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Senator HECHT. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mr. George Lea.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE D. LEA, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE, SOCIETY FOR RANGE MANAGEMENT, MCLEAN, VA

Mr. LEA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am George Lea, a member and representative of the Society of Range Management. It is my pleasure and honor to present the following statement on behalf of the Society on S. 2506.

The Society is an international organization dedicated to helping people properly use and manage their rangeland resources of the world. Membership in the Society is open to everyone engaged in or interested in any aspect of the study, management, and use of rangelands.

The Society advocates and encourages multiple use management of both public and private rangelands for the production of the tangible and intangible values desired by society. National Park management of the public lands covered by S. 2506 would prohibit hunting, mineral development, and off-road vehicle use and restrictive measures on domestic livestock grazing. We understand that further restrictions tend to be phased in after establishment of a new National Park—that is, some uses that may be initially permitted may become more restrictive or prohibited over time.

Mr. Chairman, the Society is unaware of any resource condition in the area that requires increased protection or improvement that would necessitate a change of management agency. In fact, the current multiple-use management of the Forest Service and private ownership has protected the basic land resources, wild producing products, while generating conditions that may qualify the area for National Park consideration today. In addition, to our knowledge the local people of the area are quite happy with the current resource management efforts.

Section 3(f) of the proposed bill enables the Secretary of Agriculture to exchange grazing use in the Park for grazing use within the Humboldt National Forest. As we understand the situation in the Humbolt, all grazing use that is allowable has been allocated long ago making such an exchange unworkable without the development of surplus forage through expensive range development meas

ures.

In conclusion, the Society for Range Management has found the best approach to rangeland management is to provide a mix of balanced uses. The best process to accomplish this is through a coordinated resource management and planning process currently being followed by the Forest Service in the area. We support the continuation of the current situation and the use of this planning process for multiple use resource allocation and subsequent management. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. [The prepared statement of Mr. Lea follows:]

SRM SOCIETY FOR RANGE MANAGEMENT

STATEMENT BY THE SOCIETY FOR RANGE MANAGEMENT REGARDING S. 52506

"A BILL TO ESTABLISH A GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK"

BEFORE THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS, RESERVED WATER AND

RESOURCE CONSERVATION

Management.

I am George D. Lea, a member and representative of the Society for Range It is my pleasure and honor to present the following testimony in behalf of the Society on S. 52506, a Bill to establish a Great Basin National Park in Nevada. The Society is an international organization dedicated to helping people properly use and manage the rangeland resources of the world. Membership in the Society is open to everyone engaged in or interested

Range

in any aspect of the study, management or use of rangeland. Rangeland is a broad category of land, comprising 40-45 percent of the land area of the United States and producing a variety of resources beneficial to man. resources include both tangible and intangible products: grazeable forage, wildlife habitat, water, natural beauty, recreational opportunities, minerals, wood products, germ plasam for domestication and breeding, open space, and areas for ecological studies of natural systems.

The Society advocates and encourages multiple use management of both public and private rangelands for the production of the tangible and intangible

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values desired by society.

National Park management of the public lands covered by S. 52506 would prohibit hunting, mineral development, and off-road vehicle uses and restrictive measures on domestic livestock grazing. We understand that further restrictions tend to be phased in after establishment of a new national park. That is, some uses that may be initially permitted may become more restrictive or prohibited over time.

The Society is unaware of any resource condition in the area that requires increased protection or improvement that would necessitate a change of management agency. In fact the current multiple use management under Forest Service and private ownership has protected the basic land resources, producing products, while generating conditions that may qualify the area for national park consideration today. In addition, to our knowledge the local people of the area are quite happy with the current resource management efforts.

Section 3 (f) of the proposed bill enables the Secretary of Agriculture to exchange grazing use in the Park for grazing use within the Humbolt National Forest. As we understand the situation in the Humbolt, all grazing use that is allowable has been allocated long ago making such an exchange unworkable without the development of surplus forage through expensive range development measures.

