358 



1) One directive allowed the Tongass planners to postpone nearly all site-specific 

 resource assessment to the future. This means the new plan will nol deal with 

 site-specific conflicts between deer winter habitat and logging, or with site- 

 specific conflicts between subsistence uses and logging and logging roads. 



2) The other Forest Service directive is cited by Tongass planners as the reason for 

 abandoning the agency's earlier 1987 commitment to examine a full, complete 

 range of alternative Tongass management alternatives. As a result, the draft 

 Tongass plan revision the Forest Service promises to complete by June of this 

 year will fail to provide the public or Congress with the full picture of Tongass 

 options and will noi present any useful new information. 



SEACC is left wondering why the Washington Office of the Forest Service told its planners in 

 Alaska to cut the planning process short and abandon their original goal of conducting a first- 

 rate Tongass plan revision. 



3c. You charge the Regional Forester with obviating a meaningful planning process. You 

 worked for Mr. Barton -- is he not to be trusted? Please explain your charge. Does Mr. Barton 

 not believe in the planning process? 



A: When I left the Forest Service in 1982, John Sandor, not Mike Barton, was Regional 

 Forester. I really can't answer whether or not Mike Barton believes in the planning process. 

 That is a personal belief that only he can answer. I can say that the planning process has not 

 been very good for Mike Barton or the Alaska Region. The Forest Service is saddled with an 

 impossible task in Alaska -- the agency can qqI honor the language of the two 50-year 

 contracts and the 4.5 billion board foot per decade ANILCA sell volume goal (hard target as 

 interpreted by the Alaska Region) and meet the intent and letter of the Multiple Use Sustained 

 Yield Act, National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest Management Act, and ANILCA. 



Therefore, the agency has to make some choices. It is clear from the development and 

 implementation of past Forest Service plans, that the Service has chosen to honor their 

 obligations to the pulp contracts at the expense of the nontimber resources and industries, and 

 at expense of the environmental and management legislation they are also obligated to follow. 

 This commitment to the 50-year contracts first is clearly stated in the agency's 1989 Final 

 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Alaska Pulp Corporation's operating area: 



The Forest Service's contractual obligations were established before the 

 enactment of ANILCA. Congress knew of the existence of these contracts when 

 it passed ANILCA, but did not cancel them. . . . Should a conflict arise between 

 the availability of subsistence resources and compliance with contractual 

 obligations such as the APC contract, these contractual obligations should be 

 considered 'necessary' under ANILCA Section 810(a)(3)(l). 



This statement is proof that the two 50-year contracts drive the planning and management of 

 the Tongass. When there is a multiple-use conflict the decision, by choice, is made in favor of 

 the contracts. Only with comprehensive reform legislation can the Forest Service be expected 

 to honor the laws that are supposed to guide management of public resources on our national 

 forests. 



3d. At page 22, you charge that the "problems of the Tongass were created by political 

 decisions and the failure of the Forest Service to honor its commitments." What political 

 decisions? Isn't SEACC in effect asking that a political decision be made to pre-empt the land 

 planning process? 



