The state last week released a five-year management schedule for the Haines State Forest that includes more than a dozen timber sales and plans to develop recreational trails and cabins.

The biggest sales would be for harvests of about 20 million and 15 million board feet of timber on Chilkat Ridge, east of Chilkat Lake, slated for 2024 and 2026, respectively. Those sales, and all that are larger than 10 acres, will be subject to a separate public process through adoption of a Forest Land Use Plan (FLUP) prior to timber harvest.

The management schedule is a scoping document, used “to check the pulse of the public’s interest in things and to define where we focus,” Haines state forester Greg Palmieri said. “What we’re intending to do is give the public an opportunity… to say, ‘Well, we have this concern, or we would like to see more of this, or we’re interested in this idea.’”

The Alaska Division of Forestry releases a five-year schedule every two years, offering community members a chance to give input on management of 260,000 acres of forest in the Chilkat Valley.

Similar to past schedules, the new one involves a mix of large and small timber sales (in both regenerating and old-growth sections of forest), development of recreation opportunities, continued silvicultural activities, like pruning, thinning and cone collection for planting, and road and infrastructure maintenance. Palmieri said the division’s goal is to achieve balance among all of the forest’s resources and uses in keeping with the Haines State Forest Management Plan adopted in 2002.

The total volume of timber harvests from sales on the schedule through 2026 amounts to 50.7 million board feet, slightly lower than the total volume (53.8 million) on the state’s schedule two years ago, from 2020 through 2024.

The combined sales would involve construction of about 20 miles of new road and maintenance of 112 miles.

A sale scheduled for 2024 — called Chilkat Ridge 1 — would be for a harvest of about 20 million board feet of timber and would include installation of a bridge across the Tsirku River and eight and a half miles of new road east of Chilkat Lake. The 2020-2024 schedule listed a similar sale but with a harvest half the size. (By comparison, the largest sale in more than 20 years was Baby Brown, last year, which was for a harvest of about 23 million board feet across 1,000 acres.)

Chilkat Ridge 2, in 2026, would add a harvest of 15 million board feet and five miles of new road.

The only named sale scheduled for this year consists of a few small harvest units, about 20 acres each, near Walker Lake. Three sales are on the schedule for 2023, two for harvests of about 500,000 board feet of timber and another, with a FLUP already approved, for 400,000 board feet, all in the upper valley.

The Division of Forestry plans each year to hold small-scale timber sales for harvest units under 10 acres. Those sales don’t require FLUPs and typically add up to between 30 and 50 acres a year, according to the schedule.

A few sales on the new schedule are for harvests in the Kelsall River watershed, where the Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee in 2018 asked for a five-year pause on timber sales out of concern for king salmon spawning habitat. (The Chilkat River king stock hit a record low in 2018 and was named a stock of concern by the state Board of Fisheries.)

Palmieri said the Division of Forestry works with other state agencies to review forestry plans and mitigate environmental impacts with decisions rooted in science.

“We’re doing the best we possibly can to make sure that the impacts aren’t adverse and aren’t negative,” Palmieri said. “I would hope that someone would look at our five-year schedule and look at our management plan and take away that our goal is not to exploit any resource at the expense of another.”

In addition to timber sales, maintenance and other proposed activities, the schedule lists development of a recreation trail and cabin at Walker Lake, a project for which Palmieri said he’s been attempting to obtain funding for six years — “a much longer process than I thought it would be,” Palmieri said. “But hopefully we’re getting closer to identifying funding.”

Public comments are due by June 7 and can be submitted to [email protected].