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Abbreviation | SEACC |
---|---|
Type | Nonprofit |
92-0062992 | |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) |
Headquarters | Juneau, Alaska |
Board Co-Chair | Natalie Watson |
Board Co-Chair | Judith Daxootsu Ramos |
Board Co-Chair | Michelle Andulth Meyer |
Executive Director | Meredith Trainor |
Website | https://www.seacc.org/ |
The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC) is a non-profit organization that focuses on protecting the lands and waters of Southeast Alaska. They promote conservation and advocate for sustainable natural resource management. SEACC is located in the capital city of Alaska, Juneau. The environmental organization focuses on concerns in the Southeast region of Alaska, including the areas of the Panhandle, the Tongass National Forest, [1] and the Inside Passage.
SEACC's core purpose is "to protect Southeast Alaska's wild lands and clean water in order to sustain an intact ecosystem, abundant fish and wildlife populations, and a unique Southeast Alaskan way of life." They aim to interconnect the values of land, wildlife, cultures, and communities in order to sustain the environment for future generations. SEACC brings local voices together and gives community members a platform to express their concerns and advocate for a change. [2]
Large-scale clearcutting projects by the United States Forest Service were of great concern to environmental activists in the 1960s and 1970s. [3] Specifically, the long-term permits the Forest Service had given two pulp mills allowed them to clear-cut ancient old-growth trees and turned them into pulp. [4] In 1970, a group of Southeast Alaskans from communities across the entire region formed a group to oppose the unsustainable logging in the Tongass National Forest. [4] They started as the Tongass National Forest preservation group. They mostly fought the large-scale old-growth logging but later changed their name to the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. [5] In 1977 SEACC became a federally recognized 501(c) organization. [6]
In 1975 the Forest Service released its 1975 Tongass plan, which proposed millions of acres to become wilderness areas. These areas were steep, rocky fjords or shifting glaciers that had not or never would be threatened by logging. Conservationists had been given 6 weeks to respond. SEACC came up with 45 areas that needed protection from logging. On March 7, 1975, conservationists from Southeast Alaska met in Sitka to discuss SEACC's Tongass Wilderness proposal. [7] SEACC received help from the Sierra Club Alaska representative for their campaigns on this issue. In 1976 Ted Whitesell and Kay Greenough took SEACC to Washington, DC, for the first time for the National Forest Management Act hearings. [8]
The March 1976 Congressional hearings in Washington were held because the Point Baker Association and plaintiffs Herb Zieske, Chuck Zieske, and Alan Stein had won a victory in the US District Court in Alaska on December 23, 1975, in which Judge Van der Heydt ordered 1) no trees could be cut unless they were dead or dying 2) and no trees could be cut at all north of a line between Calder Bay and Red Bay on Prince of Wales Island. [9]
In March 1976, Alan Stein testified before Congress, representing the United Fishermen of Alaska and the Point Baker Association. [10] The decision in Zieske threatened to shut down clearcut logging on the entire West Coast, so the timber industry pressed for immediate hearings to overturn the Zieske decision in Congress. [11]
Senator Gravel brought hearings to Alaska in 1976 on the pending National Forest Management Act (NFMA) legislation. Still, committees had already reconciled vital issues. Senator Huddleston stated on pages 26 and 60–61 in the Hearings Record of the US Senate Subcommittee of Environment, Soil, Conservation, and Forestry of the Committee of Agriculture and Forestry (in Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka August 18 and 21, 1976) that the bill was ready for floor action before committees considered the August testimony on such issues as whether mandatory 300-foot buffer strips should remove the discretion of the USFS when laying out clear-cut. [12] The president signed the National Forest Management Act of 1976 on October 22, 1976. [13]
The draft Tongass plan of the following years still included most of its proposed wilderness areas in rocky areas. Some alternatives even proposed extensive clear-cut logging on pristine regions such as Admiralty Island and West Chicago. In 1977 seven conservation groups, including SEACC, formed the Alaska Coalition. Despite efforts, President Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that protected 5.4 million acres of the 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) triggered SEACC to take more action and protect the old-growth forests of the Tongass from logging. [14]
SEACC's proposal for protecting 45 areas was ignored in the Forest Service's 1979 Tongass Land Management Plan. Some important SEACC members resigned after this fallback. John Sisk described it as follows: The Tongass issue was over. The rest belonged to the timber companies." SEACC did not give up and took on smaller cases that included problems in the Tongass National Forest but also expanded to water pollution.
