in the halls of Congress 3,000 miles away. That conduct consist- 

 ently serves only the best interests of the airlines and the Wash- 

 ington, D.C., hotels. Passing H.R. 2413 will not solve the disputes 

 within Sitka and within Southeast, but would have a singularly 

 important and ultimately useful impact: When people are truly 

 given some form of decisional voice, rather than just being advi- 

 sory, they will then come to the table and use their best efforts to 

 reach a solution, rather than continue to posture, as in the past, 

 when they knew their efforts were ultimately meaningless. 



I particularly congratulate you on drafting a bill that addresses 

 all the tough issues inherent in transfer of the Tongass, and I ap- 

 plaud your interest in openly discussing these issues so that the 

 bill can be improved. I have included in my written testimony some 

 of my thoughts concerning specific provisions of H.R. 2413, and I 

 would like to use my remaining time to suggest exploration of a 

 slightly less revolutionary idea. 



Sitka earlier obtained a $300,000 Federal grant to study "Fea- 

 sibility Analysis of Alternative Wood-Based Industries." From the 

 draft report, it appears that without some sort of long-term ( 10 or 

 more years) timber base tied to processing in Sitka, a timber-proc- 

 essing industry is unlikely to locate in our community. This model 

 might also apply to Wrangell. 



Sitka is investigating the potential utility of a land-based com- 

 munity stewardship program with the Forest Service, whereby a 

 certain specific area of the Tongass would be reserved to a specific 

 community (Sitka or Wrangell) with much greater community 

 input, including some decisional powers (possibly in partnership 

 with the Forest Service) in such questions as how much cutting, 

 where the cuts would be, and the type of logging desired. Inherent 

 in this concept is also greater community involvement in matters 

 such as subsistence, tourism, fishing, and the other interrelation- 

 ships we have with the forest. We first initiated exploration of this 

 concept in January when we asked the TLMP process include con- 

 sideration of a demonstration project tying a timber base to proc- 

 essing in Sitka. 



At a meeting last week with the Forest Service, we were unfortu- 

 nately informed that the current Federal law will not allow allocat- 

 ing Sitka a timber land base nor require that timber be processed 

 in a specific community. Current Federal law allows for no commu- 

 nity-based decisional powers concerning the amount of annual cut, 

 where it is to be cut, or how it is to be cut. When speaking of a 

 smaller timber industry than we had with APC, the figures that I 

 tentatively used were 30 to 60 million board feet per year coming 

 to Sitka, supporting a job base of 50 or so people. That employment 

 could go up based on value added, but a sustainable annual cut 

 would need to be available. 



A smaller wood-products industry provides a real opportunity for 

 Sitka and has a real chance of attainment. There are problems 

 with this idea. Some would reach that goal by fighting to increase 

 the cut above the preferred alternative in TLMP, feeling that Sitka 

 is in competition with Ketchikan and that there is no wood for us 

 until after Ketchikan's desires. I am convinced that Sitkans will 

 not have much sympathy for Ketchikan until some wood-product 

 industry is re-established here. 



