Virtual Tongass Roadless Rule town hall planned as Forest Service advances logging proposals

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Federal officials are advancing old-growth timber harvesting and sales in the Tongass National Forest — even as conservation groups say the public isn’t being heard.

Supporters of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a Clinton-era policy that blocks new road construction and most logging in protected forest areas, plan to gather online Wednesday for a virtual town hall aimed at shaping federal decision-making as the Trump administration moves to expand timber activity in Southeast Alaska.

The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund is hosting the “Tongass National Forest Roadless Rule Virtual Town Hall” at 5:30 p.m. The event will feature speakers — including Indigenous leaders — and give participants a chance to submit comments that organizers say will be forwarded to the U.S. Forest Service when a public comment period opens.

Conservation groups call the roadless rule a key backstop for the Tongass — the nation’s largest national forest at 16.7 million acres in size, and the world’s largest temperate rainforest — where old-growth habitat underpins salmon streams, subsistence hunting, and a tourism economy.

‘The Forest Service Is Refusing to Hold Any Public Meetings’

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council Tongass Campaigner Nathan Newcomer said organizers are holding their own hearings because, he argues, federal officials aren’t.

“We’re holding these public hearings throughout Southeast Alaska because the Forest Service is refusing to hold any public meetings on the roadless rule,” Newcomer said.

The Forest Service did not directly respond to that characterization. A public affairs spokesperson pointed instead to the agency’s ongoing environmental review process for active timber proposals as its primary mechanism for public input.

Newcomer said the virtual format is meant to expand participation — and could lead to additional sessions if turnout is too large to accommodate everyone.

“We’ve had more than 200 people sign up for this one,” he said, adding that if everyone shows up, “we’re not going to have enough time to get everybody to give their public testimony.”

“If we do have that many people show up, we’ll likely have to have another one,” he said.

Participants will first hear from panelists, then have a chance to give their own statements.

“You’ll have an opportunity to hear from a few panelists that will talk about their perspective about why protecting ‘roadless’ is important to them,” Newcomer said. “And then right after that, it’s going to be the public’s opportunity to submit public testimony.”

He said organizers plan to preserve those comments for the record: “We will document everyone’s statements and record it for them and submit it on their behalf to the official record.”

Twin Mountain II: A 45-Day Clock Is Running

The virtual town hall comes as the Forest Service advances a major timber proposal in the Tongass — though the Forest Service says the two issues are legally distinct.

Forest Service public affairs officer Paul Robbins noted that Twin Mountain II timber sale contains no designated roadless areas within its project space, meaning the outcome of the roadless rule debate should not directly affect the timber sale.

Last month, the agency published a Federal Register notice releasing a draft environmental impact statement for the Twin Mountain II Timber Sale Project on Prince of Wales Island — a step that opens a 45-day public comment period.

Robbins said the draft statement is designed to gather public input before any final decision.

“We just released the draft environmental impact statement, and that opens a 45-day comment period where we’re looking for public feedback on our active management actions to address environmental and community concerns,” Robbins explained.

He added that public commentary “helps us refine our management actions and into our final decision to ensure that our final plan addresses environmental and community concerns”

The Forest Service says the proposal could produce about 28.6 million board feet — a unit of volume of wood, equating to 144 cubic inches — of timber from 1,655 acres over a 10- to 15-year period. The plan also calls for 0.9 miles of new national forest road, 12.4 miles of temporary road construction, and reconditioning of roughly 24.5 miles of existing roads.

Robbins said those estimates came from months of field surveys, with agency staff assessing individual stands across the project area.

Newcomer, however, put the old-growth clearcut component at 26.8 million board feet — a figure that differs from the Forest Service’s total project volume.

Newcomer’s figure refers specifically to old-growth timber he says will be clearcut; the Forest Service figure represents total projected harvest across all harvest types.

Newcomer was pointed in his criticism. “The Twin Mountain II timber sale … their proposed action is 26.8 million board feet of old growth timber that’s going to be clear cut,” he said. “It’s not selective harvest. It’s not restoration. It’s not thinning. It’s 26.8 million board feet of old growth that’s going to be clear cut.”

He said the scale of past logging on Prince of Wales compounds his concerns.

“290,000 acres of Prince of Wales has already been logged,” Newcomer said, adding that “12,000 acres within … the Twin Mountain II timber project area has already been logged as well.”

He noted that about 94% of the old-growth stands on the northern part of Prince of Wales Island have already been logged.

Robbins provided different numbers, showing nearly a third of the proposed timber acreage isn’t clearcut.

“In this project … it is not an entire clear cut,” he said. “549 of the acres is an uneven age management.”

