Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Stacey. Senator McClure, thank you for coming today. I've been an Idaho resident for 14 years and have enjoyed the wilderness areas as you have no doubt. I am speaking to urge you to include the Selkirk Crest, the Salmo-Priest area, and the Long Canyon area ideally suited for wilderness use. And I would also ask you to proceed with great caution on Idaho's roadless lands. I think that should we decide to harvest those timbered lands, we should look to the need at the time of the harvest rather than just making a decision now that will be binding in the future. We've— as Mr. Reed made a statement earlier, we've made many mistakes in government and I would like to echo that sentence. Second, it makes good economic sense to include wilderness in northern Idaho. The use of the Salmo area, an area I'm most familiar with, has seen increased use in the past 13, 14 years. Considerable increased use in the past 13, 14 years. It is not just a few people. It's very difficult to go up there on the weekend in the summer and not see other parties. So I would ask you to keep that in mind when you—when you make this proposal. When it comes to economic sense, we must look at what brings people to Idaho. As a boy growing up in New York, I have viewed Idaho for its wilderness. We came to Idaho—those of us who were not natives—bringing our skills and our professions thinking of a beautiful place to live. Not so much thinking of some of the clearcut areas that have been questioningly managed in the past.