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Senator Pressler. Well, I think you were absolutely right. 

 There's a great diversity of opinion, including diversity of opinion 

 in our audience, and I think it's good that we get them together. 



Dick Fort, member, Action for the Environment, Rapid City. 



STATEMENT OF DICK FORT, MEMBER, ACTION FOR THE 

 ENVIRONMENT, RAPID CITY, SD 



Mr. Fort. Thank you. Senator Pressler, for this opportunity to 

 address you on these issues of use of public land. 



Action for the Environment is the organization that sponsored 

 the initiative and the referendum that were on the ballot last fall. 

 Of course, these were successful from our point of view. I think 

 that the results of those votes told us something about the temper 

 of public opinion in South Dakota. Perhaps it's a little ahead of 

 some of our politicians in regard to environmental issues. I think it 

 also made clear that all over the State — it isn't just the people out 

 here — people care about the Black Hills and how the Black Hills 

 are going to be used. 



Our concern, of course, as an organization has been focused more 

 on the problems of surface mining and on the problem of importing 

 of out-of-State garbage and on water issues. Those have been the 

 focus of our activities. I think my remarks should be addressed to 

 related subjects. 



We have a particular problem I think I would say with surface 

 mining and the multiple use concept. We are supporters of the 

 multiple use concept. We think that's sound, and I think that on 

 the whole we don't have a lot of quarrels with the way it's been 

 handled in our public land and national forest. But we are very 

 much dissatisfied with whether surface mining can actually fit into 

 the multiple use concept. How could you log, how could you graze, 

 how could you have recreation, how can you fish, how can you 

 hunt, how can you do all those other things when there's a huge 

 surface mine that is, in effect, destroying the land? So let it be said 

 that if we have wonderful laws, I'm afraid that we are not satisfied 

 with the status of our laws in regard to this. And certainly recla- 

 mation standards could be greatly, greatly improved. But we do 

 support multiple use, all the other uses. There should be shared 

 use here in the Black Hills, but we're not so sure that surface 

 mining fits comfortably into that picture. So that's a particular 

 concern of ours. 



We are very much concerned right now, Homestake — of course 

 Homestake is not small business, you understand. They're all over 

 the world. They just did a $700 million deal buying one of the larg- 

 est mines in the northern hemisphere. Somehow I don't think they 

 fit into the picture of small business. But Homestake is — because 

 they get 13 percent of the profits — promoting, as it were, a new 

 mine on the rim of Spearfish Canyon. That's certainly a threat to 

 one of our most incalculably valuable resources in the Northern 

 Hills. 



As Bill Honerkamp said of the tourist industry, this is a big, big 

 business — it's becoming so in South Dakota. Of course as big busi- 

 ness, in a sense, it is a combination of many, many, many small 

 businesses. And it's our big growing industry, really. And so we're 