The Society for Range Management has found the best approach to rangeland management is to provide a mix of balanced uses. The best process to accomplish this is through a coordinated resource management and planning process currently being followed by the Forest Service in the area. We support the continuance of the current situation and the use to this planning process for multiple use

resource allocation and subsequent management.

Senator HECHT. And we thank you very much.

Mr. Charles Callison.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. CALLISON, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC LANDS INSTITUTE, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL Mr. CALLISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am testifying today not only for the Public Lands Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is this Nation's largest environmental law organization with more than 40,000 members, but also in behalf of Mr. Charles S. Watson, Jr., director of the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association whose headquarters are in Carson City.

Mr. Chairman, we of course endorse 2506 as far as it goes. The trouble with it is, as has been pointed out here by fellow witnesses, it does not take advantage of the last best opportunity to create an adequate Great Basin Park. It would, Mr. Chairman, create a token park, and one that is unbecoming to the State of Nevada which has a reputation for thinking big and doing things properly. Respectfully, we urge the subcommittee to lay aside S. 2506 and report instead H.R. 3302, the House-passed bill that also is pending on your committee's calendar. The House bill would establish a decent-sized national park of 129,500 acres to be adjoined by a national preserve of 45,500 acres. S. 2506 proposes a park of only 44,000 acres and no preserve. Even the acreage in this House bill is minimal.

NORA-Mr. Watson's organization-and other conservation organizations have always supported a Great Basin National Park of the dimensions proposed in 1956 by Darwin Lambert who is sitting here at my left. I would like to say that I feel honored to be a member of the same panel with Mr. Lambert. When he made his proposal, along with Mr. Weldon Heald, another leading conservationist, Mr. Lambert was editor of the Ely Times. Their plan would have preserved and protected 240,000 acres.

Mr. Watson, a geologist, recalls that the so-called mineral wealth of the Mount Saint Washington-of the Mount Washington-Lincoln Canyon consists of a single pegmatite lens with approximately 100 hederite crystals sprinkled in clear quartz. That laughably is the strategic beryllium deposit that the Kennecott Co. cited to kill the original Great Basin Park bill 25 years ago.

Passage of 2506 by the Senate would create such a divergence with the House that a conference committee agreement would be highly unlikely. Passage of a Senate park bill without the 11 new wilderness areas on National Forest lands that are also included in H.R. 3302 would likely result in the same conference stalemate.

Respectfully, we hope the members of this subcommittee will not lend themselves to a strategy designed to assure that neither a National Park nor a new wilderness will be established in Nevada by this Congress.

I thank you for the opportunity to express our views which, Mr. Chairman, are strongly held.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Callison follows:]

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Statement by Charles H. Callison, Director, Public Lands
Institute, a Division of the Natural Resources Defense
Council

To the Subcommittee on Public Lands, Reserved Water and
Resource Conservation:

I am testifying today not only for the Public Lands Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, but also at the request of, and in behalf of, Mr. Charles S. Watson, Jr., director of the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association whose headquarters are in Carson City.

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We are pleased that the subcommittee is taking up legislation to establish a Great Basin National Park, Such a park will fill a conspicuous omission in the National Park System. It is long overdue. In a way it is incomprehensible that more than a century after Congress established Yellowstone National Park during that 114 years our National Park System has grown to encompass some 335 areas and 79 million acres -- no area has been added to that system to represent and preserve the remarkable geology, ecology, scenery and biota that typify the Great Basin that lies between the Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains.

We of course endorse S. 2506 as far as it goes. The
trouble with it is that it doesn't take advantage of the
last, best opportunity to create an adequate Great Basin
Park. Respectfully we urge the subcommittee to lay aside
S. 2506 and report instead H.R. 3302, the House-passed bill
that also is pending on your committee calendar.

The House bill would establish a decent-sized National Park of 129,500 acres to be adjoined by a National Preserve of 45,500 acres. S. 2506 proposes a park of only 44,000 acres and no preserve. Even the acreage in this House bill is minimal. NORA and other conservation organizations have always supported a Great Basin National Park of the dimensions

PUBLIC LANDS INSTITUTE IS A DIVISION OF NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, INC.

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