Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Cliff, this all has to do with the question of erosion as much as anything else. The question resolves itself into a question of degree, does it not? I think you have, as I have, seen horse trails where erosion took place with excessive and constant use, which was just as detrimental to the area as a wilderness area as use by mechanized vehicles; is that not correct? Mr. CLIFF. It is true that an excessively used horse trail can create erosion. That is one of the problems we have in these areas. We try to design our trail systems so that we can avoid that kind of abuse. The fact that a horse trail can be damaging is not in my mind justification for permitting mechanized travel in a wilderness area. Mr. ASPINALL. I would agree with you on that. But I think I prefaced my question with it being a question of degree of use, as much as anything else. This morning we had a reference to part of the bill which would seem to suggest, at least, that we would have certain facilities built within wilderness areas for administrative purposes. Is it your understanding that there will be any necessity in building facilities of any size or appreciable amount within these areas for administration purposes? Secretary FREEMAN. The bill itself, of course, provides a good degree of discretion in connection with appropriate management, and, as such, necessary actions can be taken. The erection of any sizable structures is not something that would be contemplated, and I think would be most unusual. Mr. ASPINALL. Construction by Government for purpose of administration would be just as foreign to protection of the wilderness idea as construction of a facility by an individual for his enjoyment or his use; would it not? Secretary FREEMAN. Yes, sir. Mr. ASPINALL. Madam Chairman, I have a few pieces of correspondence. One is a letter dated March 1, 1962, addressed to me and signed by Edward C. Crafts, then Assistant Chief of the Forest Service, in answer to some problems relative to primitive and wild areas in Colorado. I would ask that that correspondence be made a part of the record at this point. Also, I addressed a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture on April 9, 1962, relative to withholding certain administrative action by the Department of Agriculture on wilderness preservation matters during consideration of this legislation. I received an answer on April 17, 1962, requesting an answer from me. I answered as of April 18, 1962. I would like to ask unanimous consent that they be placed into the record. Mrs. Prost. Without objection, these letters will be placed into the record. Is there objection? Hearing none, it is so ordered. (Letters referred to follow :) DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE, Hon. WAYNE N. ASPINALL, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1962. Chairman, Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: In response to the inquiry of February 27 from Mr. Pearl of your staff, the following is the listing of wild and primitive areas in Colorado and the elevational range of each. There are no wilderness areas in your State. Name Maroon Bells-Snowmass_. Mount Zirkel-Dome Peak__ Rawah___ West Elk Wild areas Range in elevation (feet) La Garita (reclassified Nov. 22, 1961, from La Garita-Sheep 9, 000-14, 300 8, 900-12, 200 9,000-13, 000 6, 500-12, 900 10, 000-14, 100 If you need additional information on these areas please let me know. EDWARD C. CRAFTS, Assistant Chief. COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN, Washington, D.C., April 9, 1962. Hon. ORVILLE L. FREEMAN, Department of Agriculture, DEAR MR. SECRETARY: As you know, we have scheduled hearings to be held by the Public Lands Subcommittee on S. 174 and similar bills designed to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System. It is therefore possible that action on such legislation may be completed this session of Congress. It is suggested that further administrative action by you or the Forest Service to either create additional wilderness-type areas or change the status of such areas, for example from "primitive" to "wilderness," be suspended during the remainder of the 87th Congress or until action on Wilderness Preservation System legislation is completed. Your concurrence will assure Members that the status in existence at the time of consideration of the measure in the committee will remain at the time of possible enactment. DEAR MR. ASPINALL: This is in response to your letter of April 9 suggesting that we suspend action involving the establishment or reclassification of wilderness, wild, or primitive areas on the national forests pending congressional action on S. 174. We appreciate the desire of your committee to act upon S. 174 on the basis of a definite number and acreage of wilderness, wild, and primitive areas on the national forests and that it would be disrupting to your deliberations to have any changes made in these areas while you were considering S. 174. We will be glad to suspend administrative action affecting the size and classification of these areas until the 87th Congress adjourns. Presently there are three primitive areas for which public notice of intent to reclassify has been given and public hearings have been held on two of these with final decisions still pending. We are also being urged to hold a public hearing regarding modifying an existing wild area. If we are pressed for a reason to explain further delay in acting upon these, we would like to feel free to advise interested parties of your request for suspension of action. In this connection, we suggest that it might be advantageous to both of us for you to publicize your request and our agreement. Sincerely yours, FRANK J. WELCH, Assistant Secretary. COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, Hon. FRANK J. WELCH, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN, Washington, D.C.. April 18, 1962. DEAR MR. WELCH: Thank you for your prompt acknowledgment of my letter of April 9 and your agreement in my suggestion that there be no changes made in the wilderness-type areas during consideration by the committee of legislation designed to establish a wilderness preservation system. You certainly may feel free to advise interested parties of our request and your agreement therein. I concur in your suggestion that it would be advantageous to “publicize” this agreement. Accordingly, I plan to make reference to it during the course of the hearings by the Public Lands Subcommittee and to offer for the record of the wilderness hearings our exchange of correspondence. Sincerely yours, WAYNE N. ASPINALL, Chairman. Mrs. Prost. