Here in Southeast Alaska we’re fortunate to have a 17-million-acre backyard (the Tongass National Forest) that contains some of the world’s most productive freshwater systems for salmon and trout. Unlike most places where wild salmon once thrived but are now lost or in severe decline, we still enjoy abundant, and sometimes, chart-topping, wild salmon runs. Last summer is a case in point. In 2011, Southeast experienced a record commercial salmon harvest topping $200 million, besting even Bristol Bay. Salmon and trout are a billion-dollar industry here employing more than 7,000 people– or one in 10 residents.
Despite our bounty, there’s work to be done to ensure that Southeast Alaska continues to have healthy wild salmon well into the future. The Forest Service estimates it needs $100 million to fix watersheds that were damaged by past timber harvest and associated roads. The agency has established that some 37 percent of all salmon-producing watersheds on the Tongass have been impacted by past logging. Over 5,000 miles of logging roads have been built here and Forest Service estimates suggest at least 55 percent of culverts and 35 percent of fish stream crossing on permanent roads do not allow adequate fish passage. Fixing these impaired crossings makes up a critical portion of the restoration work needed on the Tongass.
Restoration is a key component of the Forest Service’s transition policy — announced in May 2010 — that will move the agency focus to an economic future built around jobs in second growth forestry, fishing, tourism, mariculture, renewable energy and other sectors. Over the past two years, the Forest Service has invested over $10 million to improve degraded salmon habitat in the Tongass. The Forest Service Investment Strategy for Rural Communities in Southeast Alaska report, released last November, states that further “investment in watershed restoration will create immediate jobs in restoration, such as heavy equipment operation, and is expected to increase salmon productivity.” More fish boosts opportunity for commercial, sport, and subsistence harvest as well as additional fishing industry jobs.
Despite the demonstrated need and the stated commitment of the Forest Service to restore Tongass watersheds, some say there’s nothing to restore – that watersheds will heal on their own. In some places that may be true but why wait the couple hundred years that would take? Why not accelerate the process, improve fisheries and wildlife habitat and employ people in the woods doing restoration now? .
According to a December 2008 report by the McDowell Group, $8.4 million was spent in 2007 to restore damaged watersheds in Southeast Alaska. This included $5 million in contracts from the U.S. Forest Service and private landowners and $3.4 million in payroll by the Forest Service, private landowners and non-governmental agencies. In 2007, between 157 and 191 restoration jobs were created. The estimate for indirect spending totaled $10.7 million. The McDowell Group found for each $1 million spent on restoration, an estimated 20 to 22 jobs are created.
Although the ecological benefits of restoration are more difficult to quantify than jobs or revenue, they too are hard to deny. Opening blocked culverts creates access to more spawning and rearing habitat for salmon and trout and bolsters fish production. Thinning overly dense second-growth trees enhances both the emergence of understory plants important to deer and speeds the growth of large trees which provide shade and eventually large wood in streams which is beneficial to fish. These benefits aren’t generally realized overnight but restoration sets the stage for them to occur much more quickly than simply letting natural processes make the repairs.
There are watersheds in need of restoration throughout the region—near both small and large communities and on both public and private lands. Each one of these places represents an opportunity to put people to work in the woods, improve fish and wildlife habitat and to help insure we have abundant options for hunting, fishing and recreation. The bottom line is a fully funded Forest Service restoration program is a great investment that will pay dividends now and in the future.
• Kaelke, of Juneau, is the Southeast Alaska project director for Trout Unlimited.
Comments (20)
Add commentWin-Win
Improved environment for fish, jobs for people.
Nice letter!
McDowell Group Study
They also did a study for Sealaska supporting increased logging as part of their lands bill. McDowell will come up with the conclusions that the client desires.
TU B---s
This is the same group that took the whole Sealaska land deal and threw it in a larger TU land plan as a give away to supposedly help move their bigger (& politically hopeless) landscape project. Pretty sick stuff when you consider what hundreds of corporate inholdings could do to sport fishermen that walk or use public streams.
These guys represent sport fishermen? But they'd completely hose them. What a joke.
A reasonable conclusion that could be drawn was they were really after Moore foundation money and needed to be the little step and fetch kids and carry Moore's water. It's all about promotion these days - that and money. Buyer beware if you go to support these groups (not that they need your support as they are fat on the foundation teat).
