Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. McGlinsky. My name is Alfred McGlinsky and I live at 1500 Chase Street in Boise. We moved to Idaho 21 years ago and we own, with a family of friends, 400 acres of Teton County. I don't know whether we are talking about that today, but I must because I came from Idaho Falls. There we shared a fence a mile and half long with the Targee National Forest at the northern end of the Garns Moutain roadless area. It is interesting to note that this area is so remote and the tree growth rate so slight that it was never logged. Yet on June 28 the Forest Service offered the trees on the adjoin ing land for sale in a package called Grandview 2. They have scheduled to follow this January the Granview 1 sale. And the Kirkham Hollow sale with be in February next year. All the specified roads in this now roadless area are to be built with appropriated funds, courtesy of the rest of us taxpayers. I am opposed to such practices and I think it is especially hypo critical in this State whose national and State legislators are so quick and frequent in championing the free enterprise system. Even more importantly, though, I believe it is presumptuous to rush a once and for all decision on a matter so complex as the dis position of Idaho's remaining wilderness. There is no need to rush and there is danger in so doing since hastily conceived plans could not possibly digest and value all parts of the wilderness equation. I also believe that it is presumptuous to decide quickly how much of Idaho's wilderness to eradicate because to decide now, once and for all, would be to presume that we have the wisdom to speak ac curately on how future generations will need and value wilderness. Without question, Idaho's population, like that of the Northwest, the country, and the world, will double or perhaps triple, even before my own grandchildren die. That is an inescapable fact which I dislike intensely but it is one which convinces me of the folly of our thinking we could or should decide, even through such seemingly rational processes as this, what the future should be. How can we know what their resources and land use needs and preferences will be. For that reason, I am especially opposed to what we have come to call hard-release language. I much prefer the courtesy of letting future peoples determine what is in their own best interest. It follows naturally, then, that I believe that we should preserve all the existing wilderness areas that we possibly can as a cushion for the needs of a burgeoning population. And finally, should you ignore my concern about haste and go on to draft an Idaho wilderness bill, please be certain to protect at least one-half of the remaining 6.5 billion acres of national forest wilderness areas and to include all of the 10 areas in what has been called the endangered Idaho wilderness core. Thank you.