a freight line to carry supplies from the Central Valley to the southern mining regions of the mother lode before the turn of the century. Unlike most urban areas of our State, our county has not increased in population to any major degree in the last 20 years. Tuolumne County now has a population of a little over 14,400, less than it had in 1956. In the early gold mining days the population was many times this number. Columbia, an early mining community now a State park, at one time was incorporated and itself had a population in excess of 15,000 people.

Much of the economy of our county depends now on the expenditures of winter and summer recreation seekers. We have a major winter ski area along Sonora Pass which on some weekends handles over 10,000 people daily. Seventy-five percent of our county is owned by the Federal Government. Most of the Federal holdings are administered by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Stanislaus National Forest. The balance lies in Yosemite National Park.

I pack into the Emigrant Basin Primitive Area frequently and have spent my vacations there almost annually for many years. This region of the Stanislaus National Forest would, of course, be automatically classified as part of the wilderness system proposed by S. 174, should the bill pass.

It involves a gross area of 98,043 acres with about 1,000 acres of privately owned land included within the present boundary. The southern portion of the Emigrant Basin Primitive Area contains watersheds which drain into the city of San Francisco's water supply, the HetchHetchy project.

The northern portion drains into the Stanislaus River which is a principal source of irrigation water for large portions of the fertile Central Valley of California. Like most other parts of the Sierra, most of our annual precipitation falls as winter snow which melts rapidly during the spring runoff season. Regulation of these flood flows is vital to summe" water supplies.

My longtime business partner, Fred Leighton, pioneered a concept of stream conservation in this primitive area many years ago. I have reference to streamflow maintenance dams, a number of which were built by Fred and cooperating sportsmen to assure that streamflows would be maintained in this high granite country to sustain fish life. during our long arid summer season.

Due to his efforts, this most desirable principle of stream enhancement was adopted as a standard procedure by the wildlife conservation board and the California State Department of Fish and Game. There are now 11 such streamflow maintenance dams in the Emigrant Basin Primitive Area.

I packed into the Emigrant Basin primitive frequently and have spent vacations there for many years, as has my business partner.

As I understand, there are 15 in the Desolation Valley Primitive Area, others in the Mount Dana-Minarets, and other primitive or wilderness areas.

More are planned as conservation funds become available. We have had 3 years of subnormal precipitation in California. As a result, the fish life resources in many of our smaller streams will be adversely affected for years to come until natural restocking takes place. The supervisor of the Stanislaus National Forest made an inspection trip

to the Emigrant Basin in September of this year. The only streams that he found were still flowing and carrying fish life were those on which these streamflow maintenance dams had been built. He feels that without the dams stream fishing would have almost disappeared in the area this year. Unobtrusive, they blend with the terrain and protect the resource which attracts most of the wilderness travelers. They benefit downstream users by adding storage capacity to the major reservoirs at lower elevations.

I can say from personal knowledge that the Emigrant Basin has changed little over the years under the capable protection given it by officials of the Stanislaus National Forest headquartered in my home community.

This primitive area is now under active consideration for reclassification as a wild area under regulation U-2 and a proposal will probably be submitted to the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service sometime early this spring,

One of the principal problems requiring negotiation is the fact that the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. built Relief Reservoir near Kennedy Meadows in 1909, many years before the primitive area was established. The reservoir and the dam lie within the primitive area's present boundary. The company also owns some 1,000 acres above the reservoir. A land exchange and boundary adjustment is being negotiated which, in my opinion, will result in benefits to the administrators and recreationists. It is necessary that the company have access to the dam for periodic repair work. The boundary adjustment will take this fact into consideration. The company is willing to exchange the inholdings for land outside the proposed boundary.

I would like to point out to the committee that the development of streamflow maintenance dams and the type of negotiated boundary adjustments which I referred to previously will be seriously hampered, if not made practically impossible, under the terms of S. 174.

The bill would make it necessary to obtain authorization from the President for dams of this sort under subdivision (c) (2) of section 6. This authority, under present regulations, is vested in local Forest Service officials who have personal knowledge of the terrain. Moving this decision-making function 3,000 miles to Washington and requiring that it be performed by the Nation's busiest executive I fear will mean the end of streamflow maintenance projects within classified lands. The other uses which require the President's authorization under the same section, I believe, will suffer the same fate.

