Editing Tongass National Forest (section)

===Logging===

[[File:Tongass NF - map of wilderness areas.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|[[US Forest Service|Forest Service]] map of the Tongass, with [[US national monument|National Monuments]] and [[U.S. Wilderness Areas|Wilderness Areas]]]]
[[File:MapAlaska-1940-1323.jpg|alt=Alaska: Tongass National Forest. F.I. Shafer. 1940|thumb|Alaska: Tongass National Forest. F.I. Shafer. 1940]]
Timber harvest in Southeast Alaska consisted of individual handlogging operations up until the 1950s, focusing on lowlying areas and beach fringe areas. In the 1950s, in part to aid in Japanese recovery from [[World War II]], the Forest Service set up long-term contracts with two pulp mills: the [[Ketchikan Pulp Company]] (KPC) and the Alaska Pulp Company. These contracts were scheduled to last 50 years, and originally intended to complement independent sawlog operations in the region. However, the two companies conspired to drive log prices down, put smaller logging operations out of business, and were major and recalcitrant polluters in their local areas. Ultimately, virtually all timber sales in the Tongass were purchased by one of these two companies.

In 1974, the exclusive KPC contract for 800,000 acres of old growth forest on Prince of Wales Island was challenged by the [[Point Baker, Alaska|Point Baker]] Association led by Alan Stein,<ref>[https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8n01d2n/entire_text/ Finding Aid to the Alan Stein papers]</ref> Chuck Zieske and Herb Zieske.  [[United States District Court for the District of Alaska|Federal District Court]] judge [[James von der Heydt]] ruled in their favor in December 1975<ref>ZIESKE v. BUTZ, 406 F.Supp. 258 (1975), United States District Court, D. Alaska. Decision of 23 December 1975. {{cite web |url=http://174.123.24.242/leagle/xmlResult.aspx?page=1&xmldoc=1975664406FSupp258_1640.xml&docbase=CSLWAR1-1950-1985&SizeDisp=7 |title=ZIESKE v. BUTZ - December 23, 1975 |access-date=2012-01-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120527012451/http://174.123.24.242/leagle/xmlResult.aspx?page=1&xmldoc=1975664406FSupp258_1640.xml&docbase=CSLWAR1-1950-1985&SizeDisp=7 |archive-date=27 May 2012}}</ref> and March 1976,<ref>Zieske v. Butz, 412 F.Supp. 1403 (1976), United States District Court, D. Alaska. Decision of 5 May 1976. [http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=2&xmldoc=19761815412FSupp1403_11615.xml&docbase=CSLWAR1-1950-1985&SizeDisp=7]</ref> enjoining clearcutting of over {{convert|150|sqmi|km2}} of the north end of Prince of Wales Island. The suit threatened to halt clearcutting in the United States. In 1976, Congress removed the Zieske injunction in passing the [[National Forest Management Act]].<ref>Parent, S. 1992. The National Forest Management Act: Out of the Woods and Back to the Courts? Lewis & Clark Law School. [https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&doctype=cite&docid=22+Envtl.+L.+699&key=72bb1d985b65e94148ba0ed8833851ef][</ref> Over half the old growth timber was removed there by the mid 1990s.<ref>Lab Bay 1979-94 Environmental Impact Statement USDA Forest Service 1989</ref>

The battle for buffer strips, to protect salmon streams from logging, which began in the ''Zieske v Butz'' lawsuit, continued through comments submitted to the major US Forest Service Environmental Impact Statements issued in subsequent five-year intervals starting in 1979,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oaM2AQAAMAAJ&q=alan+stein+tongass&pg=PA146|title=Tongass National Forest (N.F.), LPK Timber Sale Plan, 1979-1984: Environmental Impact Statement|date=1979|language=en}}</ref> and continuing in the 1988 EIS.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYc2AQAAMAAJ&q=alan+stein+tongass&pg=PA272|title=Tongass National Forest (N.F.), Ketchikan Pulp Company Long-term Timber Sale Contract, 1989-94 Operating Period, Ketchikan Administrative Area: Environmental Impact Statement|date=1989|language=en}}</ref>

