Senator HECHT. And I thank you very much. Mr. Joseph Griggs. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH F. GRIGGS, JR., FREE ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATES, INC., BAKER, NV Mr. GRIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate this opportunity to speak. I am a 20-year resident of the area under discussion and a past employee of the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service in the South Snake Range for 9 years. My field of expertise is interpretation. In my opinion, this park should not be created for several reasons, but I want to stress the importance of one of them: the credibility of information used by promoters of this park to describe the qualifications of the area for park status. This would be a substandard park-not slightly substandard; unacceptably substandard. In 1974 Robert S. Waite published his doctoral dissertation at UCLA. It is titled "The Proposed Great Basin National Park: A Geographical Interpretation of the Southern Snake Range, Nevada." Since 1974, this document has become the bible of proponents of this park. Almost all of the promotional material I have seen in print in the last 10 years relies heavily on this document. Every legislator in this Congress whom I have heard speak on this subject in the last 7 months, except for you this morning, Senator Hecht, has relied almost exclusively on information originally published in this work. Most of what the Sierra Club publishes about the South Snake Range is tainted by this work. It is easily traceable as a source because of its many errors. In the 12 years it has been around, it has done a lot of damage. This document is a park proposal and recommends the area for classification as a national park, yet its author claims that it is an objective, even scientific study. It is neither objective nor scientific. It is junk, j-u-n-k. Dr. Waite fulfilled the format requirements for his Ph.D. and, having known him since 1966, I am sure that he did not intend to disseminate false information. He is well meaning and a person of integrity. But there was in 1974 and there is no one now in the academic world who could reasonably be expected to judge or correct the accuracy of his information about this little-known area. Let me cite three examples of the kinds of problems created by Dr. Waite's thesis. First, Dr. Waite describes what he calls the Wheeler Peak Glacier, or Glacieret. He says it is a remnant of the Pleistocene Glacier which carved the cirque in the canyon in which it is found. This is not true. It is a subsequent snowdrift, essentially, which bears no relation to the Pleistocene Glacier. Waite further contends that this glacieret is a permanent feature on the mountain and therefore represents a "geographical anomaly." At the latitude where Wheeler Peak is situated, permanent ice would not normally be found below the 15,000-foot level. Wheeler Peak is about 13,000 feet high. Yet, Waite insists that permanent ice is found at 11,000 feet on Wheeler Peak along with tundra-like plants, a geographical anomaly. I am not sure what Dr. Waite means by tundra-like plants. There is no tundra on Wheeler Peak. There is no permafrost there, no permanent ice. What he calls the glacieret has melted away entirely at least three times since 1930. It reappears during recurring cycles of heavy precipitation. Second example: The section devoted to bristlecone pines in Waite's dissertation is 33 pages long. I found one substantive error for every five sentences in this section. Third example: Dr. Waite predicts that 500,000 people each year will be visiting the park by the year 2000. Senator HECHT. You will have to summarize. Mr. GRIGGS. In conclusion, the suitability of the South Snake Range for national park status has been widely represented. Reliable information on this subject is rare. The public does not want any oversold substandard parks. The National Park Service cannot afford any. Local residents do not want to have to deal with disappointed visitors. Do not create this park. Leave us free to find better solutions to the economic woes of White Pine County, Nevada. Thank you. [The material submitted by Mr. Griggs follows:] WAITE A MINUTE! A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK PROPOSAL BY JOSEPH F. GRIGGS, JR. FREE ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATES, INC. P.O. BOX 413 795 AVENUE "E" EAST ELY, NEVADA 89315 (702) 289-8560 In 1924 and in 1959 proposals to establish a national park in the South Snake Range of eastern Nevada (White Pine County) were made in the form of bills introduced in the Congress of the United States. Each time, these proposals were initiated by a small group of occasional visitors to the area and were supported and promoted by some environmentalist groups and by the White Pine Chamber of Commerce. This organization, composed primarily of businesspeople in the county seat at Ely, Nevada, was interested in increasing tourist traffic to Ely. Opposition to these proposals developed quickly among several groups: 1) Residents of the immediate vicinity of the proposed park, people who live on the slopes of the South Snake Range mountains and in the adjacent valleys; 2) 3) 4) The professional societies of farmers, ranchers, Sportsmen's organizations at local and state Environmentalists who felt that the proposed area In 1924, discussion of the issue was limited to a few civic leaders at county, state and national levels. Between 1955 and 1959, however, the debate reached public meetings, service clubs, environmentalist organizations, households and bars throughout the state. Ultimately, these bills to create a "Great Basin National Park" were defeated because they failed to receive the support of Nevada's full delegation of national legislators. In 1978, another proposal was made and widely discussed. The boundaries of the park in this proposal were greatly enlarged to include large portions of valleys surrounding the South Snake Range. Thus, several ranches and other significant private holdings (land, mineral claims and grazing allotments) were sought by the park promoters. Opposition to this proposal was |