405 



Senator Wirth. Mr. Powell, let me briefly ask you, on the Yaku- 

 tat Forelands issue, I know that in the Southeast Conference pro- 

 posal they have permanent protection of 134,000 acres and that the 

 legislation that I have offered has protection, albeit as Governor 

 Cowper and I were discussing, for 232,000 acres of the forest. What 

 is the position of the community? Do you want permanent protec- 

 tion? That is number one. Secondly, how much acreage are you 

 talking about? The Southeast Conference had 134,000 and we had 

 232,000. Do you know what the differences are between the two? 



Mr. Powell. Correct on permanent protection. I am not quite 

 sure. Senator, what the difference is. 



Senator Wirth. Well, I think it would be very important to have 

 from Yakutat your perspective on what the protection ought to be. 

 I guess the main difference is the 134,000 versus the 232,000. I hope 

 you can get from the staff here and the Conference before you 

 leave what the boundaries are and get back to us, because we are 

 here to hear people impacted by this, and I cannot imagine any- 

 body more impacted than you. 



Mr. Powell. Thank you. I would be very happy to. 



Senator Wirth. We are very happy to hear from you and thank 

 you for being here. 



Senator Murkowski. May I just briefly ask, it is my understand- 

 ing that 15,000 acres of native timberland is in the Yakutat area 

 and that has either been logged or is scheduled for logging. 



Mr. Powell. That is correct. I am not sure of the acreage exact- 

 ly- 



Senator Murkowski. Well, I am not sure either, but I am curious 

 to know, you indicated 1,000 plus clearcuts. Does that include 

 native land? 



Mr. Powell. Some of it is but not all of it. 



Senator Murkowski. Well, I think it is important to recognize 

 some is native land and some is not. I would ask any of the wit- 

 nesses to come up that might be qualified to address that, unless 

 you can distinguish that for us, because I think a distinction should 

 be made here. We are talking about Federal Forest Service land 

 and recommendations. When you make a generality of 1,000 plus 

 acres of clearcut, the inference is, of course, that this is Federal 

 Forest Service lands. 



Mr. Powell. In the most recent sale of the Yakutat that was put 

 out three or four years ago, one clearcut that was part of that sale 

 was 500 acres, and a portion of that sale was not cut because of 

 lack of volume. And it was subsequently turned back by the bidder. 

 Concord Forest Products, and it is now proposed to be resold, and 

 that is the other 500 acres. So, you are going to end up with a joint 

 clearcut of about 1,000 acres in that one area. It will be the largest 

 in the whole Setak Lake area, which is in that vicinity. 



Also, if I might add, when the Forest Service started logging in 

 the vicinity of Yakutat in 1965, some of the cuts that were made 

 were in the neighborhood of 300 acres. There were alternating cuts 

 that proceeded up the highway towards the Setak for about 10 

 miles. Those were cut. Now what has happened with the selection 

 is those alternate patches are now being cut, and our regeneration 

 cycle is something like 150 years plus in the Yakutat area. So, 

 what happened is a range of clearcut extends from the community 



