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A limited number of Anan Wildlife Observatory permits will be made available at the Wrangell District Office. Visitors are required to obtain a permit to visit the observatory from July 5 through August 25. Earlier this spring the United States Forest Service began using the National Reservation System for those wishing to visit Anan, 30 miles to Wrangell’s southeast. To facilitate the transition to this new system, up to four permits per day will still be offered through the Wrangell District Office using a weekly lottery. To apply for one o...
KETCHIKAN – As the Fourth of July holiday approaches, residents, visitors and campers are reminded that all fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited in the Tongass National Forest. “People assume the restrictions apply just to developed recreations areas managed by the Forest Service, including campgrounds, picnic areas and day use areas,” said Forest Fire Management Officer Tristan Fluharty, “but no fireworks or pyrotechnic device of any kind may be discharged anywhere within the National Forests, regardless of weather conditi...
WRANGELL — The United States Forest Service this month released a new fact sheet regarding wild salmon populations in the Tongass National Forest, available online and at the agency’s various offices. “It’s to demonstrate to the public just how important salmon are,” explained Martin Hutten, a supervisory biologist with the Wrangell Ranger District. The facts speak pretty clearly for themselves. The waters of the Tongass National Forest produce more wild salmon than all other national forests combined. Supporting these populations, TNF biologis...
JUNEAU (AP) — Congress is picking up a bill that would create corporations for residents of five southeast Alaska communities left out of a landmark land settlement decades ago. The bill authored by U.S. Rep. Don Young went before the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs Wednesday, the southeast Alaska radio network CoastAlaska reported. The Alaska Republican chaired the hearing. Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced similar legislation. Haines, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Tenakee were e...
Petersburg has moved from its wettest April on record to what’s looking to be its driest May. Despite rain Wednesday and more precipitation forecasted for today (Thursday), this May is “definitely still looking like it’ll be the driest,” said meteorologist Geri Swanson with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Juneau. Petersburg still had less than 0.3 inches of rain Wednesday afternoon, and was expecting less than a 10th of an inch with the day and Thursday’s forecast — the area’s “best chances” for rain before moving back into a high pressur...
Not common for the area, a short-lived thunderstorm caused a minor disturbance in Petersburg on Tuesday. At about 3:10 p.m., a lightning strike hit a tree, transformer line and transformer, putting "the whole island in the dark," Petersburg Municipal Power and Light Superintendent Joe Nelson said. "The tree was kind of hurt bad, the transformer line is OK, the transformer was destroyed and had to be replaced," he added. That work took about an hour and a half before power was back on. The transf...
After a nine month process, the Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC) has approved its recommendations for a transition to young-growth timber in the Tongass National Forest. “It’s a pretty complex set of recommendations, but there were two important pieces, I think,” TAC Co-Chair Lynn Jungwirth said: agreement on the timberland base and what to do with it. She added that TAC agreed to a no-net-loss of the existing young-growth land base last week, and to “a different kind of forestry” in which timber comes out as habitat, recreational and touri...
John Kenneth Pickens III, 60, died peacefully on April 11, 2015 in hospice care in Sterling, Va. Death resulted from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The Alexandria, Va. native lived in Petersburg, Alaska, but had returned to the Washington D.C. area last year for medical treatment. He was born in DC and grew up in Alexandria. He graduated from T.C. Williams High School in 1972 and Virginia Tech in 1977. John worked for Beiro Construction in Alexandria from 1978 to 1990 and for the U.S.... Full story
ANCHORAGE (AP) – An iconic Alaska tree may warrant protection as a threatened or endangered species due to climate warming, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday. The agency will begin a status review of yellow cedar, a tree revered and used by Native Alaska cultures and valued as of high value to the timber industry. The decision is great news for the Tongass National Forest and for yellow cedar, said Rebecca Noblin, an attorney in Anchorage for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that petitioned to list the...
Environmental organization Earthjustice announced last Friday groups it is representing in a trio of lawsuits opposed to U.S. Forest Service’s Big Thorne timber sale have filed two notices of appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, following the dismissal of their suits by a federal judge in a March 20 ruling. The Big Thorne sale involves the harvest of around 6,200 acres of forest on Prince of Wales Island and includes the clearcut of old-growth rainforest. Klawock-based mill Viking Lumber was awarded a contract last September to h...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A logging project in the Tongass National Forest is closer to beginning after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservation groups. KTVA reports U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Service on Friday. The Forest Service last year approved selling 6,000 acres of old growth trees for logging as part of the Big Thorne timber project on Prince of Wales Island. Environmental groups have raised concerns about how the logging would affect wolf and deer populations. The Forest S...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ The supervisor of the Coconino National Forest in Flagstaff, Arizona, will move north to become supervisor of the nation's largest national forest. The Juneau Empire reports Earl Stewart has been named supervisor for the Tongass National Forest, which spans more than 26,500 square miles in southeast Alaska. The U.S. Forest Service in an announcement says Stewart likely will take the new position in May but a start date hasn't been decided. Stewart says working in the Tongass is a lifelong dream. He will replace Forrest...