He said harvest decisions are made “on a stand-by-stand basis on what’s not only going to be economical for the cut, but just right for that area.”

Newcomer said SEACC isn’t opposed to all timber harvest — only to what he described as indiscriminate clearcutting.

“We’re not opposed to harvesting of trees in the Tongass, but this indiscriminate sort of just clearcutting thousands of acres makes zero sense,” he said. “Not from an economic standpoint, not from a wildlife habitat standpoint, not from our tourism recreation economy standpoint.”

Robbins emphasized the agency’s multiple-use mandate and the importance of a reliable timber supply to the region’s forest-products infrastructure.

“A reliable supply of economically viable timber is critical to maintaining expertise and infrastructure for our existing timber industry here as we make that transition to primarily young growth harvest that’s outlined in our current forest plan,” he said.

He added that the Forest Service is a “multiple use agency,” and that “providing a supply of timber to the American people is a central part of the Forest Service mission and purpose.”

Subsistence Hearing Still to Come

On subsistence concerns, a notice was posted earlier this month announcing a hearing scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. on May 30 at the Thorne Bay Ranger District Office in Thorne Bay, a small community of just over 500 in the southern reaches of Alaska’s Panhandle.

The meeting is to receive testimony from individuals, agencies, and organizations on how the proposed activities could potentially impact those relying on subsistence living within the project area.

Robbins said new public input would drive any changes to the project.

“If we’re provided new information on subsistence needs and concerns by the public, that would be what starts the conversation on making changes on the project,” Robbins said.

Robbins encouraged residents to review the draft EIS and submit feedback.

“Please go take a look at the draft EIS, all those specific areas that you’re concerned about … and then provide written e-mail comments back to us,” he said.

South Revilla and a Broader Fight

The Trump administration’s revival of the South Revilla timber sale near Ketchikan has sharpened the broader debate over old-growth logging in the Tongass.

The project would harvest about 60 million board feet of old-growth trees — roughly 4,300 acres — over 15 years, along with about 23 million board feet of young-growth, according to the Forest Service’s analysis.

The Forest Service says South Revilla will supply timber for local operators, build recreation facilities, and restore fish and wildlife habitat.

A coalition of Southeast Alaska tribes has argued the federal government bypassed meaningful consultation on Tongass policy decisions and is pushing for co-management approaches that would give tribal governments a stronger role in overseeing their traditional homelands.

Tribes and conservation groups have also warned that large-scale old-growth logging could reduce access to subsistence resources and harm wildlife habitat.

The Forest Service’s own analysis has described the Tongass as the largest store of forest carbon among U.S. national forests, acknowledging that old-growth stands hold substantially more carbon than young forests and may take decades — or longer — to regain pre-harvest carbon stocks.

Timber advocates dispute some of the climate framing and say a consistent supply of federal timber sales is necessary to sustain the region’s remaining industry.

Court Hands Timber Industry a Loss

The fight over Tongass old-growth logging also played out in federal court this spring. A U.S. district judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by timber industry groups seeking to force the Forest Service to increase old-growth logging in the Tongass, ruling the plaintiffs did not have a valid legal claim.

The court found that the Tongass Timber Reform Act’s requirement that the agency “seek to provide” a supply of timber is tempered by the obligation to balance timber with other uses — including wildlife, recreation, and preservation.

The judge also found that projected timber-sale levels in the Forest Service’s 2016 Tongass Forest Plan function as objectives, not binding commitments enforceable in court.

‘The Public Has Said Resoundingly No’

Organizers of the May 6 town hall say their goal is to keep the roadless rule in place and build a public record as federal officials consider changes.

Newcomer said the sentiment at previous events has been consistent.

“It’s been a pretty unanimous front in terms of the public saying we want to keep the roadless rule in place,” he said.

He pointed to the rule’s history: “When the 2001 roadless rule was first enacted, you had 1.6 million public comments, which at the time was the largest amount of public participation in any federal rulemaking process in the history of the United States.

“Whenever an administration has tried to get rid of the roadless rule, the public has said resoundingly, no, don’t do that,” he said.

Newcomer also argued there are significant fiscal costs tied to Tongass logging and road-building. Citing a 2020 analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, he said the Forest Service lost $16.1 million on Tongass timber sales in fiscal year 2019 alone, and $1.7 billion over the past four decades.

Those figures have not been independently verified by Alaska’s News Source.

“Road building is an enormous cost and money loser for any federal government,” Newcomer said. “And to be quite frank, who’s paying for that? The taxpayers.”

Registration information for the virtual town hall is available on the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund’s Mobilize page.

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