The Emigrant Basin Primitive Area contains mining claims. While most of them are not being worked presently, there is a possibility that these mineral values may be urgently needed during national emergencies when the Nation requires large supplies of tungsten. It is interesting to note that tungsten was also mined in Yosemite National Park during World War II. These activities will be outlawed under the terms of S. 174.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that 14,300 visits were made to the Emigrant Basin Primitive Area in 1960. The average length of each visit was about 2 days. This is the only primitive area in the Stanislaus National Forest which the same year recorded a total of 1,047,000 visits. Visits to the primitive area represented a little over 1 percent of the total usage. Total visits in California national for

ests the same year were given as 14,679,400. Wilderness visits were given as 203,300, between 1 and 2 percent of the total recreation usage. The proposed reclassification of Emigrant Basin Primitive Area to wild area status contemplates no reduction in acreage. In this regard, the committee should also consider the history of the other 17 primitive, wild, or wilderness areas in California. We feel that the Forest Service has a fine record of protecting these lands under existing regulations and under the authority of the multiple-use legislation. The facts show no need for any new legislation unless S. 174 is intended as a first step toward creation of another Federal agency to manage a separate wilderness system.

Eight primitive areas in California, which were established in 1931 or 1932 under the old Forest Service regulation L-20, have been reclassified as wild or wilderness areas. Their net acreage before reclassification was 476,979. Their present net acreage is 463,658. All but two of these areas actually increased in size in the reclassification process as the figures below will show. They cover the eight California wild and wilderness areas:

Cucamonga, established 1931, reclassified in 1956; net acreage before reclassification, 5,000; present net acreage, 9,002;

Caribou Peak, established 1931, reclassified 1961; net acreage before reclassification, 16,443; present net acreage, 19,080;

Hoover, established 1931, reclassified 1957; net acreage before reclassification, 20,540; present net acreage, 42,800;

Marble Mountain, established 1931, reclassified 1953; net acreage before reclassification, 234,957; present net acreage, 213,283;

San Gorgonia, established 1931, reclassified 1956; net acreage before reclassification, 28,095; present net acreage, 33,898;

San Jacinto, established 1931, reclassified 1960; net acreage before reclassification, 20,343; present net acreage, 20,565;

Thousand Lakes, established 1955; net acreage before reclassification, 15,495; present net acreage, 15,695;

Yolla Bolly-Middle, Eel, established 1931, reclassified 1956; net acreage before reclassification, 136,106; present net acreage, 109,315. Total net acreage before reclassification, 476,979; present net acreage, 463,658.

Considering the circumstances under which primitive area boundaries were originally drawn, without benefit of accurate resource inventory or accurate maps, the record, I think, speaks for itself. Many of the reductions were made to honor Indian rights.

The careful study, the many local conferences, the excellent procedures set forth in present regulations under which these wild and wilderness areas were established, resulted in very little controversy. The chamber supports the present procedures because we know they work well.

We have 10 primitive areas in California, established in 1931 or 1932. These records too show no basis for charges that primitive areas have suffered from attrition or lack of resolve on the part of the Forest Service to wisely manage them under existing law. When originally established, there was a net area of almost 12 million acres in the California primitive areas that have not been reclassified to date. Almost one-half million acres were taken from the High Sierra Primitive Area when Kings Canyon National Park was created in 1940.

The net acreage of present primitive areas was then 1,094,821. The present net acreage is 1,094,164. All but two of the remaining primitive areas have received wilderness or wild area reclassification studies. Proposals are now pending for reclassification on most of them.

The Mount Dana-Minarets proposal has been submitted to the Chief of the Forest Service in a form which will enlarge the area by 25 percent; some 26,000 acres. The High Sierra Primitive Area, the largest in California, may be reclassified with final boundaries that add some 100,000 extra acres. The individual figures are listed on the next page.

