Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Jones. My name is Larry Jones. I had not planned on testi fying today, and I was previously under subpena in Orofino for a minerals trial. In the course of my work with the State of Idaho, I travel ap proximately 120 days a year in the entire State. I work with the surface and place mining in the State, in the area of reclamation. I would like to say that my personal views of the State, and I will follow up with specifics in written testimony, this year in the areas of Stanley and Salmon, I could not get a room in the town of Salmon, and I have a hard time eating meals because of river rafts and such. It appears that this has just been generated since the River of No Return Wilderness that there has been tremendous in crease in the interest of the river systems. A Forest Service employee told me that this year he can antici pate when the town of Salmon will no longer have a sawmill, and in fact it is being more or less overrun or crowded out by the other interests in the other groups. It seems that the people who want to hold onto the timber industry in some of these areas are going to be of a dying race, and that it is time to look to the newer things of the future of what the industry is going to there. The same is true of the town of Riggins where the sawmill burned a year or so ago. It has now been rebuilt, and this year the town is basically booming, and it is all in the interest of floating the main Salmon that is now part of the River of No Return Wil derness, the lower stretches of that river. I think the timberlands, my personal degree is in the area of for estry, looking at the close ranges and the southern treatment for your fiber needs. In Idaho, we should look at these other uses. They are long-term and they are going to be there. The minerals, explo ration, geochemical, geophysical go on. At this point, molybdenum is a strategic mineral in the White Clouds as such. We don't need to exploit these minerals at this time. As Senator Symms said, some 20 to 30 years from now, Congress can look at the issue again, and maybe be interested in some of these areas because of strategic needs. I agree, we should document those values and look at those as much as we can. I think we can do it with geochemical and geo physical means. I think the emphasis is there. We want to upgrade 560 the mineral program also. Look at the 1872 mining law and miner al leasing and why we give those minerals away, and don't sell them like timber. That's a tremendous loss and an injustice I think at this point. Thank you.