Bart Koehler took over SEACC in 1984 and published a document in 1986 that challenged the Forest Service. The report called: 'Last Stand' exposed the money-losing economic aspect of logging in the Tongass Forest. The report revealed how much money exactly was lost by the Forest Service every year. The report sparked a large debate, and SEACC took their concerns to Washington D.C. [15] A hearing on Tongass National Forest was held on May 8 and 9 in 1986 by the House Interior Subcommittee on Public Lands. [16] Koehler was leading a national Tongass reform campaign, in which he urged ending long-term contracts of the pulp mills, adding more wilderness areas, and cutting major subsidies for logging." [17] This went on for a couple of years, and many talks and meetings with government officials and environmentalists passed. SEACC did not give up its fight for the Tongass Timber Reform Act and received much support. [14]
A decade after the ANILCA Law passed, SEACC ushered through the first locally crafted federal lands protection bill they had been fighting for, for many years. President George Bush signed the Tongass Timber Reform Act on November 28, 1990. [18] It is described as: "An Act to amend the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, to protect certain lands in the Tongass National Forest in perpetuity, to modify certain long-term timber contracts, to provide for protection of riparian habitat, and for other purposes." [19] The law protected an additional 1.2 million acres of forestlands and canceled the pulp mill's contracts. The Tongass Timber Reform Act was the first major victory for SEACC.[ [20] After his victory, Koehler moved to Montana to work for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. In 1995 he moved back to Alaska after discovering that state senators Frank Murkowski, Ted Stevens, and Don Young had gained power and tried to change the Tongass Timber Reform Act. [21] A year later, Koehler returned to Washington, D.C., to discuss this problem. Six years after the Tongass Timber Reform Act had passed, the Tongass National Forest was yet again a national issue. [22] In the end, the Tongass Timber Reform Act led to two major mills in Sitka and Ketchikan having to shut their doors in 1997, and it protected an additional half a million hectares of forest lands. [23] In 1997 the largest pulp mill, the Ketchikan Pulp Corporation, had to shut down (Durbin, 2005). [24]
The Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council was a Supreme court case that ruled in favor of Coeur Alaska, Inc. SEACC, the Sierra Club, and Lynn Canal Conservation Inc. filed a lawsuit against Coeur Alaska, Inc: a mine developer. They had received a permit issued by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, allowing them to dump the toxic waste in the environment. The three environmental non-profit organizations argued that the permit for dumping toxic mine tailings into Lower Slate Lake violated sections 301(a), 301(e), and 306(e) of the Clean Water Act. The court ruled in favor of Coeur Alaska Inc. [25] [26] [27]
SEACC's non-management employees unionized as SEACC United on December 9, 2022, with a public super-majority of all eligible (permanent, non-management) employees, in accordance with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). [28] SEACC United filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an election on December 19, 2022, when SEACC management had failed to respond by the deadline. [29] SEACC leadership hired the global law firm Littler Mendelson as representation. On February 13, 2023, the NLRB affirmed that "the board has broad jurisdiction over nearly all types of private employers, large and small, for-profit and non-profit," and directed an election to take place by mail-in ballot. SEACC appealed that decision. [30] On March 30, 2023, SEACC United was awarded formal recognition in the NLRB election with a 3-1 vote, with SEACC contesting one of the ballots. [31] On March 31, 2023, after being contacted by SEACC leadership, local news outlet, KINY News of the North retracted a story covering the union's recognition, removing it from publication. [32]
SEACC released a statement immediately after the vote count indicating that leadership will not enter into bargaining until the NLRB is "ultimately and appropriately determined to have jurisdiction in this case. [33] " SEACC Board Chair Natalie Watson wrote in a December 30, 2022 Juneau Empire op-ed that organizational leadership "will stand by the results" of the election. [34] SEACC leadership filed objections to the election with the NLRB on April 6, 2023 that were ultimately overruled by the board on April 21, 2023 at the same time that it certified the election, affirming the union. On August 22, 2023, Alaska AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall published a commentary in The Alaska Current in response to an email and blog post from SEACC Board Chairs.
SEACC United is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America Local 37074, an AFL-CIO affiliate. SEACC United is believed to be the first labor union of nonprofit advocacy workers in Alaska.
SEACC continues to publish reports on the uneconomical logging practices in the Tongass National Forest. The North Kuiu Island timber sale and the Big Thorne timber sale are two major sales offered by the Forest Service that SEACC is currently opposing. [35]
On February 28, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow Alaska an exemption for the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule. This Forest Service rule limits road construction on designated national forest lands: "The 2001 Roadless Rule establishes prohibitions on road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands. The intent of the 2001 Roadless Rule is to provide lasting protection for inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System in the context of multiple-use management." [36] SEACC, together with Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, advocated on behalf of the Tongass National Forest and challenged the State of Alaska.