Here are the figures on the 10 California primitive areas:

Agua Tibia, established 1931; present net acreage, 25,995; 1945 net acreage, 26,225;

Desolation Valley, established 1931; present net acreage, 41,343; 1945 net acreage, 40,700;

Devil Canyon-Bear Canyon, established 1932; present net acreage, 35,267; 1945 net acreage, 36,200;

Emigrant Basin, established 1931; present net acreage, 97,020; 1945 net acreage, 97,020.

High Sierra, established 1931; present net acreage, 393,899; 1945 net acreage, 393,899;

Mount Dana-Minarets, established 1931; present net acreage —; 1945 net acreage, 82,181;

Salmon Trinity Alps, established 1932; 223,300 present net acreage; 1945 net acreage, 223,300;

San Rafael, established 1932; present net acreage, 74,160; 1945 net acreage, 74,160;

South Warner, established 1931; present net acreage, 68,870; 1945 net acreage, 68,242;

Vetana, established 1931; present net acreage 52,129; 1945 net acreage, 52,894;

Total, present net acreage, 1,094,164; 1945 net acreage, 1,094,821. Creation of other wild or wilderness areas within California's national forest lands is also under consideration.

The proposal for a new wild area within the Sequoia National Forest will be advertised by the end of this week. This is the Domelands Area which has been approved by the Washington office with a proposed acreage of 64,720. In addition, the Forest Service has classified a number of special recreational, botanical, geological, and historical areas under existing U-3 regulations. There are over 20 such areas in our State involving many thousands of acres.

Now I have cited the statistical history of California's wild, wilderness, and primitive areas because it justifies our conclusion that they have received proper protection under existing legislation.

Our present policy has not changed during the last 4 years that we have objected to various wilderness proposals that have been advanced before Congress. During those years we have continued to support recreational appropriations to meet growing recreation needs. That policy, as I said in my opening remarks, supports the establishment of wilderness under the general objectives of multiple use as an administrative policy for the national forests.

It also supports the establishment and maintenance of wilderness. areas in national parks to serve the recreational, scenic, scientific, and

educational needs of the people. It supports the authority presently vested in the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior with respect to establishment, maintenance, and preservation of these areas.

I do not feel that S. 174 will achieve any more protection for wilderness, a goal of the bill set forth in section 2, subdivision (a) so as to, and a quote:

* * * leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character ***.

Region 5 of the U.S. Forest Service published an administrative study dealing with High Sierra Primitive Area management problems just last year. According to the regional forester's 1960 annual report, this administrative study on wilderness problems is the first of this kind. I commend this material to this committee.

Principal challenges and threats to the "idealistic wilderness concept of naturalness" in this primitive area are created by the wilderness recreationists themselves. The ranger recommends the limitation of organized group use to less than 20 people. The very wilderness groups that are advocating passage of S. 174 annually sponsor wilderness trips in this area along the John Muir Trail involving 100 or more persons in a single concentrated trail party.

The other recommendation he makes would require use of sanitation facilities and construction of manmade trails around fragile meadow areas. These problems pose the real threats to wilderness. No expansion in wilderness acreage can ever adequately reduce the impact of man without intelligent management controls on usage. The bill, in my opinion, will hamper the management function by taking away from local informed officials the authority to make wise decisions when they are needed.

The problems caused by private lands lying within the boundaries of existing primitive areas, I do not believe are solved by section 4 of the bill. Under present negotiation procedures and exchange of lands these problems are being resolved. If Congress is required to appropriate funds to acquire these lands because land exchanges and necessary boundary changes are hampered by the terms of the bill, the reclassification process could be delayed indefinitely.

In my judgment, the bill provides for contradictory legislative procedures. At the outset, both Houses of Congress will be required to approve the inclusion of all areas now classified as wild or wilderness into a wilderness system. Existing primitive areas have not already been reclassified because they involve numerous boundary change questions.

The bill itself recognizes the need for further evaluation of resource development that would be eliminated before the primitive areas are committed to the single use of a most limited form of outdoor recreation.

If there is to be a new policy regarding wilderness areas, if there is to be a change in the statutes which have given the Department of Agriculture flexibility in establishing wilderness areas, if these decisions are now to be made by Congress, does it not follow that both Houses of Congress should by affirmative action authorize the creation of all wild or wilderness areas not so classified now?