Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Brigham. Thank you, Senator. I would like to advocate a great deal more wilderness in Idaho with particular reference to the Clearwater National Forest. The last half-century I've gone out to personally—not only once, but many times I've seen the list of these roadless areas first hand time and again. The list goes as follows here. First there's the Grandmother Mountain area northeast of Clarkia. Then there's the Mallard Larkins area further to the east. There's the Great Burn area which includes the headwaters to Kelley Creek. It extends into Montana. There's an area in Cayuse Creek which is a beautiful pristine area at which it joins anther area called Bighorn Weitas and a smaller area south of Kelley Creek called Moose Mountain. Further into the headwaters is the Lochsa and we have 479 Elk Summit. Another tributary to the Lochsa which is highly critical for fish production—anadromous fish is Fish Creek. Now, I've seen all these areas. At the same time I've designed sawmills all that length of time. And when you go from one place to another from up in the high mountains back of the sawmill, you get an idea of what it takes to run a mill. And from what I've seen up there, most of the ideas people have about operating sawmills on the kinds of timber available in these areas are pipe dreams. You can't run a mill if you don't have some logs. And the logs that have been raised up there are scattered and of small size. And they take so long to grow that I don't see how in the world they're ever going to make anything out of it if they's consider the long term. The watershed value, however, is important. A few years ago my daughter took a trip to the Middle East and reported when she got back that in many European cities in the Middle East the only water available is bottled spring water. We don't want to let Idaho get to that horrible state. With the water gone and the resources washing down the stream over there, about all the people seem to think about is how the mountain artillery is doing shooting each other off. We need to keep our resources here on hand so we can find some other pastime. Now, this is—these areas are excessively steep. I used to serve as a lookout on Sawtooth Peak. And you could roll a rock right down from behind the lookout and see it go for a long ways down into the Sawtooth Creek. It practically rolled clear down into the creek. Another example, on the Eagle Peak lookout had to get the cans out of sight so it would pass inspection so the Forest Service wouldn't see them. And he just tossed them off of the back porch over a bluff. And they rolled down there far enough that you'd have to take you a half day to go down there where they were.