Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Daniels. I appreciate this, Senator. My comments basically will be limited to some of the area that you are so familiar with, your old hunting country in Iron Moun tain, Mann Creek, Robinson Creek, that area north of PayetteWeiser, and west of Council, Cutty Mountain, that area. I don't know if you have had any opportunities since January of 1967 when you went back to Congress to do any hunting, and it is unfortunate if that is the case, because if you had, I think you would be relatively surprised as to what has been going on. The old Weiser National Forest as the early day foresters have managed it is entirely different. The watershed devastation is just immense. The Weiser River, proposed Weiser River-Galloway Dam that so many people across the State highly talk about is being jeopardized by the sediment production coming off of that 400-plus square miles of national forest land all because of a vast departure of sus tained yield production accompanied with accelerated road con struction program whereby logs used, what do I want to say, dol lars in exchange for road construction by Boise Cascade, Evergreen and other mills. You can just see the handwriting on the wall in that country is that what has happened, either the Evergreen Mill or the Council Sawmill or Boise Cascade by 1995 is going to be gone, or going to be another Riggins casualty or another McCall casualty. You can just see the handwriting on the wall. The elk habitats have deteriorated. It is just amazing to speak to natives and visit with the old-timers — well, people my age, that feel like it is just modern-day forestry, and that this is what hard re lease is going to amount to. It is very questionable for what good business sense this amounts to. Thank you for this opportunity.