Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Murray. Thank you, Senator. Senator McClure, Senator Symms, I thank you for letting me be here today. Most of the points I wanted to cover have already been covered. So I'll just say that I urge you both to support the 10 point Endangered Idaho Wilderness Core. And I'll prefer it with soft release rather than hard release language as an important—also, one area I'd like to touch on is an area called Isabella Creek and Elenor Creek area. Which is a part of the Mallard-Larkins area and could be considered wilderness in the future. There is a cedar grove there that is known as the Heritage Cedar Grove. And it's a stand of old growth cedar. Very large trees. And I think it's important and ironic that it is called Heritage Cedar Grove and that it has been passed down 739 from past generations to us. And I think it is our responsibility to preserve certain areas for future generations even though it is undoubtedly good timber and could bring, I suppose, monetary gain. We must balance that sometimes. It's assumed that there are other things that are more valuable than money and perhaps the old growth forest, such as, the Heritage Grove, is worthy of being preserved. I think it has increased there a pristine. They are beautiful. It's very lucid water. There's a lot of wildlife. And it's ironic because just down the road there's a Black Creek that has been logged to the edge of the creek. Timber has been flagged and roothaul has been pushed into the creek. And you can't even find the creek. It's buried beneath waste and nothing is there. There's no fishing in there. There is fishing in the Isabella Creek and Mallard Creek area so I think we should preserve some of this. And it is a heritage our our heritage passed to us and it may be passed to future generations. It is important to preserve some old growth forests in this area.