98 



conveyances remaining under FSCG, it is now highly likely that No Name Bay will never be 

 conveyed to the state and will remain under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service. Thus, due to 

 appeals and litigation, the United States Government is being defrauded out of significant revenues 

 at No Name Bay. 



In April of 1994, Alaska Pulp Company's long term contract was terminated, puttmg 450 

 people out of work at the Sitka pulp mill and eventually causing the closure of the company's 

 sawmill in Wrangell at the cost of another 250 direct jobs. The Forest Service then attempted to 

 transfer the planned sales on east Kuiu to the remaining long term contract with Ketchikan Pulp 

 Company which, due to appeals on its sales, was also running short of timber 



The Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association (AWRTA), a local 

 environmentalist group, appealed, then filed suit, alleging the need for yet another EIS since the 

 timber was not reviewed for sale to this particular buyer. The Superior Court found in favor of the 

 government, but AWRTA appealed to the Ninth Circuit and obtained an injunction against 282 

 million board feet of NEPA cleared timber, including a proposed sale at No Name Bay. 



At first, the Forest Service vigorously defended its position, filing an excellent response brief 

 on December 22, 1995. Early this year, however, the Clinton Administration's Justice Department 

 entered into negotiations with the plaintiff (excluding intervenor-defendant Alaska Forest 

 Association) and produced a settlement agreement which strongly favored plaintiff. Eventually, the 

 court approved the settlement agreement and ordered a fifth EIS on east Kuiu. 



The result is that, after nearly twenty years of planning and producing paperwork by the ton, 

 the Forest Service has yet to produce a single stick of wood or support a single private sector job 

 fi-om the significant stands of timber on east Kuiu Island. Sales that were laid out in 1979 are still 

 awaiting harvest. Please remember that this is land that was purposely left in the timber base by 

 Congress in 1990 when the Tongass Timber Reform Act was passed into law. Four Environmental 

 Impact Statements have been performed, now a fifth has been ordered. 



What we have, under the current system, is not environmental protection, but a never-ending 

 process. The laudable goals of NEPA simply are not reachable under the current law. The problem 

 is NEPA itself Under NEPA we never get product, we only get lots of process. It becomes a never- 

 ending planning cycle. 



A big part of the problem is that no justification for any action will ever satisfy the law 

 because anyone can allege possession of new information or a significant impact on some protected 

 activity such as subsistence, thus forcing a new EIS. The east Kuiu example illustrates how this can 

 undermine every attempt by the agency to do its job. I have had Forest Service employees tell me 

 in frustration that they cannot write an EIS that will satisfy court scrutiny. The law is simply too 

 open ended. 



As a result, NEPA documents have completely lost their usefulness as planning documents. 

 Instead they have become a means for the Forest Service to pad the record so that they have some 



