(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - The Alaska Department of Natural Resource’s Division of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service have partnered to award a second timber sale in Southeast Alaska under a Good Neighbor Authority agreement.

The $2.1 million Vallenar Bay Timber Sale contract with ALCAN Timber Incorporated of Ketchikan was signed by Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner Corri A. Feige on February 13.

The sale covers approximately 481 acres on State and Federal land on the north end of Gravina Island, approximately five miles west of Ketchikan. The sale includes a mix of old- and young-growth Sitka spruce, western hemlock, red alder, western red cedar and Alaska yellow cedar. The total volume of the sale is approximately 16 million board feet. Customers are in the West Coast, Asia, Canada and Southeast Alaska, depending on market conditions.

Good Neighbor Authority empowers the Forest Service to contract with states and work across land ownership boundaries to restore watersheds and manage forests on National Forest System lands.

The Vallenar Bay sale is the second Good Neighbor Authority timber sale in Alaska. The first occurred in September 2017 on Kosciusko Island near Edna Bay, also in Southeast Alaska. ALCAN Timber Incorporated purchased that sale for $2.6 million.

Each agency conducted its own scoping, analysis, public review, and decision process for their respective portions of the sale. The DOF conducted the site-specific layout and sold the sale for both agencies, and will administer the sale contract. The Division of Forestry adopted a Forest Land Use Plan for its portion of the sale in July 2018.

The sale area is located within the Southeast State Forest and the Tongass National Forest and is accessed by the newly constructed Vallenar Bay Road. Approximately 2 miles of additional road construction is required on state forest land, and 1 mile of road will be reconditioned on national forest system land. Harvest will be accomplished using a combination of ground-based and cable logging systems.

Funds generated from the sale of federal timber cover the federal administration costs incurred by the State and restoration projects on the Tongass National Forest. State sale revenue is budgeted for statewide forest resource responsibilities of the Division of Forestry.

Editing by Mary Kauffman, SitNews

Source of News:

Alaska Dept of Natural Resources
www.dnr.alaska.gov

 

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