Decision will restart logging plans in Alaska

Teegate

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Decision will restart logging plans
Judge halted Tongass sales in 2001

Saturday, March 1, 2003 Posted: 8:02 AM EST (1302 GMT)


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Forest Service said Friday there is no need for more wilderness in the 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest. The decision clears the way for logging under several timber sales.

The agency made the decision in a supplemental environmental impact statement done after a court-ordered review.

A federal judge had halted four timber sales in 2001 after ruling the Forest Service violated federal law when it failed to consider some areas for wilderness designation in approving the logging.

"I'm happy and I'm relieved," said Owen Graham, executive director of the Alaska Forest Association. "There's enough timber in those four sales to take care of the industry for a year."

Gov. Frank Murkowski supported the decision.

"There is no justification for additional wilderness on the Tongass," Murkowski said in a statement.

Environmental groups were disappointed but not surprised.

"It was fully expected," said Tom Waldo of Earthjustice in Juneau. "Today's decision was another sellout to the timber industry."
'Nearly 90 percent ... will continue to be wild lands'

Forest Service officials said the forest would be protected in the Tongass even without new wilderness designations.

"Nearly 90 percent of the Tongass will continue to be wild lands," said Tom Puchlerz, the forest supervisor. "We don't expect more than 4 percent will have timber harvested on it."

The Forest Service plan calls for timber cutting on 656,000 additional acres in the forest. Its decision doesn't affect the ban on logging in roadless areas added in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

The Forest Service also announced it would recommend designating 1.4 million acres as wilderness in the Chugach National Forest. If Congress approves, it will be the first wilderness in the nation's second-largest forest.
 

Ben Ruset

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This just in: Sierra Club of NJ petitions Bradley Campbell, DEP comissioner to ban the use of feet within State Forests, citing the massive environmenal damage unlicensed and inexperienced feet users can bring.
 
J

JeffD

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:rofl: Don't give Campbell any ideas, Ben, he may just do it!

Horray for the guys with the white hats! It's about time to allow timber harvests in that vast forested land! 90 percent still wilderness, and the Wilderness Cult Tree Huggers complain of a sellout to the timber industry. We should send them some cheese to go with that whine. And why don't they get a new line; I'm tired of that mantra!

Next we need to drill oil from Anwar, so we can afford to heat our homes and put gas in our vehicles so we can drive to and through the Pine Barrens!
 
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