Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Ms. Williams. I am also a native of northern Idaho. I grew up in the Wallace-Kellogg area with a valley full of slag piles and tailing heaps out my front door. Barren hillsides leveled since the fire of 1910 would grow only sparse brush because of the polluted air and soil. A winding dirty grey river coursed its way along stinky dead banks. We called it Lead Creek. As kids we would tell newcomers, 'That's how we ship silver to Coeur d’Alene.' I guess we made up such stories to hide our embarrassment and shame for the environment we lived in. There's no one who can appreciate better a stand of old-growth cedar with 7- or 8-foot diameters or a sparkling creek full of cutthroat trout better than we can. We need wilderness in Idaho. We need it in northern Idaho. We don't want to have to take a 3-week extended vacation to southern Idaho to have our wilderness experience. We have approximately 50,000 acres in northern Idaho that need wilderness classification to insure protection. 126 Long Canyon-Selkirk Crest with its Long Canyon drainage, an 18-mile long glacially carved valley with its old-growth forests of cedar, pine, and hemlock and potential habitat for rare wildlife. Farther north is the Salmo-Priest area. This area is similar to an inland rain forest with giant red cedars 3,000 years old, grizzlybears, and mountain caribou. Senator, I ask that you support the soft release of these areas as designated wilderness for us Idahoans for future Idahoans and for those out of staters that come here to support Idaho's third largest industry which is tourism. Wouldn't it be great if Idaho became famous for its wilderness as well as for its famous potatoes?