There's been a sea change in this region and real conservation work is primarily done by independent activists. Don't look to groups like TU - they just promote and pose.
Restoration is good but no
Restoration is good but no more roads. And the idea of expanding the use of hydro power is over kill for the smaller communities in the area that could use ground source heating & tidal.
Thinning second growth maybe but not to feed the Timber Industry. Also hands off our old growth and no more mining in the Tongass.
You've noticed
that too, eh seadog55. I'm sure it's just coincidence.....
Good
Anyone can make allegations, of course, and you have elected to do so, which is pretty common in a blog.
By chance do you have any factual basis or information in support of the conclusions you have brought forward or is this just another example of making things up on the fly and believing one's own opinion?
The point(s) you make about the Moore Foundation are not obvious. Perhaps you could enlighten us all on what you are trying to convey.
Just observations, not necessarily a judgment.
Restoration is good, enough
Restoration is good, enough money has already been made out of the Tongass without having to account for the damage done to the fisheries, or any accountability on the part of those who benefited from the logging. Our Fisheries seem strong but really when we have good years like last year a lot of that came from an abundance of pinks for the seiners and chum from the hatcheries, the fish like coho and sockeye that depend on natural habitat are a whole other matter. I think there are more jobs in restoration and the increase of jobs through a healthy fishery than there will ever be through the increased loss of old growth to supply a few hundred logging jobs. Once the old growth is gone so will be timber money on any scale. The whole region will benefit from a healthy forest, and there are many drainage's that need immediate attention.
The answer isn't just any one industry
Fishing, sport fishing, guiding, mining, tourism-and logging- all have their role in the Tongass. They all provide jobs and revenues that help sustain their communities. The timber industry in SE provides millions in revenues, while offering desperately needed energy solutions that are devastating our rural communities. Biomass, like timber is not the only solution, but A solution that has its appropriate niche in smaller communities.
People who work in the logging industry have families to provide for and communities benefit from those revenues. Remember, the US Forest service has and will continue to sell timber contracts in SE Alaska. Remember old growth means just that: its old and will eventually die releasing its carbon dioxide qualities into the atmosphere wether it is logged or not. Remember timber is a renewable resource and the flora and fauna benefit from forest management. Remember ecosystems and fish habitat can remain healthy and strong when FRPA policies are followed. Remember all industries bring benefit to the SE economy-take away one and our weak regional economy will only suffer further. The timber industry provides jobs and energy solutions.
@raven I agree with your last
@raven I agree with your last statement 100%.
But try and convince any of that to people that think the only way to help the Forrest is to leave it alone completely.
Responsable management is durable if both extreme sides back off.
People with chips on their shoulders never win
Sounds like Good is just jealous of TU's good work on the Tongass. And that fact that he labels a conservation proposal to protect fish habitat as "pretty sick stuff" makes you wonder what this dude is smokin.
Gunalchéesh!
@Alaskastu
Thanks for your comment. I agree also that you cannot be extremist on either side; being reasonable and using facts and logic are what produces an intelligent debate. The people who argue to just leave the forest alone don't offer reasonable alternatives and solutions to the economic hardships and critical realities rural areas face with the energy crisis they are experiencing.
Ok lets assume they are right that Logging and biomass are not the solution to depressed economies and energy concerns; so what is? What is the solution? What are other organizations doing to bring jobs to the region and alleviate appalling energy costs?
The short truth about "restoration"
Unfortunately the author failed to inform the readers that a restoration economy in reality depends on old growth logging and is the pot of money that will be used to fund so-called restoration - with a few good old fashioned taxpayer subsidies thrown in. And trying to sell thinning as a method to improve wildlife habitat is just a feel good, phony notion too. The beneficial effects will only last about 15 years, and only delay the inevitable - canopy closure - and extripation of old growth dependent species like deer. Any Tongass biologist worth their salt knows this. Once again, thinning is hugely expensive and will require mondo subsidies, but it should've been included in the cost of the original timber sale, for silvicultural purposes - not for alleged wildlife habitat decades after the fact.
