Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

MANAGER, SAWTOOTH FOREST PRODUCTS Mr. Johnston. My name is Jim Johnston. I am president and general manager of Sawtooth Forest Products, a small sawmill in Mountain Home, Idaho. We process about 12 to 14 million feet a year and are 90 to 95 percent dependent upon U.S. Forest Service timber. We operate mainly on the Mountain Home district of the Boise National Forest and the Fairfield district of the Sawtooth National Forest. The program harvest of these two districts will just barely supply our necessary volume. In fact, the sawmill at Fairfield that had op erated almost 2 years was recently permanently closed down be cause a lack of supply of natural resource for a continued oper ation. Any more commercial forest land in our area placed in a nonharvest designation will definitely reduce the size of an already small sawmill or completely close them. The normal planning process of the Forest Service on our nation al forest already reduced this program harvest of timber for many other legitimate uses. Some of the reasons that I feel these programs should be final ized is we, being a small company, find it essential that we must know whether we have an opportunity to purchase timber on a long-range basis in order to — for long-term investment and to pro vide opportunities for stable employment which would attract good, essential people. I thank you for this opportunity to be here and I do feel that we should continue to work for a release on this.