Forest Service adds Kake hearing on how roadless repeal could affect subsistence

The U.S. Forest Service will hold one more hearing on repealing the 2001 Roadless Rule, this time in Kake, the agency said Monday.

The Nov. 4 hearing, from 5 to 7 pm at the Organized Village of Kake Tribal Council Chambers, is for testimony on how ending the rule's limits on road building and logging could affect subsistence, according to the agency's updated release.

The agency is taking spoken testimony only. Written comments closed Oct. 6. Testimony becomes part of the record the Forest Service will consider for the final rule.

Kake is the sixth subsistence hearing and the only one left on the calendar. The others were in Ketchikan, Anchorage and online, plus one scheduled Monday in Craig, where the City Council asked Washington in September to keep the rule.

The 2001 rule generally bars new roads and logging in the roadless parts of national forests. In Alaska, that covers roughly 9.3 million acres of the Tongass, plus roadless land in the Chugach. Without it, each forest's own management plan would decide where roads and logging could go. The agency says repeal wouldn't by itself require a road or a cut anywhere.

Most tribal governments the Forest Service consulted oppose repeal, the proposed rule says, and Alaska tribal representatives asked for a full subsistence analysis before any decision. The Tlingit & Haida tribal government says repeal would put Sitka black-tailed deer, salmon, berries and medicinal plants at risk. One Alaska Native corporation, unnamed in the rule, supports repeal.

Road limits have also figured in the cost of a proposed power line between Kake and Petersburg. An attorney for the Inside Passage Electric Cooperative told a House subcommittee in May that the line's estimated cost rose from $17.5 million with road access to $65 million without it.

The proposed rule cites an executive order from President Donald Trump directing the Agriculture Department to bring back a 2020 rule that exempted the Tongass from roadless protections. That exemption lasted until 2023. The Forest Service hasn't said when it will decide.