SEACC received the National Conservation Achievement Award in 1990 for "Outstanding Contributions to the Wise Use & Management of the Nation's National Resources." The National Wildlife Federation gave it after successfully leading the Tongass Timber Reform Act campaign. [37]
In 2012, former Executive Director of SEACC Lindsey Ketchel and Project Leader Dan Lesh received the Wilderness Partner of the Year award from the Forest Service for their wilderness steward trips with youth, native Alaskans, volunteers, and agency staff to Stikine Admiralty, and Chichagof Island Wilderness areas. They also cleaned up trash and waste and conducted invasive plant control on Admiralty Island. [38] [39]
Southeast Alaska, often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern, and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of southeast Alaska is situated in Tlingit Aaní, much of which is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United States' largest national forest. In many places, the international border runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The region is noted for its scenery and mild, rainy climate.
Point Baker is a census-designated place (CDP) in Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Alaska, United States. The population was 12 at the 2020 census, down from 15 in 2010 and 35 in 2000.
The Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at 16.7 million acres. Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which is managed by the United States Forest Service, encompasses islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords and glaciers, and peaks of the Coast Mountains. An international border with Canada runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The forest is administered from Forest Service offices in Ketchikan. There are local ranger district offices located in Craig, Hoonah, Juneau, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Thorne Bay, Wrangell, and Yakutat.
The Pacific temperate rainforests of western North America is the largest temperate rain forest region on the planet as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rainforests lie along the western side of the Pacific Coast Ranges along the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America from the Prince William Sound in Alaska through the British Columbia Coast to Northern California, and are part of the Nearctic realm, as also defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rain forests are characterized by a high amount of rainfall, in some areas more than 300 cm (10 ft) per year and moderate temperatures in both the summer and winter months.
Two forms of black-tailed deer or blacktail deer that occupy coastal woodlands in the Pacific Northwest of North America are subspecies of the mule deer. They have sometimes been treated as a species, but virtually all recent authorities maintain they are subspecies.
Duke Island is an island in the Gravina Islands of the Alexander Archipelago in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Alaska and within Tongass National Forest. The island is just north of the Canada–United States border, about 30 miles south of Ketchikan and about 60 miles northwest of Prince Rupert, British Columbia. It is about 12 mi (19 km) long east–west and 10 mi (16 km) north-south.
Admiralty Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska. It is 145 km (90 mi) long and 56 km (35 mi) wide with an area of 4,264.1 km2 (1,646.4 sq mi), making it the seventh-largest island in the United States and the 132nd largest island in the world. It is one of the ABC islands in Alaska. The island is nearly cut in two by the Seymour Canal; to its east is the long, narrow Glass Peninsula. Most of Admiralty Island—955,747 acres (3,868 km2)—is protected as the Admiralty Island National Monument administered by the Tongass National Forest. The Kootznoowoo Wilderness encompasses vast stands of old-growth temperate rainforest. These forests provide some of the best habitat available to species such as brown bears, bald eagles, and Sitka black-tailed deer.
The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976 is a United States federal law that is the primary statute governing the administration of national forests and was an amendment to the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, which called for the management of renewable resources on national forest lands. The law was a response to lawsuits involving various practices in the national forest, including timber harvesting., Zieske v Butz was the lawsuit brought by members of the Pt Baker Association on Prince of Wales Island against the US Forest Service's first environmental impact statement. The suit halted logging on the NW tip of the island which consisted of 400,000 acres and resulted in a call by the timber industry for Congressional action to undo the lawsuit. Representative Foley noted on the floor that six other suits were blocking logging with holdings similar to Zieske v Butz.
Misty Fjords National Monument is a national monument and wilderness area administered by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Tongass National Forest. Misty Fiords is about 40 miles (64 km) east of Ketchikan, Alaska, along the Inside Passage coast in extreme southeastern Alaska, comprising 2,294,343 acres (928,488 ha) of Tongass National Forest in Alaska's Panhandle. All but 151,832 acres (61,444 ha) are designated as wilderness.
