Borough officials are looking to hold a timber sale within the next year, putting several hundred acres of land at Earl West Cove on the Back Channel to economic use, creating logging jobs and producing income for residential development or other projects.

The municipal budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 includes $200,000 for land surveying and timber appraisal work, both of which are required before the borough could put up the timber for bid.

The borough owns almost 900 acres at Earl West Cove, about halfway down the island. The property is part of the 9,000 acres Wrangell was entitled to select from state lands when the borough was incorporated in 2008, expanding from being just a city.

A timber sale would make “productive use of entitlement selections,” said Kate Thomas, Wrangell’s economic development director.

The first go-around for a timber sale could encompass several hundred acres, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said last week.

An “optimistic timeline,” Thomas said, would be six to 12 months before the sale could be held. The borough will need to bid out the survey and land appraisal work, select contractors and wait for the results before going out for bid on the timber acreage.

Old U.S. Forest Service logging roads provide access to the area, she said, though repairs will be needed at a washed-out section and additional roadwork will be required to reach the full area. Any new roads would be the responsibility of the winning timber sale bidder, Thomas said.

The sale could provide a small operator with enough timber to last several years, she said.

There is a log transfer site at the end of a logging road on the waterfront, providing the timber buyer the option of putting logs into the water to move to a mill or trucking them over the logging roads.

The borough’s revenue from the sale could go to its Residential Construction Fund, which provides money to develop municipal lands for residential construction, such as putting in streets and utilities for the 20 lots sold last winter and spring at the Alder Top Village Keishangita.’aan subdivision near Shoemaker Bay.

The fund, which was established in 1992, has a balance of about $550,000 after heavy spending the past few years to develop the Alder Top subdivision.

The $200,000 for the Earl West survey and appraisal will come from Borough Organization Fund, which was created with one-time money received from the state when Wrangell transitioned into a borough.

Putting up the timber harvest “would be a prudent use of those funds,” Villarma said.

After the withdrawal, the fund will have about $113,000.

In addition to the municipal lands at Earl West, the state owns lands adjacent to the borough acreage. The Alaska Division of Forestry five-year plan for 2026-2030 includes the potential of an Earl West timber sale.

The state sale could provide 3 million board feet of timber spread over 160 acres of old-growth timber. The date of the sale will depend on the forestry division budget and other factors. The 2026-2030 timeframe is not a guaranteed schedule.

The state’s Earl West acreage “is considered marginal due to mobilization costs and because the stand is predominantly a hemlock-dominant forest type,” according to the five-year plan issued a year ago.

However, the report noted, “Recent demand for larger hemlock has made the area of interest to timber purchasers and may provide opportunity to expand the footprint previously identified.”

Borough officials have been working the past couple of years to coordinate timber sales between the municipality and state agencies, looking to improve the scale and economics of sales.

In addition to the Division of Forestry, City Hall has been working with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority Land Office, which owns a little over 4,000 acres across the island. The agency sells and leases its lands to produce revenue for mental health programs across the state.