Timber sale work session set

March 29, 2005

DAWN DE BUSK/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - The Mat-Su Borough Assembly reviewed every possible aspect of conducting timber sales - gathering information from the state Department of Natural Resources and the borough's resource specialist as well as other state entities that own parcels of land - during a work session Thursday afternoon.

Assembly members were provided with a more well-rounded view of the management of forests and the timber-sale process, in response to the timber harvesting needs of NPI (formerly called Northern Pacific Inc.), the company that has been involved in wood-chip export deals this year using the deep-water dock and conveyer system at Port MacKenzie.

"We're in the process of revamping the public process," Borough Manager John Duffy said.

Duffy said the borough will need to approve a revised proposal that includes a meaningful public input process before the second regular scheduled meeting in April.

"We want it done before April 19, I guarantee that," Duffy said.

On that date, Assembly members will revisit an ordinance to sell to NPI timber-harvest rights on 900 acres near Montana Creek Road. The proposal has been tabled twice in two months.

NPI had previously purchased timber-harvest rights on 400 acres near Montana Creek Road. The company approached the borough about that sale in 2003.

Since the harvesting of timber began near Montana Creek Road, residents in that area have brought complaints to the borough of wear and tear on the road, traffic conflicts between school buses and logging trucks and around-the-clock noise of wood chippers.

"We were disturbed by events there," NPI project manager Terry Nininger said, adding that the employee who overturned a truck and delayed a school bus on Montana Creek Road was fired within days of the incident.

Ron Swanson, the borough's community development director, said the borough needs to do a better job of both gathering public input and providing information by offering two public hearings prior to the Assembly voting on future timber sales. Swanson also suggested creating a special board to coordinate upcoming timber sales.

"We've been offering timber sales for over 20 years. (There's) not a lot of people knocking on our door for timber," said Deborah Broneske, Mat-Su Borough resource management specialist.

The annual allowable timber harvest for the borough is more than 6,500 acres, Broneske said.

She said 17 already-classified parcels exist, but it's hard to guarantee offering only one species of tree for harvest.

"Most of those parcels are 80 percent birch and 20 percent white spruce," she said.

NPI is expecting a ship at Port MacKenzie every few months, alternating between 100 percent birch chips and 100 percent spruce chips, depending on the ship transporting the export. Later ships will also be able to use alder chips for export.

An acre of timber yields about 40 to 45 tons of wood chips.

NPI needs from 2,500 to 5,000 acres a year for its ongoing wood chip exports, according to Nininger.

The company is interested in acquiring more timber from borough and state land, although the company has relied on log-clearing operations. For example, trees were cleared during improvements in Settlers Bay, off Knik-Goose Bay Road, and those trees were purchased by NPI for wood chipping.

The military will build 590 living units and the trees cleared for that construction will be purchased by NPI, Nininger said.

Some Mat-Su residents who had been invited to speak during the Assembly work session expressed concern over the borough selling timber rights too quickly, and without considering the bigger picture.

"The human factor you have to consider, not just the money and supplying the dock with product," said Ken Marsh, a Trapper Creek resident.

NPI offered to buy some timber in Trapper Creek in 1991, which was more than 10 years ago, and now that area is the center of the town, Marsh said.

"As a result of taking this long, we've changed as a community," he said.

"It seems like we're going helter-skelter with no plan, just to fill up ships and without a view of the forest," Talkeetna resident Steve Johnson said.

"We need a future plan with integrity. We need a multi-use long-range plan that considers the Dave Popperts in our community," he said.

Dave Poppert owns Poppert Milling Inc. in Wasilla, which uses local trees for his family-operated business. He says he used about 50,000 feet of wood last year and expects a 15- to 20-percent increase this year. His operations use logs with an average diameter of 10 to 12 inches at the tip. Last year, he used 15 to 20 truckloads of spruce.

"This country is full of birch. It grows like weeds. But it's not full of sawmill-quality birch. We need to make sure there's a certain acreage set aside for small businesses and operators," Poppert said. "I can see when in 10 years all the viable timber is tied up in sales or waiting to regenerate from stands. We don't have a lot of capital to go head to head with a million-dollar investment."

"We're very sensitive to the needs of local sawmills," said Nininger, adding that NPI deals with Valley Sawmill in trading different species of trees.

"We want birch; they want spruce," Nininger said.

"We can't blanket-sale a whole tract," said Assembly Member Jim Colver, suggesting the borough split up some of parcels for wood chipping and still make timber available for small-operation saw mills.

According to some resource experts, the Mat-Su forests are made up primarily of old-growth forests, and most of the stands do not provide enough trees that are economically viable for lumber or plywood.

"Our forests are low quality - mostly decadent, overgrown forest," said Robert Wells, executive director of the Resource Conservation and Development Council.

He cited a 2001 study by the Beck Group, which reviewed a variety of uses and the economic feasibility of each use for Mat-Su wood such as cement-bonded particle board, mulch, wood-fuel pellets and charcoal. According to the study, the Valley timber stands are only economically viable for wood chipping or ethanol, a process that also includes wood chipping.

"The Mat-Su forests are a commodity product and are under the same pressures as other commodities," Wells said.

Glen Holt, Mat-Su area resource forester with the Department of Natural Resources, also showed studies of the types of forests present in the Valley.

He listed three types of stands: Older-growth trees aged 100 to 150 years; trees that grew after fires occurred about the time the railroad was built, and 20- to 30-year-old stands, which regenerated after homesteaders cleared lands. In the younger stands, birch overtakes the spruce.

"Off Point MacKenzie, we found 70-year-old trees already showing signs of rot," Holt said.

Poppert said he got some of the best wood for his sawmill from overmature forests.

"Kicking out the rot allows us to get maximum use. Even beetle-infested spruce, as long as it's standing - even as long as 10 years - will make perfectly good wood fiber," Nininger said.

Holt advocated logging as a regenerative tool for Mat-Su forests.

Any logging operation is balanced with a requirement to replant trees for future use - a regulation mandated by the Forest Practices Act.

Where fire burns some acreage or clear-cutting occurs, the forest grows back as hardwoods like aspen, birch or poplar, according to Holt.

"I'm into making more forests, not letting what we have go into decline. I'm a forester. Logging is a tool," he said.

The Department of Natural Resources is interested in harvesting timber in the Fish Creek Management area before agricultural lots are sold there, according to Alison Arians, DNR forest resources planner.

"We should salvage trees now while there's a market," Arians said, adding that DNR has been soliciting public input on how to leave the lots to best provide for future agricultural needs. For example, if necessary they would leave wood lots for each farm and decide what stump height would be best to leave behind as well.

The University of Alaska land development and the Mental Health land trusts do not plan to make any timber sales on land in the Mat-Su.

"We don't have any future timber sales planned in the next five years," said Doug Campbell, with the Mental Health land trust. He said the trust is focused on timber sales in Southeast and on the Kenai Peninsula.

"We're more responsive to forest fuel programs, like getting rid of spruce bark beetle kill," he said.

Mari Montgomery, UAA land development director, also said the university has no plans to sell timber rights on any of its Mat-Su land.

"We look on returns on our investments," she said. "Icy Bay has a significant return and has tied up all our foresters."

If the borough engages in any timber sales, the land will be protected by the regulations of the state's Forest Practices Act.