580 

 Senator Wirth, Ed Oetken. 



STATEMENT OF EDWARD R. OETKEN, ALASKA PULP CORP. 



Mr. Oetken. I am employed as the Director of Environmental Af- 

 fairs at Alaska Pulp Corporation. 



My family and I have spent ten years in Alaska and Sitka is our 

 home. 



The passage of Senator Wirth's bill will lead to the shutdown of 

 the Alaska Pulp mill in Sitka. Every person in this community, 

 and many outside, will suffer an initial loss when the bill becomes 

 law and further losses when the mill shutdown actually occurs. 



Why do I believe that the mill will be shut down by this piece of 

 legislation? Part of my job is to negotiate agreements with state 

 and federal regulatory agencies. Achieving an agreement with a 

 regulatory agency has never been easy, but always possible when 

 the two parties were intent on reaching a solution to the problem 

 under discussion. During the past few years these negotiations 

 have become many times a three-party affair with the Sierra Club 

 intervening as the representative of environmental groups, and the 

 negotiations have ended up in the hands of lawyers and judges. In 

 the process, construction projects are delayed or abandoned and 

 newspaper, radio, and TV reports cover the country. These situa- 

 tions, I believe, were caused by attempts to influence Tongass legis- 

 lation — and the hope that APC would not be able to survive the 

 economic impact of increased environmental costs. Fair minded 

 concern by the Sierra Club for all aspects of the environment has 

 not been demonstrated to me. 



I see Senator Wirth's bill as the Sierra Club's "final solution" to 

 Alaska Pulp's existence. 



In response to legitimate concerns, I support Senator Murkow- 

 ski's bill, S. 237, as one way of allowing the Forest Service to do its 

 job of managing the Tongass for all citizens, not just a select few. 



Senator Wirth. Thank you very much, Mr. Oetken. Mr. Hayden. 



STATEMENT OF HAYDEN KADEN 



Mr. Hayden. Thank you. 



For the record, my name is Hayden Kaden. I have been a perma- 

 nent resident of southeast Alaska for 22 years. I am an attorney 

 and, in addition, for 16 years I have been involved in wilderness 

 recreation as a guide in the southeast and am familiar with 

 Alaska. 



The social and economic development of rural southeast are 

 being crippled by Tongass management policies developed over 30 

 years ago. Since then our region has grown and diversified but fed- 

 eral policies have not grown and diversified with us. 



The strongest cries for change are coming from the very commu- 

 nities which are surrounded by the Tongass Forest and from the 

 people most dependent upon its resources. 



New timber operations have been prevented by the monopoly 

 contracts and the resulting limits on timber supply. Small mills 

 compete with one another for leftover timber in bid sales while the 

 pulp mills pay reduced rates and thereby eliminate their competi- 

 tion. 



