Tongass Timber Reform Act

Implementation of the Act's Contract Modification Requirements Gao ID: RCED-95-2 January 31, 1995

In Alaska's Tongass National Forest, two companies--the Ketchikan Pulp Company and the Alaska Pulp Corporation--have held 50-year contracts to cut timber. The Forest Service maintains that its existing policy provides consistent treatment of credits in contracts that timber harvesters are awarded for building harvest-related roads. GAO disagrees, believing that the policy gives Ketchikan Pulp a competitive advantage by allowing it to apply "ineffective" road credits for a much longer period than timber harvesters that must use short-term contracts. Through the end of fiscal year 1993, Ketchikan Pulp used road credits to pay for 73 percent of the timber harvested. Also, some streamside buffers did not meet the 100-foot minimum. The Forest Service has since taken steps to ensure that this requirement is met. GAO also found that the Forest Service was not following its policy of documenting the environmental effects of changes made to planned timber-harvest boundaries.

GAO found that: (1) the Forest Service believes it treats road credits consistently across all contracts, since unused road credits are cancelled at the end of all timber sales contracts; (2) the long-term contractors' ability to carry unused road credits forward for longer periods than short-term contractors gives them an unfair competitive advantage; (3) some streamside buffers did not meet the 100-foot minimum width during the first years immediately following the act's passage, but the Forest Service has since taken steps to enforce this requirement; (4) in 1994, the Forest Service issued guidance and initiated a new monitoring program to ensure the buffers' effectiveness; (5) the Forest Service often does not document the environmental effects of timber harvest boundary changes; (6) in some instances, the forest supervisor has inappropriately delegated his documenting authority to district rangers and waived documentation where he believed boundary changes were insignificant; and (7) the forest supervisor has since withdrawn the authority delegation and established a detailed process for assessing boundary changes.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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