The University of Alaska’s negotiated timber sale contract negotiations have been delayed until spring 2019.
“Due to ongoing field work remaining to be completed, the Haines timber project will continue well into 2019,” university liaison Morgan Howard wrote in an announcement Tuesday. “Depending on weather and safety conditions, it’s projected that the next phase of field inspections could begin as early as April 2019.”
Following the completion of that work, the university will finish negotiations, Howard wrote. Information about the potential buyer and the details about the contract are confidential until the contract is established, he said.
As of last week, University officials expected a contract to be signed by Oct. 25.
At a Haines Economic Development Corporation meeting last week aimed to discuss the potential economic impacts of the sale on 13,000 acres of university land, Haines Borough manager Debra Schnabel said her communication with the university so far has felt uncomfortable. “It feels like push, push, push, push; we push, they push back to the point where we’re hardly talking to each other anymore,” she said.
If the sale falls through, HEDC executive director Margaret Friedenauer said she doesn’t want it to be because of perceived difficulties with Haines. While Friedenauer told HEDC board members that it’s unknown whether Chinese tariffs are affecting the Haines timber sale, they did affect a sale in the Mat- Su Borough.
Increased tariffs between the U.S. and China, a frequent timber buyer, have been cited as the reason for Mat-Su’s failed timber sale last week. The sale, proposed to happen over a five-year period, tanked when Chinese buyers pulled out due to heightened expenses.
“The market prices dropped very severely due to the tariffs, so our group all made the collective decision that we can no longer harvest this timber without incurring significant losses,” Eric Oien, owner of Denali Timber Management, involved in the venture, told the CVN this week.
According to Friedenauer, university officer Christine Klein told the university’s board of regents, that because the Haines sale is over a 10-year period, she doesn’t anticipate tariffs having a significant impact.
Oien disagrees, stating that it’s going to be very hard to generate interest in a timber sale until the tariff issues are settled. “It’s difficult to forecast on a long-term basis what the market pricing might be,” Oien said. “It creates a lot of uncertainty and doesn’t give people the confidence they need to bid.”
HEDC is at a standstill while they wait for a contract to be brought forward by the university identifying the contract’s details.
“In order to do any in-depth economic analysis, we need to know what the plan is,” HEDC board member Doug Olerud said Friday. “We can’t get any information from the university … we have no idea who the buyer is, what kind of markets they have… it’s all guesswork for us.”
In October, HEDC took over the role thought to be Howard’s, a communication specialist hired by the university to interface with the community. After meeting with community members, Howard said he thought HEDC was better equipped to deal with community input.
“It’s a little challenging creating a committee when the primary role player isn’t really participating,” HEDC treasurer Greg Schlachter said. To allow community members to voice concerns, the borough assembly directed borough manager Debra Schnabel last month to ask the university to see the sale contract before the university board of regents approves the final contract.
Schnabel said that the partnership between Haines and the University is forever, and the dialogue needs to change to sustain a healthy relationship.
Schnabel proposed Haines continue working through HEDC’s scoping document and show a commitment to collaboration.
To help with the scoping document, Schlachter suggested contacting The Center for Economic Development at the university, a branch of the university that provides information and data to promote economic development across the state.
Community member Pam Randles proposed looking at additional land use and the maximum economic benefit for the university and positive effects for the borough. “Multiple use management is something that foresters always talk about, and I think there are so many opportunities here for that, there’s small scale timber, tourism, fishing, [that] could be put together as a broader base than a single timber sale.”
Other suggestions were to look at carbon offset, or the potential to establish a university branch classroom in Haines for biology and forestry students to study the effects of logging.
“It might be helpful to come up with what would be the ideal and offer that to the university,” assembly member Heather Lende said.
HEDC will meet on Friday, Oct. 26, at 3 p.m. to discuss how to proceed, now that they know the contract won’t be announced until sometime next year, if at all.
Opportunity for public testimony to the board of regents by calling 1-866-726-0757 will be on Oct. 29, from 4 to 6 p.m. before the full regents meeting in Fairbanks on Nov. 8 and 9.
The public can live stream the Nov. 1 land management committee presentation, where Klein will present updates on the timber sale to the board of regents.