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treeswarper
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PostFri Oct 30, 2020 10:54 am 
I'm not going to get too worried about it. I wonder how many mills are even left in that neck of the woods, how expensive will it be to access, and who is foolish enough to lay out a considerable amount of cash to rebuild mills, roads, etc. after what happened in the past? I do believe logs from Alaska, (it is an exception) can be exported. That might be "the market".

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PostFri Oct 30, 2020 1:51 pm 
treeswarper wrote:
who is foolish enough to lay out a considerable amount of cash to rebuild mills, roads, etc.
I just looked in a mirror and I think I found the fool. clown.gif From outsideonline: "Logging the Tongass will not benefit taxpayers. A federal mandate dictates that timber sales in national forests result in profits for the private businesses involved, so the forest service often ends up covering their costs, including road building. A study conducted by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan advocacy group that “believes in fiscal policy based on facts,” found that existing logging operations in the Tongass have cost taxpayers $44 million a year since 1980. That rate of loss is predicted to continue as more areas of the forest open to extraction. The Guardian reports that each mile of road constructed in the Tongass could cost taxpayers up to $500,000." And this: "So without a benefit to taxpayers in Alaska or elsewhere in this country, and at a significant threat to the local economy, who benefits from this particular regulatory rollback by the Trump administration? China, which uses lumber made affordable by American taxpayer subsidies to fuel its booming construction industry and to produce furniture and other consumer goods it exports to America, and other markets. A 2016 report created by the USDA stated that the percentage of lumber produced in the Tongass and exported to China was “over 90 percent in both 2005 and 2011.”

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PostFri Oct 30, 2020 2:00 pm 
So.... why is Alaskan timber exempt from the export restriction imposed on USFS lands in the lower 48? dizzy.gif

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PostFri Oct 30, 2020 2:11 pm 
treeswarper wrote:
I'm not going to get too worried about it.
For the time present, neither am I, because this is but one of many more outrageous actions that will no doubt be taken over the course of the next couple months, most of which (should the stars align properly) will be undone in fairly short order. Not a lot to be accomplished by getting all lathered up about what might happen. (I am curious, however, as to why Alaska would be exempt from the export ban. That is puzzling.)

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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treeswarper
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PostFri Oct 30, 2020 8:19 pm 
All I know is that they have used a different contract than the lower 48 and their contracts ran for a longer time and our contracts or manuals stated something about Alaska being exempt from the export ban. Of course, the lower 48 forests can export Incense and Alaska yellow Cedar logs but that isn't done much. I guess Japan imported some for temple building. I have no idea why Region 10 ( I think that's Alaska) is exempt except they've had some pretty strong politicians in the other Washington to bring home pork. I seem to recall a bridge to nowhere?

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treeswarper
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PostFri Oct 30, 2020 8:31 pm 
There are some limits, and the Regional Forester makes decisions on exports in Alaska. This paper looked to be old and I wonder what has been updated. Here is a link. https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr208.pdf NATIONAL FORESTS IN ALASKA Federal land in Alaska is excluded from the annual Interior and Related Agencies Appropriation Act pertaining to log exports. The Forest Service limits the export of unprocessed timber from National Forests in Alaska under general authority of the Organic Administration Act of June 4, 1897 (16 U.S.C. 475,551), National Forest Management Act of October 22,1976 {90 Stat. 2949 (16 U.S.C. 472a et seq.) and 36 CFR 223.161). The Regional Forester for Alaska set the following policy governing the processing of Alaska National Forest timber (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Alaska Region 1986): 1. 2. 3. 4. Export of spruce and hemlock logs is prohibited (since 1926). Export of Alaska-cedar and western redcedar logs is allowed. In limited circumstances, logs from sales appraised at less than $2,000 may be exported. Export of other species is allowed from timber sales in which more than half the volume is salvage material. This provision was renewed annually from 1934 to 1986; it may not be continued 5. 6. Beach logs administratively disposed of with or without charge may be exported. Export of logs, cordwood, bolts, and similar products requiring primary manufacture elsewhere is prohibited. Before any material may be exported, approval must be granted by the Regional Forester. 7

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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 9:02 am 
From what I have been able to glean, the logging industry in SE Alaska is being hit hard by 20% tariffs. The problem is that the margin is thin on small-diameter spruce, which is the primary product being exported. China won't pay the extra duty. So the mills are clamoring for old growth. Here is a synopsis by what appears to be a right-of-center advocacy group: https://cftr.org/2020/05/u-s-taxpayer-subsidized-logging-in-alaska-benefits-china-economy/ One possibility here is a desire to generate some actual revenue from the tariffs, which AFAIK is not really happening right now. shakehead.gif All the economic analyses I have seen show this proposal as a downward driver of the local economy, which is far more dependent upon salmon and recreation right now and no matter how many logs they cut that won't change.

