380 



streams. It is imporant the committee understands that their decision will 

 affect thousands of miles of streams and that all of these stream affect 

 salmon habitat. 



MUDDY LOGGING CHUTES DUMP INTO SALMON HABITAT 



I'd like to give you a personal portrait of what happens during a 

 commercial logging operation on the Tongass. 



In the spring of 1972, a year after becoming an Alaskan resident, I logged off 

 the west coast of the Prince of Wales. I straped 1.5 inch diameter cables 

 around logs some of which were as big as six feet in diameter. The cables 

 attached to steel haul lines, thicker than a flute, which wound around 

 pulleys in spar trees as far a quarter mile from the salt water. A huge diesel 

 engine powered winch pulled these giant trees down hill. Nothing could 

 stand against these monstrous chunks of wood as they came crashing down 

 the mountain slopes. Stumps shattered. Thick mats of moss became brown 

 muddy furrows. After several days and several inches of rainfall, the log 

 chute became a deep mud bath. A fellow worker sunk in over his thigh. 

 For the month that we utilized this site, the almost daily rain which occurs 

 in this rain forest washed plumes of mud into Shakan Straight's crystal clear 

 salt water. When yarding occurs above fresh water streams, as almost all 

 yarding does, similar mud chutes result. 



This initial impact of the yarding operation results in muddy water 

 running into streams during the spring when the salmon fingerlings are 

 about to depart the streams for the sea, or in the fall when salmon eggs 

 buried in the pebbles must have clear water to provide them with oxygen. 

 Muddy water impacts salmon at both stages of the life cycle. 



A second and chronic source of mud is from the 1200 miles of federally 

 subsidized dirt roads the Forest Service built on Prince of Wales Island. 

 Streams of mud regularly flow from them . 



POST LOGGING IMPACTS 



Muddying of the waters continues after the loggers depart. Logging next to 

 class II and HI streams inevitably furrows the soil, jars stumps, and destroys 

 anchoring roots. Stream banks frequently overhang. The yarding operation 

 breaks the banks and knocks them into the stream where swift water carries 

 the mud down stream into the class I salmon habitat. The tree root system, 



TESTIMONY OF ALAN STEIN 



