Juneau could become wilderness area
Ketchikan is known as the First City. Before direct air service to larger towns up north, Ketchikan was the first stop for those traveling to Alaska. It was founded by miners, built by fishermen and timber workers. In the 1930s it was Alaska's largest town. It now subsists mainly on seasonal tourism and fishing, and government payroll. Its resource industries have been neglected or outright fought by government policy and by lobbying of environmental organizations.
October first's municipal election demonstrated that Ketchikan area residents have had enough. They fought back against a loud coalition of anti-development advocates over constructing a bridge across Tongass Narrows to its airport and developable land on Gravina Island. Surrounded by the Misty Fiords National Monument, the only direction open for Ketchikan to expand is west to Gravina Island. The ballot proposition to block the bridge was defeated 2-1.
Not only that, two incumbent Assembly members, one a member of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and the Tongass Conservation Society, were badly beaten. The new mayor, Mike Salazar, served on the airport 20-year plan committee 30 years ago when the bridge was first formally requested by the borough. Salazar moves up to mayor from the Assembly. He beat the combined vote of his two opponents 2-1. The term-limited outgoing mayor, Jack Shay, a strong bridge supporter, ran for an Assembly seat and was the top vote-getter. The other two assemblymen elected are strong supporters of the bridge and of economic development.
Ketchikan was hard hit by the almost total shutdown of the timber industry during the administrations of President Bill Clinton and Gov. Tony Knowles. So were Wrangell, Petersburg and Sitka. Juneau will find out all about economic shutdowns if the proposal to move the state Legislature passes Nov. 5. Maybe Ketchikan is proving the First City again, the first to fight back and support elected officials who will aggressively support and protect our economies.
A month ago this writer listed the organizations and the money that is aligned against Alaska's economy. The Alaska Conservation Foundation, with almost $20 million in grants from stateside foundations, allocates money to environmental groups to fight Tongass timber sales, Alaska commercial fishing, ANWR and other oil development, trans-Alaska pipeline permit renewal, and mining projects from Green's Creek and Berner's Bay near Juneau to Red Dog near Kotzebue. They successfully battled infrastructure development to the point that new highway construction is almost non-existent, and they battle power intertie construction.
The head of ACF, Deborah Williams, said we were inaccurate. She failed to say where, which would have been hard because the information was from ACF's annual reports and its required government filings. We were inaccurate, it appears, because we didn't list 10 positive projects ACF supported such as a viewing stand at Potter Marsh. Those 10 "positives," however, received only $87,000 out of ACF's $20 million.
The week after our report, Mike Matz, a founder of the Campaign for America's Wilderness, said he has a staff of 10 to battle development in National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska by creating wilderness areas. He received some funding from ACF. NPR-A lies along the Arctic coast west of Prudhoe Bay. ANWR lies to the east. The next day a story quoted ACF's Williams saying that Matz was wrong. He was given more than $60,000 instead to fight Tongass timber harvest and advocate more wilderness in the Tongass.
What is in the 23-million-acre NPR-A? The Department of Interior says it holds 1 to 6 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The Alaska Almanac says that one-half of the nation's coal reserves lie in Alaska and 80 percent of those reserves lie in NPR-A. Are we sure we want threaten our national security by locking up such an energy source forever and depend more and more upon foreign sources for a growing American population?
All we do is report the news. Environmentalists' supporters, such as the anti-timber Anchorage Daily News, and some of our friends in Juneau are critical of our reporting on ACF. They advocate more wilderness in the Tongass. They may get their wish if a proposition to move the Legislature passes. It automatically creates a new wilderness area in the Tongass called Juneau.
Williams is retired publisher of the Ketchikan Daily News and a former member of the University of Alaska Board of Regents.