Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Ms. Miller. Karla Miller, K-a-r-l-a. Thanks very much for listening to our testimonies, legal testimonies I guess you call them. My name is Karla Miller. I grew up all my life in McCall, and I grew to love all the mountains around there, the lakes at Payette. I never worried about them being abused or hurt, because every thing was so big, and there was air, and space, and rocks, and trees, and water, and no stifle time, and it didn't matter. I loved it so much, and I still do. I went away to Massachusetts for 2 years to go to school, and learned and saw all the things that were back there, like acid rain in the Adirondacks that wilts all the trees instead of giving them anything to drink. Toxic waste that lie along the road in New Jersey. All I could think of with all of this industrialization and pave ment, and crap around me was thank God, I can still go home to Idaho, and everything will be OK again. I am going to make sure that that doesn't happen here. Obviously it is not the same problems in Idaho as there are in New Jersey or New York, but the effects of industry and develop ment are the same, because I still feel the sickness in my stomach when I see a clearcut, and when I see sheep that have destroyed a whole meadow for how many years, and I can't drink out of a stream. I feel the same thing that I did when I saw the rainbowcolored ponds in New Jersey. I am still young, and still full of optimism. That may sound silly, because most of the people who have talked, they seem really bitter. But because I do come home and see that nature still works, and everything is OK I am almost done. I am the last one. Ms. Miller. It is rugged, it is beautiful, and I love it. I refuse to believe that we can ignore the lessons that should have been taught to us by the other places that are ruined. I refuse to believe that you would sacrifice the wild lands for the immediate benefits of industry around here like they have on the east coast, and other places in the world. I am mostly concerned with the Payette area, because that's what I know the most, and that's what I love, but I strongly sup port protection of all 10 areas that are entitled Endangered Wilder ness Core proposed by the Conservation League. I ask you to consider to make sure that the options are always left open for further consideration of wilderness, and I ask that you use your head, because we all need to use our heads, and not let it get spoiled, and we need to use ours. Thanks so much.