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Mr. SAYLOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I take this opportunity to welcome you before this committee. As the chairman states, we have jurisdiction over all the national forests created out of the public domain, but due to certain rules and regulations, most of the legislation which the Department sends up here ends up before the Agriculture Committee. I do, on occasion, see the Chief of Forest Service, his predecessor and now Mr. Cliff, and I want to commend you on the man you have picked for this job. I feel personally you have picked a very able individual. Secretary FREEMAN. Thank you. Mr. SAYLOR. I would also like to commend you on your statement which you sent to the committee on April 5, and say that you are continuing what your predecessors have done since 1956 when I was among those that introduced the first wilderness bill. That is to submit a favorable report. I am delighted with your report. Let me ask you this: In the establishment of wilderness-type areas which have been in effect for 37 years in the Department of Agricul ture, has there been any evidence of pressure by local groups to have the Department of Agriculture change the classification that you have given to an area? Secretary FREEMAN. Yes. Mr. SAYLOR. And each time that that pressure has been placed upon the Department, is it not to remove the protection that Secretaries of Agriculture have placed about certain segments of our national forests? Secretary FREEMAN. Yes. Mr. SAYLOR. Do you find, Mr. Secretary, that there is more pressure to remove areas from the wilderness classification than there is from the wild, primitive, or canoe areas? Secretary FREEMAN. No. I think they have generally been pretty much the same. We have administered them pretty much the same. Mr. SAYLOR. I believe that the records of the Department of Agriculture will indicate that in the past 37 years there has only been one area where it has been necessary to change its basic classification and remove it from this protection; is that correct? Secretary FREEMAN. That is my understanding. Mr. SAYLOR. Would you, for the benefit of the record, or Mr. Cliff, give us the area and the history of that project? Mr. CLIFF. Actually, there is this one example, and then there is another circumstance I might comment upon. The one I am sure you are referring to is the Mount Shavano primitive area, which was established in 1932 in Colorado, about 32,000 acres. At the time it was established, it had mining claims in it, but it was an old mining area and it appeared at that time that it had been worked out or there was no further interest in mining. During the war, there was a revival of mining activity and the area was churned up with mining roads, bulldozer prospecting, and that sort of thing, until it no longer met the qualifications as a primitive area, and it was discontinued as such in 1944. There was one other area in Washington that was transferred over in large part to the Olympic National Park when it was established. There were three small segments remaining in the national forest, no one of which qualified by itself as a wilderness area, and the remnants were discontinued. That is the only other exception. There have been some eliminations, boundary changes, and some additions in the reclassification procedure, as we proceed to reclassify primitive areas into wild or wilderness areas. Mr. ASPINALL. If my colleague will yield to me, in regard to the Shavano area, would you say, Mr. Cliff, that perhaps that was too hastily taken into the primitive area classification, or was it the use demanded of it during wartime that made it impossible of administration? Mr. CLIFF. In restrospect, Congressman Aspinall, I would say that that was one area, because of the presence of rather large numbers of mining claims and a mineralized history, that possibly a mistake was made in classifying it in the first place. In the reclassification of the 38 remaining primitive areas which constitute over half of the national forest wilderness-type system I certainly think we must take into account the presence of patented land and mineralized areas, and unpatented mining claims. Mr. ASPINALL. Of course, this particular area has gone back to the status in which it was when it was first created as a primitive area now, and there is no particular mining activity going on in that area at the present time. Mr. CLIFF. It has subsided, and the area, insofar as the Federal land is concerned, is managed as any other national forest land would be managed. Mr. ASPINALL. With recreational facilities which are necessary to its enjoyment for that purpose. Mr. CLIFF. I am not sure whether developed recreational facilities are there. It is rough, mountainous area, as you know. have some developed recreational areas in it, but I doubt it. Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you. We may Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Secretary, when I left this hearing this morning and went over to the floor, I was accosted by two Members of the House, one from each of our major political parties, with some rather startling accusations. They accused me of supporting a bill which had as its main purpose the retention of allowing the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to take hundreds of thousands of acres of land that are now in private ownership, indiscriminately classify them as wild, wilderness, primitive or canoe areas, and to disrupt communities wherever they may be found, and to ruthlessly place all of this land in wilderness classification. I want to ask you as the present Secretary of Agriculture whether or not, in the performance of your duties and in preparation of this report there is any intention upon your part to classify any areas as "wilderness," "wild," "primitive," or "canoe" that do not presently come under your jurisdiction? Secretary FREEMAN. No, sir. Mr. ASPINALL. In other words, what we are talking about, Mr. Secretary, is a bill which will give the status of an act of Congress to the acts of Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior for the past 37 years? Secretary FREEMAN. That is correct. Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Secretary, I want to commend you for the manner in which your Department is handling these affairs. I certainly wish you well in continued management of them, and I look forward to the successful passage of this bill which your recommend. Secretary FREEMAN. Thank you. Mrs. PrOST. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Alaska. Is grazing allowed in primitive areas? Secretary FREEMAN. Yes. Mr. RIVERS. Does that apply to the so-called wild areas also? Mr. RIVERS. I want to be sure I understood you correctly. At the beginning of your testimony or during your prepared statement I think you stated that you thought that wild and primitive areas should be included in wilderness, in the course of this period of time, and then be reviewed to see how much should be kept. Did you say that? Secretary FREEMAN. What I said was that the present primitive areas, the present classification, which, generally speaking, is administered the same as wilderness areas, these would be reviewed within the time limits set down in this bill, and a recommendation made to the Congress as to whether they should continue to be administered as a |