What a dull world we would live in if everyone had the same opinion. On the last day of 2003 an op-ed by Matthew Davis in the Bangor Daily News about the Tongass National Forest, was just that, an opinion.

I am retired forest service engineer, and when I retired it was from the Tongass National Forest. Without specifically refuting each of the opinions in the commentary, let it suffice to say I believe nearly all of the statements in it were inflammatory, exaggerations or sometimes just misleading.

Gravina Island, for instance, is just a few hundred yards from Ketchikan at its closest point. The Ketchikan airport, where medium size jets land several times a day, is on Gravina Island. Flying over Gravina, most of the area is muskeg where almost no trees grow. In Southeast Alaska, rainfall amounts to some 120 inches. Hence, the rain forest and the reason for the full time water flow of a pretty sizeable Bostwick Creek. The reason this is mentioned specifically, is that most of the timber on Gravina is in the Bostwick Creek drainage. Nearly all of the most marketable timber on the Tongass National Forest is in the valley bottoms where the best and deepest soils have been deposited.

The Forest Service maintains a picnic area at the mouth of Bostwick Creek. At least, it used to and probably still does. I have fished the inlet many times and never met anyone else in the inlet. Hiking is an important recreation event on the Tongass National Forest, but not on Gravina Island.

The comment that the Natives from nearby Metlakatla get 70 percent of their food supply from Bostwick Inlet is just not so. If one is talking about just fish, and all of the water between Gravina Island and Annette Island (location of Metlakatla Village), then maybe. But that includes a lot more water than Bostwick Inlet and a lot less than the total food supply.

Another point that should be made here is when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was put into action during the 1970s, any area that could claim even a small native settlement, was awarded about 25,000 acres. Nothing on Gravina Island was selected and to my knowledge was never even considered. At that time, it was not very important to the natives.

The Tongass National Forest is roughly the size of Maine. To open 9.6 million acres to logging is a big chunk, about half the total size in fact. There is a major difference between roadless areas and a designated Roadless Area. About the time I was in the act of retiring, the Tongass National Forest was undergoing a major revision in its Land Use Plan. From that revision, about 6 million acres were set aside as Wilderness Areas.

One should understand that as defined by the USFS, nothing happens in a designated Wilderness Area. Some existing recreation cabins were allowed to remain. Several more million acres were set aside as designated roadless areas. Nothing except recreation related activities would be allowed in these areas. I do not know where the roadless areas to be opened to logging are. I am sure that those roadless areas do not include any of the designated roadless areas or wilderness areas. As I understand the acts which established those designated areas, once established it takes an act of Congress to change management criteria.

Prince of Wales Island is a huge island. In length it is about the distance from Bangor to Portland. When I was working for the Forest Service there were several small fishing villages, quite a few sizable logging camps and a couple of little towns on the island. Our transportation plan called for these communities to be interconnected by road. Most of these roads were constructed by the timber operator. Many of the roads were supplemented with taxpayer dollars. Not to benefit the timber sale (or timber operator) but to construct the roads to a higher standard over and above what was needed to harvest timber. The Forest Service wanted those roads open and safe for public use after the timber sale was complete.

Craig and Klawock are two towns on the island, a few miles apart, which have been connected by a state-maintained road for years. That road is about 25 miles from Thorne Bay, a major logging camp in the past but now is just another Alaska town. There was a logging road, radiating from Thorne Bay that came within 13 miles of the roads from Craig and Klawock. There was very little timber tributary to that 13 miles. The Forest Service contracted for a road to be constructed connecting those roads together. A couple years ago, I returned to the Tongass National Forest for a visit. The state of Alaska has taken over the maintenance of the road. There is now a two lane, paved highway between Craig and Klawock on one end and Thorne Bay on the other end. All of the other communities on Prince of Wales Island are now interconnected, mostly by timber operator built roads. There is also a state ferry that connects that road system to Ketchikan.

To my knowledge, there has never been a case where a timber operator was paid road construction money just to remove timber. The suggestion or implication the Forest Service is using tax-generated money to remove timber and that’s all, are just scare tactics aimed at serving the so-called environmentalists’ objective of setting aside most of our public forests as timber preserves.

I challenge anyone, who may think I am an extremist on the side of the timber industry, to check out www.NaturalResourceEducationCenter.org and click on the icon OUR TREE FARM.

Stephen Law, of Dover-Foxcroft, is a retired Forest Service engineer and a former member of the 112 Maine State Legislature.