351 



Questions by Senators McClure and Wallop 

 for K.J. Metcalf, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council 



7. Mr. Metcalf. your testimony indicates on page 7 that the Forest Service planning alternatives 

 for the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) revision are "a sham." that the Forest Service 

 has not prepared a basic forest plan, notwithstanding TLMP. and that Mr. Overbuy of the Forest 

 Service's Washington office has "scuttled" plans for a true TLMP Revision. Am I correct? 



A: Yes, I did state, and firmly believe, that the alternatives for the TLMP Revision are a 

 "sham." I say that based on the following facts: 



The alternative entitled "incorporates H.R. 987" is noi a representation of H.R. 987. In this 

 alternative the Forest Service has removed hundreds of thousands of acres of commercial forest 

 land, including areas that have already been clearcut, from the timber base in addition to the 

 withdrawals included in H.R. 987 . As a result, this alternative implies a very large reduction 

 in timber supply --a reduction that is probably at least 3 times greater than that implied by 

 H.R. 987. 



If the Forest Service was serious about portraying H.R. 987, they would overlay the legislation 

 on the existing Tongass management. That would constitute a legitimate alternative. 



The Effects Analysis, the very foundation for all alternatives, is misrepresented in 

 Understanding the Past. ..Designing the Future, the Forest Service document distributed to the 

 public. The charts and graphs in this "user friendly" publication do nal correspond to the 

 technical information in the four volume "Assessment of the Management Situation" on which 

 Understanding the Past... is supposedly based. I reference specifically in the public document 

 tne Wildlife Capability Chart (p. 55), Recreation Capacity Chart (p. 56), Employment Graph (p. 

 58), and Comparison of Benchmark Findings Table (p. 59). 



Attachment O is the February 8, 1990, testimony of Dr. Dave Anderson of the Alaska 

 Department of Fish and Game before the House Committee on Government Operations, 

 Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Subcommittee. The Alaska Department of Fish 

 and Game is seriously questioning the validity of the Revision work to date. At the hearing, 

 Dr. Anderson stated ADF&G's belief that if wildlife habitat models had been properly used by 

 the Forest Service, some of the predicted wildlife declines would have been as much as 100% 

 greater than reported in the Forest Service's most recent documents. 



With these errors there is no possibility of the Forest Service portraying accurate effects of 

 their alternatives, hence the public is misled. 



Additionally, the Forest Service's timber inventory, as portrayed in the timber type database, is 

 very inaccurate. This will prohibit the analysis of the Forest Service's alternatives from 

 describing site-specific effects. This site-specific analysis is crucial to the resolution of many 

 issues and, again, puts the validity of these alternatives in serious question. (See Attachment P) 



2a. How were SEACC's 24 areas chosen? 



All of SEACC's proposed areas are based on over a decade of meetings with individuals and 

 organizations throughout Southeast Alaska. These meetings identified areas of economic, 

 subsistence, or recreational importance to Southeast Alaskans -- each proposed area has a 

 constituency. 



SEACC's Lands Protection Proposal is the product of over ten years of grassroots work in the 

 communities of Southeast Alaska, and reflects SEACC's detailed study and assessment of the 



