Borough moving back into timber game

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough is moving to restart the local timber industry and is looking for public comment on a set of 23 parcels totaling 1,504 acres of trees to be sold over five years.

Borough Manager John Moosey said the timber harvest plan is a step the Mat-Su Borough Assembly wants to see taken toward stimulating the local economy.

“That’s one of the goals of the assembly, let’s start putting some of our assets to work,” Moosey said. “We’re marching in that direction.”

While those numbers are admittedly large, that the borough wants to try and sell off the timber doesn’t mean all of it will be sold or harvested.

“This is what we’re offering and we’ll see if the market will buy them,” said Debbie Broneske, resource management specialist for the borough.

If approved, the lots would be auctioned off like this:

• In 2011-12, 247 acres spread over Kashwitna, Sheep Creek, Point MacKenzie and near the Susitna River north of Petersville Road.

• In 2012-13, 324 acres spread over Kashwitna, Sheep Creek and along the Parks Highway south of Petersville Road.

• In 2013-14, 280 acres spread over the Parks Highway corridor and near Rabideux Creek and Sheep Creek.

• In 2014-15, 391 acres in the Parks Highway corridor and the Rogers Creek and Sheep Creek areas.

• In 2015-16, 262 acres in the Kashwitna, Sheep Creek and Rabideux areas.

The borough estimates those parcels contain a combined 2,759,966 cubic feet of wood. Exactly what that translates to in revenue depends on how the wood will be sold — if it will be sold as logs or as personal-use firewood.

At auction, firewood has fetched high bids of $15.99 per cord of firewood and $86 per thousand board feet of spruce logs. The borough charges $25 per cord of firewood and $1.50 per lineal foot of logs.

Logging has been a contentious issue in the borough. In 2005, concerns about how timber sales were being conducted and how the timber was being harvested led to a moratorium on the activity.

That moratorium has since been relaxed, but the borough hasn’t had any timber sales of this size since then.

In September 2010, the borough assembly adopted a Natural Resources Management Units Plan that deals with resources on the surface of borough land, things like timber, gravel and possibly water.

Timber is the biggest of those resources, though, and eats up a big chunk of that plan.

Broneske said the process to put together a plan has taken in enough of the public’s concerns that she feels the time is right to start offering timber sales again.

“We think that the people are pretty much more comfortable now,” she said.

The plan is available for review at bit.ly/TimberHarvestSkedDraft. Comments will be accepted through Aug. 31 and can be submitted to Broneske at debby.broneske@matsugov.us or 350 E. Dahlia Ave., Palmer, AK 99645.

The assembly is expected to take up the issue possibly as early as November.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.