Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Ms. Edwards. Yes. Senator McClure and Senator Symms, glad you could make it here, I want to thank you for this time to express my views on the roadless areas. My name is Mardell Edwards, and I reside at Rt. 2, Grangeville, Idaho. I have lived in Idaho County all my life except for 2 years when my husband was in the service. I would like to paint a picture of Idaho for you, even more specifically, Idaho County. I have some maps and fact sheets to illustrate my concerns. I have been involved in this wilderness issue in Idaho from the beginning. As you all know Idaho has approximately 53 million acres, of which 33% million acres is federally owned. If you'll look at the map, the yellow and the pinkish down there is BLM land, which is federally owned. He tacked a map up there. And only parts of the white portions of that map is privately owned property. So that gives us a little better picture of our State than just the forest lands. And 2% million acres is State lands, leaving only 16% million acres of privately owned land with a population of 943,935. 697 Idaho County is the largest county in Idaho with 5,464,960 acres of which 96,000 acres are BLM land, and 4,432,982 acres of U.S. Forest lands, with all of the Nez Perce and parts of four other national forests within its boundaries, of which approximately 1.7 million acres is classified as Wilderness. This only leaves 935,978 acres of privately owned land in our county to support a population of 14,769. Yes, you heard right, we have more wilderness acres than private owned acres. The PILT money, or the payment in lieu of taxes, we receive is formulated according to acres, or not to exceed a set amount according to the population; which we received $434,000 in 1980. The forest funds or 25 percent of timber sales was decreased from $4,143,308.12 in 1979, to $1,061,224.98 in 1983 for our county. This drastically affects our revenues for county roads and schools. The timber industry has been very badly depressed and this affects all other economy in our area. Is it no wonder that Idaho has high unemployment, poor economy, and problems of funding the schools and local and state governments. When you look at this map, practically all areas of the State are affected by public land issues.