The Cordova daily times., 1919-10-14
ALASKA PULP
 OPPORTUNITY IS SET FORTH

J. J. Underwood, Washington core spondent of the Seattle Times, in a l recent dispatch says there is every reason to expect that the great pulp wood resources of the Northwestern states and Alaska shortly will be uti- lied in the manufacture of news print paper This will mean the estab- lishment in that region of number of new settlements, the erection of big plants, costing millions of dollars, and large payrolls.
 The essentials of the news print in- dustry are cheap hydro-electric energy and plenty of spruce or other suitable timber There is an abundance of both on the Pacific coast, but one is useless without the other, and the water powers of the whole country are withdrawn from entry and will remain so until such time as the water-power leasing bill now pending before con- gress is enacted into law.
 The measure mas been passed by the house and favorably reported by the senate commerce committee. It prob ably will not be called up for consid- eration in the senate until after the peace treaty and other pressing mat ters are disposed of. In all proba- bility the bill will become law before the present special session ends in November.
 Information presented to the senate by Senator Watson indicates that two thirds of the news print paper used by American newspapers is imported or manufactured from pulp imported from Canada Only one-third is made from wood grown in the United States. And while the importation of news print and pulp are increasing, the amount produced in the United States is steadily declining. Practically all of the domestic news print manufac- turing industry is located in the North
 
 state of New York The Northeastern forests are being depleted so rapidly that there will be practically no pulp wood left in this region in twenty years.
 Apart from the suitable timber in Washington, Oregon, Northwestern Montana and Northern Idaho, there are enormous areas of forests i'll Alaska. the annual growth of which would supply half the pulp used in the United States.
 It is said by officials of the forestry department that the lack of tranSpOr- tation facilities to an Eastern market is partially responsible for the lack of development in Alaska, but it also is true that the restrictions in the way of obtaining this timber, even where water power is available ana already had passed out of the hands of the government before the with drawal order was made, has prevented development.
 The forestry bureau policy has been to give leases on this timber only TOT periods of five years. Naturally cap ital refused to invest millions in plants in places where the supply ot raw ma terial was likely to be cut off. It is understood that the bureau has now changed this policy and will make leases renewable from time to time for periods of fifty years, and there is some talk of converting into a pulp plant one of the big gold-producing nroperties the owners of which have an abundant supply of hydro-electric energy.
 Representatives of Eastern states, who formerly were opposed to the onening of the resources of the West and Alaska, are now ardently adVocat- ing the passage of the water-poWer leasing bill and the development ot the Western resources, for the news print paper situation has brought thelh to a realization of the fact that to use I'D the raw materials of the East and transport a large portion of them to the West, and later to transport the raw materials of the West to the East, is not true conservation, but on the other hand, is decidedly wastetul.
 For many years it was contended that the Alaska timber had great po- tential value in the making of lumber, but the aircraft investigation decidedly disproved that theory so far as ar craft lumber is concerned. It was found that the trees grow boughs from the ground up. Every bough