During public comment Saturday afternoon, six residents opposed the Dunleavy administration’s petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for full exemption of the Tongass National Forest from the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The “Roadless Rule,” established in 2001, prohibits timber harvest, road construction and reconstruction in designated areas. Of the 16.7 million acres of federal land, 55 percent are designated as roadless acres.

At the public library Saturday, U.S. Forest Service deputy supervisor Frank Sherman and USDA Environmental Coordinator Ken Tu presented an overview of the agencies’ environmental impact statement that includes a spectrum of six action alternatives and the impact they would have on wildlife habitat and the timber, fishing and tourism industry.

Six alternatives range from taking no action to full exemption. The other four alternatives designate greater priorities to timber harvest relative to preserving roadless areas. The current Tongass harvest level is 46 million board feet of timber per year. None of the alternatives increase that level, but they do change where timber can be harvested.

A full exemption would exempt all 9.2 million inventoried roadless acres in the Tongass. All regulatory prohibitions on timber harvests and road construction would be removed.

Residents criticized the Forest Service for not factoring climate change in to the EIS.

The temperate rainforest plays a huge role in combatting climate change, Thom Ely said during the hearing. “That should be the most significant decision that the Forest Service can make in its planning for the forest, is what the forest does for the world, not what it will do for a dying timber industry.”

Others asked why the Forest Service didn’t factor in carbon sequestration as an effect in the various alternatives. Tu said the effect is the same no matter where the timber is harvested.

“When you look at Tongass-wide impact, it doesn’t matter if you’re getting 46 million board feet of timber in non-roadless areas, or a mix of roadless areas and non-roadless areas. You still have the same amount of carbon removal and the same amount of sequestration,” Tu said.

Kip Kermoian said fragmentation of the forest would result from such a policy, and that wildlife would be affected.

“As we know, there’s a lot of diverse habitat and quality of habitat on the Tongass and so any roading in one area may have much more detrimental impacts than roading in another,” Kermoian said during the hearing. “I think the process is entirely flawed. It needs to be reevaluated.”

He also asked that regional feedback be given priority when Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue decides which alternative to choose.

Tu said of the 144,000 public comments the Forest Service has received throughout Southeast Alaska, about 90 percent supported a “no action” alternative over the state’s petition to exempt Alaska.

Purdue has indicated he would give deference to the state, meaning full exemption from the roadless rule, Tu said. Purdue will make his decision this summer.

Purdue, a Trump appointee and the former republican governor of Georgia, and the USDA administration have been criticized publicly by former scientists in the department for suppressing science for political reasons during his tenure as Secretary of Agriculture. Purdue approved reduced nutrition standards in school lunches that allowed more refined grains, and increased sugar in milk.

A Politico report found that many of Trump’s appointees to the USDA were former campaign workers without a background in agriculture, including a country club cabana attendant, the owner of a scented-candle company and a long-haul truck driver.

At Saturday’s meeting, Patti Brown said she doesn’t trust Purdue to make the roadless rule decision. “My guess is the collective science knowledge in this room is greater than that in the Secretary of Agriculture that we have right now.”

Tu and Sherman are one of three teams traveling throughout 20 Southeast Alaskan communities explaining the process and taking oral comments from residents. Tu said he’s been to Juneau, Tenakee Springs, Hoonah, Angoon, Point Baker and that residents in those communities expressed many of the same concerns heard in Haines.

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