In 1990, a Federal District Court in Alaska, in a case called ''Stein v Barton'', held the US Forest Service had to protect all salmon streams in the Tongass with buffer strips.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/740/743/1952466/|title=Stein v. Barton, 740 F. Supp. 743 (D. Alaska 1990)|website=Justia Law|language=en|access-date=2019-09-09}}</ref> One of the claims in ''Stein v Barton'' for protection of the Salmon Bay Watershed was partially enacted into law when Congress Passed the Tongass Timber Reform Act; environmental lobbyists had compromised with Senator Ted Stevens leaving the most valuable forest available to logging in the headwaters of the salmon streams therein.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8n01d2n/entire_text/|title=Stein (Alan) papers|website=oac.cdlib.org|access-date=2019-09-09}}</ref>

Much of the power of these companies lay in the long-term contracts. The contracts guaranteed low prices to the pulp companies—in some cases resulting in trees being given away for "less than the price of a hamburger".{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}}

The [[Tongass Timber Reform Act]], enacted in 1990, significantly reshaped the logging industry's relationship with the Tongass National Forest. The law's provisions cancelled a $40&nbsp;million annual subsidy for timber harvest; established several new wilderness areas and closed others to logging; and required that future cutting under the 50-year pulp contracts be subject to environmental review and limitations on old-growth harvest. Alaska Pulp Corporation and Ketchikan Pulp Corporation claimed that the new restrictions made them uncompetitive and closed down their mills in 1993 and 1997, respectively, and the Forest Service then cancelled the remainders of the two 50-year timber contracts.<ref>Steiner, R. 1998. Deforestation in Alaska's Coastal rainforest: causes and solutions. Univ. of Alaska. {{cite web |url=http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/NAmerica/Alaska.html |title=Underlying Causes of Deforestation: Alaska |access-date=2012-01-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120602031325/http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/NAmerica/Alaska.html |archive-date=2 June 2012}}</ref>

In 2003, an appropriations bill rider required that all timber sales in the Tongass must be positive sales, meaning no sales could be sold that undervalued the "stumpage" rate, or the value of the trees as established by the marketplace (2008 Appropriations Bill P.L. 110–161, H. Rept. 110–497, Sec. 411). However, the Forest Service also conducts NEPA analyses, layout, and administrative operations to support these sales, and as such, the government does not make a profit overall.<ref name=tnf/> Given the guaranteed low prices during contract days and the continued high cost of logging in Southeast Alaska today, one analysis concludes that, since 1980, the Forest Service has lost over one billion dollars in Tongass [[timber sales]].<ref name=groundtruthtrekking>[http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Forests.php#AKforests Temperate Rainforests of the North Pacific Coast] (accessed 16 May 2007).</ref> Logging operations are not the only deficit-run programs, however.  The Forest Service likens the overall deficit of the timber harvest program to the many other programs the agency operates at a deficit, including trail, cabin, and campground maintenance and subsistence programs.

High-grading (preferentially targeting for logging the most profitable forest types) has been prevalent in the Tongass throughout the era of industrial-scale logging there.<ref>[http://joomla.wildlife.org/alaska/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=157&Itemid=157 The Wildlife Society, Alaska Chapter, 2003. Comments to the Chief of the Forest Service on the exemption of the Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule. Aug. 8, 2003.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807085148/http://joomla.wildlife.org/alaska/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=157&Itemid=157 |date=7 August 2011 }}</ref> For example, the forest type with the largest concentration of big trees—volume class 7—originally comprised only 4% of the forested portion of the Tongass, and over two-thirds of it has been logged.<ref>Tongass Land Management Plan Supplemental EIS, 1991.</ref> Other high-grading has concentrated on stands of Alaska cedar and red cedar. The karst terrain often produces large trees and has fewer [[muskeg]] bogs, and has also been preferentially logged.<ref name=groundtruthtrekking/>

In a move that reverses a Trump administration decision to lift restrictions on logging and road-building, the Biden administration announced on 15 July 2021 that it would end large-scale, old-growth timber sales in the Tongass National Forest.<ref>{{Cite web|author=MATTHEW DALY|agency=Associated Press|title=Biden ends large-scale logging in Tongass National Forest|url=https://www.anchoragepress.com/news/biden-ends-large-scale-logging-in-tongass-national-forest/article_a40ba742-e59d-11eb-a003-376af3cc7225.html|access-date=2021-08-03|website=The Anchorage Press|language=en}}</ref> [[Forest restoration]], recreation and other non-commercial uses will instead be the focus. The new rules would still allow for smaller timber sales, including some old-growth trees, for cultural uses by local communities.