Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

FERRY, IDAHO Mayor Kerby. I am Darrell Kerby, acting mayor and president of the Bonners Ferry City Council. I am offering the following testimony on behalf of the city of Bonners Ferry, Idaho. In my packet you will find a copy of Bonners Ferry Resolution No. 83-4, which passed unanimously, stating that the city supports multiple use management for the Long Canyon area and a continuation of the 1971 Joint State of Idaho—U.S. Forest Service Management Plan for the Selkirk Crest. Over the past several years we have become increasingly alarmed over the slow methodical loss of this economic base, the national forest land, to single use rather than multiple use. The effect of this acreage being removed out of timber production is fairly dramatic. For the past years the annual allowable harvest have been determined by taking into consideration the total annual growth in a given area. As this production area decreased by the removing of thousands of acres, the total annual growth also declines. This, of course, causes the annual allowable harvest to decline by the amount of production removed, but it has a further complication in that it—the annual harvest—not only has to be reduced for the acreage no longer available, but has to be reduced low enough to take care of the overcutting that has taken place over the last 40 to 50 years when these areas had been included in the timber resource base. Long Canyon and its adjacent drainages of Fisher, Farnum, and Parker Creek amounted to 83,903 acres. The Long Canyon portion of this acreage is slightly over 20,000 acres. The Long Canyon area 12 has one of the highest site indices—55 to 80—in Boundary County. This is a reading showing the height growth of new timber in 50 years. Long Canyon is definitely a highly desirable commercial area for lumber production. Is our area lacking wilderness recreation experience? No; 25,000 acres have already been set aside in the Boulder Creek area of Boundary County for primitive recreation. Approximately 40 miles southeast of Bonners Ferry there exists the already congressionally designated wilderness area known as the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness comprising 94,272 acres. All in all, there exists today 6,694,522 acres of wilderness proclaimed by Congress within 1 day's drive of Bonners Ferry. How much is enough? As far as our State is concerned, of all 50 States, Idaho is first in the percent of national forests lands already proclaimed as wilderness. In total acreage in proclaimed wilderness areas, Idaho is second only to the State of Alaska. This issue, as we see it, is not wilderness versus clearcut. We see multiple purpose