiffs against road-building.
The injunction effectively freezes all other releases of timber sales, Graham said. The Forest Service has told the industry that actions on sales will be halted until a final decision by the Court of Appeals is made on issues raised in the Orion North injunction, he said.
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm representing six environmental groups, had brought the lawsuit challenging the way the Forest Service made the decision to approve the sale.
Pacific Log and Lumber hopes to be able to get access to another parcel of Forest Service lands to secure enough wood to get it through the winter, but the company's president Steve Seley said there's no guarantee his company will win the rights to harvest that timber, or that winter weather will allow logging.
Seley's mill is now down to a four- to six-week supply of timber, he said.
The Wrangell mill is also virtually out of timber but has been able to pick up small amounts of wood made available by the state and hopes to get access to a small Forest Service parcel it won rights to after an administrative appeal of that sale is resolved, Graham said.
The Viking mill in Klawock is in the best shape of all three mills, with about a year's supply of wood, he said.
The mills hope to eventually tap about 200 million board feet of timber from Forest Service sales in the Tongass but that depends on the outcome of Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals proceedings on the Earthjustice lawsuit. In their Oct. 31 order, the judges on the Ninth Circuit set a deadline for briefs in late December and ordered a hearing in Seattle in February.
Seley said his company has opened a dialogue with local conservation groups in an effort to find areas near Ketchikan that can be harvested without controversy. "It just doesn't make sense for us to try to harvest if we're going to be sued and stopped all the time," he said.
There might be 20 million to 30 million board feet of Tongass timber near Ketchikan in noncontroversial areas that both sides could agree on, Seley said.
Graham said the amount of Tongass wood being made available to the Southeast mills has been dwindling each year, and is now at the point where there might not be enough to sustain what's left of the industry.
Last year, the Forest Service contracted 150 million board feet of timber but only about 50 million board feet will actually be harvested because of various restrictions.
This year the volumes are even less. About 100 million will be contracted, and estimates are that less than 50 million will actually be available.
The Tongass Land Management Plan authorizes 200 million board feet a year to be harvested, but the industry really needs at least 350 million board fee a year to be efficient, Graham said.
Seley said markets for the Southeast mills have been quite good. Pacific Log and Lumber makes specialty wood products, and has invested $1.6 million in the last year and a half in upgrading its capabilities. For example, the Ketchikan plant may be one of the few sawmills in the nation capable of cutting boards 60 feet long, Seley said.