Roadless area conservation is a conservation policy limiting road construction and the resulting environmental impact on designated areas of public land. In the United States, roadless area conservation has centered on U.S. Forest Service areas known as inventoried roadless areas. The most significant effort to support the conservation of these efforts was the Forest Service 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
The Lynn Canal Highway, or Juneau Access Road, is a proposed road between Skagway and City and Borough of Juneau, the capital of the U.S. state of Alaska. Such a road, if built, would still require ferry access to connect Juneau to the Alaskan highway network. The new road would be 47.9 miles long, built at an estimated cost of $574 million, and be a part of Alaska Route 7. The plan of the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF) called for extending "The Road" northward from Juneau to a ferry terminal 18 miles south of Skagway. The corridor crosses Berners Bay LUD II which is a congressionally designated roadless area created by the Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA). The act permits crossing LUD IIs when the governor of the State of Alaska designates routes as essential transportation corridors. The proposed road skirts the shore of a northwestern section of Alaska's Inside Passage, which was recently named a National Scenic Waterway. As of 2017, the project has been indefinitely shelved due to the state's budget crisis.
The Forest Service Organic Administration Act of 1897 provided the main statutory basis for the management of forest reserves in the United States, hence the commonly used term "Organic Act". The legislation's formal title is the Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of 1897, which was signed into law on June 4, 1897, by President William McKinley.
The temperate rainforests of Admiralty Island's Kootznoowoo Wilderness are a unique environment among the 5,700,000 acres (2,300,000 ha) of federally-protected wilderness in Southeast Alaska.
The South Baranof Wilderness is a federally designated wilderness area within the Tongass National Forest, located on Baranof Island, Alaska. Covering 319,568 acres south of Sitka, the South Baranof protects glacier-carved fjords, hanging valleys, old-growth temperate rainforests and sheer granite mountains.
The Kuiu Wilderness and Tebenkof Bay Wilderness are federally designated wilderness areas within the Tongass National Forest, located on Kuiu Island, Petersburg Census Area, Alaska. The 60,581-acre (24,516 ha) Kuiu and 66,812-acre (27,038 ha) Tebenkof Bay wildernesses are managed by the United States Forest Service as a single area—creating a 200-square-mile (520 km2) wilderness preserve covering the heart of the island. Together, the two areas protect old-growth temperate rainforests rising from coastal estuaries to subalpine meadows more than 2,000 feet (610 m) in elevation, with a high point atop the 3,355-foot (1,023 m) Kuiu Mountain.
Ketchikan Pulp Company was a pulp mill located on the north shore of Ward Cove, 5 miles (8.0 km) from Ketchikan, in the U.S. state of Alaska. Owned by Louisiana-Pacific, it operated between 1954 and 1997. It was the last pulp mill to operate in the state.
The Sitka Pulp Mill was a pulp mill located on the North and West Shores of Sawmill Cove, approximately five miles East of Sitka, Alaska. In 1956, the mill site was purchased from Freda and John Van Horn by the Alaska Pulp Corporation. This was the first Japanese investment in the United States of America since World War II, and the mill operated from 1959 until 1993. The majority of production was used to create rayon fabric, and to supply Japan with logs to rebuild homes and infrastructure after World War II. In the later years of the mill, as the demand for rayon and logs for rebuilding decreased, the primary focus of the mill became the manufacture of paper.
The South Etolin Wilderness is a wilderness area within the Tongass National Forest of Alaska. The designated wilderness encompasses 82,676 acres, including much of Etolin Island along with several smaller islands, all of which are part of the Alexander Archipelago. Designated in 1990 by the Tongass Timber Reform Act, the wilderness protects classic Southeast Alaska temperate rainforest ecosystems, rising from the densely-forested coast to the glacially-carved summit of 3,720-foot Mount Etolin. An introduced population of Roosevelt elk provides a unique hunting opportunity, both for sport and subsistence purposes.
The Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA) is an act that was intended to amend the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), with the primary intention to increase the protection of the Tongass National Forest from logging. The TTRA was introduced on February 9, 1989, at the 101st Congress, 1989-1990, and was enacted when signed by President George H. W. Bush on November 28, 1990. as law. Refer to the GovTrack.us website for the extended text of the bill. For a bill to become law in the United States it must be approved by both the House and the Senate, and signed by the President, who can veto the bill if they chose to. In response to required adjustments to the initial bill, a conference committee was formed, consisting of members from both the House and the Senate, tasked to produce a conference report on the necessary revisions and changes. This revised version of the bill was passed by both the Senate, with a vote of 99–0, and was approved by the House. The sponsor for this bill was a representative from New York's 3rd congressional district, Robert Mrazek (Democrat).
The Alaska Roadless Rule is an environmental conservation policy that placed significant restrictions on timber removal and road construction or reconstruction in Inventoried roadless areas, which protects about half of the Tongass National Forest and Chugach National Forest's 17 million acres. The Alaska Roadless Rule stems directly from the Roadless area conservation rule in which the United States Forest Service identified areas of natural importance as Inventoried roadless areas and announced the Forest Service 2001 Roadless Rule.