Having been a habitat biologist for ADF&G in the upper Lynn Canal and throughout Southeast Alaska over 10 years, I had the opportunity to review many logging sales and units. I also was quite familiar with the literature regarding the impacts on salmon streams from logging and roading operations in Southeast Alaska and elsewhere. It is an extensive list concerning drainage, large woody debris, stream cover and other issues. In 1998 I requested the state Division of Forestry to curtail logging in the Kelsall drainage, not because the king salmon run was in decline, it wasn’t at the time. Shortly after the last, large clearcuts in the early 1990s, landslides that originated in the logging units slid through the steep, no-cut buffer into the Kelsall River. This large influx of material and debris would have a lasting, and unknown, impact on the Kelsall River. What was known is the Kelsall River was the major contributor to the largest spawning population of king salmon in Southeast Alaska outside of Yakutat. This fact was not known until the 1991/1992 ADF&G telemetry studies, after the Haines State Forest was established. Why put this world-class resource at more risk when there are alternative areas to log? While it may be possible to log in the Kelsall and Tahini drainages, as HSF management plan specifies, and not negatively impact king salmon, why would anyone take that chance? The track record is not good and these fish are too important to everyone in Haines.
Ben Kirkpatrick