Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Brunelle. Senator McClure, and Representative Craig, while I applaud the advantages of a statewide wilderness bill, I'll just give on local input, I do have some trepidations about such a bill. One is that it would focus on now much wilderness is allowed for the State. I believe we should look at a larger context of how much our wilderness, our whole country deserves because these are Fed eral lands and they are owned by all the people. Also, we have the wilderness areas that do not know of State boundaries because the wilderness areas were here first. One exam ple would be Bitterroot which expands both in Idaho and in Mon tana. Another concern of mine is how opponents of wilderness delin eate between wilderness and nonwilderness lands. They're labeled nonwilderness lands multiple use, as if to insinuate that wilderness lands have only single use. I find it amazing that a nonwilderness area that permits logging, which destroys the spawning beds of trouts, damages watersheds, hampers biological research, creates ugliness, mars the pleasure of recreationists and does immeasurable harm to native plants and animals is somehow multiple use, while a system that perserves all those values, as does wilderness, is not multiple use. I favor wilderness designation for the Borah Peak area and for the White Clouds Mountains. 368 Wilderness designation for the Borah Peak area has little opposi tion, and I think it's appropriate to preserve the highest peak in the State in honor of one of our greatest public figures. As for the White Clouds, there are numerous reasons for wilder ness designations: The spawning grounds for the fish, which feed into the East Fork of the Salmon, and the deer and elk, which summer in this area. And then those who have hiked in the White Clouds would all agree on the special scenic and recreational values. These are all well worth preserving.