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Corporation made to build the KPC pulp mill at Ward Cove. Since initial startup, KPC 

 has made additional capital investments in excess of $325 million. These companies 

 would not have made the investment were it not for the long-term contract signed with 

 the U.S. Forest Service. That contract guarauiteed KPC a stable, economic timber 

 supply at sufficient quantities to recoup the necessary investment and envisioned 

 perpetual operation of the facility on the basis of Tongass National Forest timber after 

 the initial 50 year term. 



As f£ir back as 1920, the federal managers of the Tongass believed that pulp 

 production represented the best use of southeast Alaska's extensive timber resources. 

 Those forest managers recognized that a high percentage of Tongass timber consisted 

 of overmature and decaying trees, material useful only for pulp. In 1928, the Chief of 

 the U.S. Forest Service stated, "The establishment of new wood-using plants should be 

 fostered energeticcilly, as Alaska is badly in need of more industries." 



As the Second World War wound down, the federal government ardently 

 broadened its efforts to attract a timber industry to southeast Alaska, in order to 

 provide stable, high-paying, year-round employment to an economically 

 underdeveloped territory. Despite its abundant resources, southeast Alaska was at that 

 time a land of boom amd bust. Before the war. the economy depended on mining and 

 fishing. After the war, fishing was in decline, and the mining base was depleted. In an 

 effort to establish a stable economy and bring added population to America's "Northern 

 Ramparts," the Forest Service ofliered long-term (50 year) timber hcirvest contracts to 

 entice investors to the area. Regional Forester B. Frank Heintzelman wrote that the 



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