Members of the Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC) met Jan. 20-23 in Juneau to continue discussions on their recommendations to be considered as part of a new Secretary of Agriculture forest plan that focuses on transitioning timber harvest in the Tongass National Forest from old growth to young growth. The themes emerging from public comments submitted to the group were discussed as part of the meeting. According to the executive summary prepared on the comments, “The majority of public comments received to date revolve around requests that t...
January 30, 1915 – The extension of the sidewalk along the beach in the north end of town was completed last Saturday, and during the following day practically the whole town took a stroll over the new thoroughfare. The work of building the walk and trestles was all done by the owners of abutting property. The walk is not only a great convenience to residents along it, and to citizens generally, but it also makes a marked improvement in the appearance of the waterfront. January 26, 1940 – With the turn of the year the weather has been pre...
Though many of the thirty individuals who showed up at the public meeting held last Wednesday to discuss the Kake-Petersburg Intertie (KPI) expressed their support for the project, a spirited discussion also ensued about the various components included in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) released by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the environmental review process. The review process is required under NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) for any projects that will have a...
KETCHIKAN (AP) — The supervisor of the Tongass National Forest will retire his year. The Ketchikan Daily News reports Forrest Cole has set his retirement for April. Cole has been forest supervisor since 2003. A Forest Service announcement says he held positions in the Petersburg, Juneau and Yakutat ranger districts and the Stikine Administrative Area. The Tongass is also losing its deputy forest supervisor. Tricia O'Connor in February is transferring to the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. She has been in Alaska for more than 10 yea...
January More than 600 Petersburg residents signed up for the borough's recycling program. The Petersburg Land Selection Committee requested the borough pursue legislative action regarding the State's calculation of land entitlement for the Petersburg Borough after the committee's determination that the State's selection of land was inadequate. The Petersburg School Board approved a $2.3 million exterior wall renovation project for the Rae C. Stedman Elementary School. Petersburg School District... Full story
The U.S. Forest Service will soon be accepting comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Kake-Petersburg Intertie, a proposed electrical transmission line that would connect Kake to a SEAPA substation in Petersburg. The proposed project would bring cheaper power to Kake whose 550 residents are currently using costly diesel to power their homes and businesses. "In 2011, the full retail cost of power in Kake was 62 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), more than five times the... Full story
Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC) members compiled work-group draft recommendations for the Tongass National Forest’s timber management plan amendment at their Nov. 19-21 meeting in Sitka. Present at the recent meeting was USDA Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Bonnie; Beth Pendelton, the U.S. Forest Service Alaska regional forester; and Forrest Cole, the Tongass National Forest supervisor. Bonnie emphasized the importance of TAC’s opportunity “to find a solution that works for everybody [so] we ca...
An agreement is currently being worked out between the Alaska Mental Health Trust (AMHT) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) that could see the transfer of between 18,000 and 20,900 acres of state and federal lands. “I’ve been working on this personally for seven years,” said Paul Slenkamp, resource manager for the AMHT Land Office. He is currently working with Forrest Cole, USFS forest supervisor for the Tongass National Forest. “We’ve been moving through this administrative exchange...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The U.S. Forest Service has awarded a contract for a timber sale in southeast Alaska to the region's last mid-size mill, Viking Lumber Co. Lawsuits were filed over the Big Thorne sale before the contract was awarded, and Tongass National Forest spokesman Kent Cummins said no ground work would be done by Viking until the courts decide the case _ likely next spring. Cummins told the Juneau Empire in a story Thursday that he couldn't comment on the size of the contract or on how many companies had bid until the contract w...
WRANGELL — Though the comment period officially ended Sept. 15, the Wrangell Ranger District of the United States Forestry Service is still seeking public input for an upcoming dock project in Anan Bay. “To me it’s kind of an open process,” said Ranger Bob Dalrymple. “We’re open to input pretty much any time.” The district uses this input as it prepares an environmental assessment, which should be available for public comment later this fall. The wildlife observatory is located about 23 miles southeast of Wrangell on the mainland, par...
The Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC) heard presentations from Forest Service and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials and discussed the challenges and opportunities associated with an impending transition to young-growth forest management at their meeting this month in Juneau. The presentations given by the Forest Service and DNR officials helped give committee members a better sense of how difficult the transition process can be, Lynn Jungwirth, committee co-chair, said via e-mail. “You can’t ‘speed up’ young growth sustainable mana...
A Kake-Petersburg Intertie (KPI) project update was given during this week's Southeast Conference held in Wrangell. The KPI includes a proposed electrical transmission line that would connect Kake to a SEAPA (Southeast Alaska Power Agency) substation in Petersburg. Kake, a community of just over 550 people, is situated on the northwest coast of Kupreanof Island and is working to find cheaper alternatives to costly diesel, which provides the bulk of their power currently. “The Kake-Petersburg Intertie would transmit power at either 69 or 130 kil... Full story
In the August 14 issue of the Pilot it was erroneously stated that For the next 10 to 15 years, the newly formed Tongass National Forest Advisory Committee (TAC), under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, will advise the U.S. Forest Service's (USFS) timber sale management program in the transition from old-growth to new-growth timber management. In fact, the committee will advise the timber sale management program for the next two years and the transition itself will take 10-15 years....
