The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is again putting out to bid the old-growth Baby Brown and Glacier Side timber sale 37 miles north of Haines. The Baby Brown sale was canceled in June 2017 after Lynn Canal Conservation successfully appealed the sale because the state didn’t create a land use plan for the entire harvest area.
State forester Greg Palmieri said he had to complete an additional year of fieldwork before a full land use plan was adopted in 2018.
“We’re offering it because there’s potential interest, the market’s changed and the desire to sell the timber is still there,” Palmieri said.
The Baby Brown sale was appealed by local and national environmental organizations in 2015 including Lynn Canal Conservation, Greenpeace and Oregon-based Cascadia Wildlands based on fisheries, economic and aesthetic concerns among others. The state denied the appeal.
The sale, divided into 13 units, consists of an estimated 23.1 million board feet of spruce and hnemlock timber on roughly 1,006 acres on the southside of the Klehini River drainage between Porcupine and Jarvis creeks. The allowable harvest methods include selective tree and clear cut.
In 2017, the state received one bid from Oregon company Astoria Forest Products.