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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 10:03 am 
treeswarper wrote:
I wonder how many mills are even left in that neck of the woods
The one pulp mill they had is gone. I worked on bringing the equipment to GP in Bellingham, which subsequently shut down. There's only one small sawmill that I'm aware of. Economically the timber there is a losing proposition. It's the most expensive wood in the world to get out of the forest and the value is in unique strength of Sitka Spruce for specific products. Scotland could supply it cheaper. Here's a worthwhile article from a couple of years ago https://www.fseee.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Forest-News-Fall-2018.pdf

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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 10:11 am 
My understanding is that most all of that Sitka Spruce, once you get north of Vancouver Island, is pretty small diameter stuff that's somewhat stunted simply because of the climate. So.... where's this "old growth" that they're supposedly looking for? Certainly not along the coastline, where all I saw was pretty small stuff.
yakutat-bay-alaska-092308-1
yakutat-bay-alaska-092308-1
(* yes, the photo was taken bit north of Tongass, but the trees were just as puny around Juneau and Sitka, and I didn't see much of anything I found impressive in the way of Sitka Spruce up on Gavan Hill either. *)

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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 10:42 am 
From older NY Times articles on this subject:
Quote:
Though the Tongass is bigger than West Virginia — and one-third protected wilderness — preservationists say many of its best trees are gone. Two-thirds of the Tongass is tundra, rock or scrub forest. Only 4 percent holds the sprawling, high-quality stands of giant trees prized by the timber industry, typically at lower elevations or in valleys and river basins that are also prime wildlife habitat. Much of that has been logged — and the Forest Service has bulldozed more than 4,500 miles of roads through the forest to take the logs out. The Tongass once was the region’s economic backbone, sustaining a booming, if heavily subsidized, timber industry. The government all but gave away virgin forest in the 1940s to lure pulp mills. Congress actually ordered the Forest Service in 1980 to auction 4.5 billion board feet of lumber every decade — enough for a stack of inch-thick, eight-foot planks nearly 9,000 miles high. But the pulp mills closed after the sweetheart timber deal was scrapped in 1990, and by 2000 demand was so slack that some timber sales drew no bidders. Across southeast Alaska, only one sawmill now cuts logs in volume. Much Tongass timber is exported unmilled, often to Asia, where milling is cheaper. Today most logging jobs are concentrated on Prince of Wales Island, at 2,500 square miles the epicenter of Tongass logging. This is where the only major sawmill operates, where the logging dispute is hottest and where the next auction, called Big Thorne, will take place. In the island’s northern half, nearly 94 percent of the biggest stands of virgin forest have been cut down. Big Thorne will clean up some of what remains; the 9.7 square miles of woodlands marked for cutting are sprinkled over 360 square miles, much of it clear-cut in decades past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/us/a-battle-to-keep-trees-or-an-industry-standing.html

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treeswarper
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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 10:49 am 
I'm thinking out of Ketchikan and POW Island. That's where loggers used to go if the pay was better than down here. They had floating logging camps and the FS even had floating housing for field crews. I really doubt that anything will come of this. Think on it--The FS has lost a hell of a lot of timber layout and road location knowledge, Road building is different because of the muskeg. I mentioned mills, and logging equipment would have to be brought out of the brush and refurbished. It's hard enough to find people who are reliable and will work on a yarder crew--wages have stagnated and it isn't good pay like it used to be. Columbia Helicoptesr has had to downsize drastically after coming close to bankruptcy--smaller heli businesses are no more. If it is large diameter punkins, it takes big machinery to get it out. A lot of that went to the scrap yards. Might have in Alaska, too, or else it has been rusting away. Yarder manufacturers are rare now. Was talking to some Thorne Bay folks a few years ago and they said that the antiquated equipment from Warshington was shipped up to Alaska to be used there. So it was already old and outdated at the time it arrived. By the time they got started up, a regime change might have taken place and it would be shut down again. It would be a really risky investment.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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treeswarper
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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 10:56 am 
Just to keep things in perspective, Region 6 (WA and OR) sold around 2 billion bd. ft a year in the 1980s. My source for this info--me.

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treeswarper
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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 11:13 am 
A pleasant propaganda film which shows a mill.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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PostSat Oct 31, 2020 2:01 pm 
Looks like a friendly reminder is in order here: There has never been, since the creation of the U.S. Forest Service, any requirement that the agency make a profit (or even break even) on timber sales or sales of "other forest products" from federally-administered lands. The public has always "subsidized" all sales of all forest products (including timber) from both USFS and BLM lands. Federal farm subsidies effectively do pretty much the same thing for corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, etc., etc., etc. Oh... and let's not forget about oil.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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treeswarper
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PostWed Nov 04, 2020 6:05 pm 
I suspect this is a non issue now. Or soon.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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