State proposes logging about 950 acres near Fairbanks, including along the Chena River

The Alaska Division of Forestry & Fire Protection proposed Oct. 8 to sell timber from about 950 acres near Fairbanks. That includes nearly 400 acres between Chena Hot Springs Road and the Chena River, a corridor the division's own finding says is popular as a recreational hub in the Interior.

The division's stated goals for the sales include supplying raw material to the timber industry, providing firewood for Interior homes and harvesting timber "before a significant decrease in vigor occurs," returning the sites to young, productive forest. It would offer commercial sawtimber and fuelwood contracts across three projects, according to the public notice.

Along the Chena

The Jenny M/Grange Hall project covers about 385 to 388 acres in nine sales on Tanana Valley State Forest land, about 23 miles east of Fairbanks between mileposts 20 and 21 of Chena Hot Springs Road. It would yield about 2.8 million board feet of spruce sawlogs plus birch firewood. The sales would be clearcut, mostly in winter. One is called Granger than Fiction Mixed.

The Chena provides critical salmon spawning and rearing habitat and supports the most heavily used sport fishery in the Tanana Basin, the preliminary finding says. Six of the sales border the river or Mullen Slough and would keep at least 100 feet back from the bank. New winter roads would include ice crossings of both.

The finding lists fishing, rafting, hunting, trapping, dog mushing, skiing and snowmachining in the area and says, "A very robust winter trail network intersects the proposed area." Winter logging roads would cross trails rather than run along them. Irregular cut edges and mature forest left standing between the cuts and the river and highway would reduce the visual impact, the finding says. Logging trucks would use roads that begin as residential roads off Chena Hot Springs Road and have been used for earlier timber sales.

Bonanza Creek

The Bonanza Creek project covers about 544 acres in nine sales along Bonanza Creek Forest Road, about 21 miles southwest of Fairbanks. It would yield about 3.6 million board feet of spruce sawlogs and 3,397 cords of firewood, in sales named Chili Bean Mixed, Green Bean Mixed, Soy Bean Spruce and Birchnanza.

Trucks would reach it through the University of Alaska Fairbanks Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, where researchers use the same roads. "Heavy logging traffic could impair the quality of access," the draft forest land use plan says. Its proposed mitigation is to hold loggers to their contract responsibilities and have them leave the roads in similar or better condition.

In comments on the Fairbanks-Delta five-year timber schedule, which Alaska News covered in July, the Department of Natural Resources' land division flagged University of Alaska and Woodwell Climate Research Center permits for long-term ecological research in two sections. Those sections include part of the Green Bean Mixed sale. The forestry division said it would consult the university if it moved forward.

The third project, Melody Spruce, is a 15-acre white spruce sale off Standard Creek Road near the Old Nenana Highway.

Regrowth

The findings say the logged areas would mostly reseed naturally, with some Bonanza Creek units also planted with white spruce seedlings, and regrowth would be checked within five years. If regrowth is patchy, the ground may be scraped to help seedlings take hold.

In comments on the schedule as a whole, Gerrid Greenwood and Christine McGuigan asked the division to break sales into smaller cutting units with pockets of mature trees. They said that would lessen the visual impact, benefit wildlife and improve regrowth. The division responded that sale boundaries change as each sale is prepared, and said it has continued to build islands and strips of standing trees into sales meant to reseed naturally.

The division must adopt final findings before any timber is sold. Written comments are due Nov. 6, and only affected people who comment can later appeal or seek reconsideration.