Yes, the FS is way behind on fixing culverts to insure fish passage. But they should've been fixed as part of the cost of the original timber sales and no one, should be advocating in private or public for yet more logging to fund the backlog of restoration. The logic escapes me - have more timber sales so we can restore the aftermath?
Blocked culverts violate the Clean Water Act, the FS is in direct violation, and the feds should pony up the funds to fix them before one more stick of timber is cut or mile of road is built. We don't need a restoration economy to fund this - it is a long overdue legal obligation.
One start would be to not
One start would be to not send whole or just canted logs out of the country. Processing provides many jobs, and as everyone knows good wood even in SE is hard to come by. We support the local POW small mills by buying from them, but so much more could be made from our wood products without the volume needed to ship whole log exports to Asia. The forests provide so much more than just timber, and as much as we like to think it is a renewable resource, Old Growth is not renewable. A healthy forest is made up of much more than just trees, it is a whole ecosystem made up of many parts. Some can not see the forest beyond the trees. Yes there is a place for logging and wood products, but the mentality of "logging first" before all other resources, and " they are old and beyond their prime" are no longer reasonable ways to think. When logging first took place here and in the Pacific NW where were all those old beyond their prime forests, they were the best any one ever saw, they didn't get worse because they were not logged , .... they only got better
budget justification
It is disingenuous of the FS to champion the idea of habitat restoration while they actively pursue the permitting of other projects that will harm marine ecosystems. I am not in favor of a government agency frantically reinventing themselves as captain planet after they have laid waste to so much. This isn't about jobs or putting people to work, it is about a government agency maintaining their grossly inflated budget and awesome benefit packages for government employees. When I moved to Alaska in 1969, there were logging operations all over central southeast. There was one, just one, FS employee in Petersburg. Now, in Petersburg, we have a forest cop, a forest enforcement boat, a forest service snowmobile, many forest service vehicles, and the largest building downtown holds the forest service. There isn't any logging. My point is, the cost/benefit ratio just isn't there.
billy idol rebel yell
Moore, Moore, Moore. Moore Money for timber sales while they call it restoration.
Good is on target, as are grabber5 and Viapops. I would encourage Mr. Geldholf and salmoncakes to carefully review Forest Service "restoration" programs regionally and nationwide before endorsing them. The marketing program is good, the result, not so much. There is plenty of information online to show that "restoration" is exactly what Obama's new Forest Service guy told the Ketchikan news during his recent visit - we will spend more money on "restoration, including timber sales." It is particularly telling that the Forest Service is now unveiling "stewardship" projects that take so much old growth so as to bring back pulp mill era harvests. Perhaps they will stick a few sticks in streams or replace a culvert or two so as to fool the uneducated into thinking they will "produce" more fish.
"Stewardship" is cutting old growth at significant public expense, "restoration" is using stewardship receipts to thin for future tree growth.
Moore money please!
Restoration is needed on salmon streams
Great op-ed TU! Back in the heydays of logging, they drove log skidders right up the streams and used them as logging roads. They also pulled the logs that were naturally in the stream out and straightened channels and said it was good for salmon. Now we know that this was the worst thing they could have done and that this stream habitat with pools, piles of wood, bends and curves, and logs in the channel are critical for salmon reproduction... especially Coho Salmon.
It is about time that the Forest Service started to restore these systems and step up and fix the mistakes that were made in the past.
It is critical now because any wood that was left in the streams that weren't taken out by the logging operations are just about rotted away now. If there is no large woody debris to replace it, those streams will completely unravel and the value for fish will be gone.
Restoring salmon habitat on the Tongass is absolutely necessary.
Why be cynical
Billy Idol, you need to get outdoors more and get some exercise and sunshine. Your cynicism is oh-so toxic.
The Wrong Kind of Green
Joe G. -
You asked Good to "enlighten us all on what you are trying to convey" re. the Moore Foundation." Perhaps you will get the point when you read the two following articles and watch the last video link that accompanies "The Wrong Kind of Green" by Johan Hari. There's plenty more, but this is just to get you started. It's about greenwashing and the influence of big money in so-called environmentalism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/01/when-environmentalists-collaborate/
http://www.thenation.com/article/wrong-kind-green
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/9/the_real_climategate_conservation_g...