State offers help for timber industry jobs.

• Author: Pilkington, Steve
• Position: Timber - Brief Article

Three small Southeast Alaska sawmills, financially struggling after a fight over logging on federal land, will get some relief this year as Gov. Frank H. Murkowski announced a plan to make state timber sales available for the mills to help protect Alaska jobs.

"We are determined to get a long-term solution to the timber industry's supply problems by using U.S. Forest Service timber to supply our Southeast mills," he said. "But we need to help the mills survive until then. Ongoing litigation by environmental groups is tying up the timber the mills need and depriving the Southeast economy of these critical jobs. Greenpeace and other...