Big Thorne Timber Sale Awarded to Viking Lumber

I was pleased to hear that the U.S. Forest Service recently awarded a contract for the Big Thorne timber sale to Viking Lumber Co. on Prince of Wales Island.  The contract will allow Viking Lumber to log almost 3,800 acres of timber between Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove.  Even though this is only a portion of the full Big Thorne sale (6,000 acres of old-growth forest and 2,000 acres of second-growth forest), it’s still welcome news for our struggling timber industry in Southeast. The Tongass Forest Supervisor, Forrest Cole, reported that the logging won’t start until the spring of 2015 as part of a deal made with environmental groups seeking to block the sale in court.  A previous contract for the Big Thorne timber sale was awarded to Viking Lumber last year but court challenges from environmental groups prevented that from happening.  I certainly hope that the legal challenges to this year’s sale are not successful so this modest timber harvest is allowed to proceed.  A good description of the interest in this timber sale from outside groups can be found in a recent Daily Signal article titled, “Environmentalists Halt Obama Administration Plan to Cut Trees in Alaska.”