Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Calhoun. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. I was born in Orofino, Idaho, and currently live in Orofino, Idaho. And I was raised in Orofino, Idaho, except for a short time in the service, I've always lived in Idaho. I think the main importance in that is that growing up, some of the most valuable time I've spent was enjoying the wilderness or the woods and streams in the North Fork drainage. I'm here mainly to speak in relation to Cayuse Creek, Kelly Creek, and Toboggan Ridge. I'm very familiar with the area having fished it and hunted it a lot. And it's extremely beautiful, extremely valuable area for the fishing and wildlife. A friend of mine, a husband of one of my secretaries, works as a fish and game biologist for Kelly Creek District. He has been part of a study in that area as I understand it. And he says that the logging up there—well, first, the timber up there, I think, is well accepted by the people out there that the timber is not worth the value it s going to cost to build the road. It's mainly lodgepole pine. Also, the soil out there is very poor quality decomposed granite. And the terrain is extremely steep. It's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to ever reforest the area once it's logged if it is logged. Also because of that, the soil quality and the inability to reforest it is going to cause a lot of siltation in a lot of the cedar streams for Kelly Creek and Cayuse Creek which are the breeding streams for the cutthroat that are in the area and are a very valuable resource. I think it would be a real tragedy to log that and to harm such a beautiful fishing stream and such a beautiful country in such a way that it's probably going to be impossible to replace. Generally as to wilderness area and this type of thing, I—I'm a lawyer in Orofino. I work as prosecuting attorney in Orofino. And my financial well-being to a great extent depends on the local economy which is to a great extent dependent on the logging industry. And I do think that there should be timber available to log. My understanding of the recent economic problems are that it's a result of interest rates and lack of demand rather than a lack of timber.