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industry. If you take this wilderness area and put it in and take all 

 the runoff that we would have, it would be disastrous to this west- 

 ern half of the State and eastern Wyoming also. 



There has been a survey done by the University of South Dakota, 

 South Dakota State University in conjunction with the Soil Conser- 

 vation Service and the USDA Forest Service. Dr. Robert Gartner 

 and Keith Wrage have done this survey. I've told Senator Pressler 

 he can get more information from them. But what they did was to 

 look at a dense canopy forest — over 60 percent dense canopy and 

 compared it to an open area in 1993. They found that there was a 

 28.4 difference in precip that actually hit the ground, 28.4 percent 

 in precip that hit the ground. If you take this, like Tom said, the 

 total acreage that's involved in this thing for buffer zones and cor- 

 ridors and so on, this would be disastrous to the Black Hills. It 

 would drain Pactola if we had a dry year and Deerfield and Angos- 

 tura Reservoir, also Belle Fourche Reservoir and Keyhole Reser- 

 voir. It would be disastrous to the Black Hills area to have this 

 happen. 



We have to look at the report of the drought committee in Rapid 

 City. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars on this thing, 

 and they're spending more money on this hydrological research 

 that Bob Gartner is doing now. We have to use this information to 

 our advantage. The drought committee said conserve water; Forest 

 Service, cut and manage and thin timber in the watershed areas of 

 these reservoirs. We also wanted proper management of our reser- 

 voirs. These things have to be done, and they have to be done on a 

 continued basis or we're not going to get the runoff we need to 

 build these reservoirs. This will not only affect the recreation busi- 

 ness, it will eventually affect the manufacturing business in Rapid 

 City and it will affect the agriculture business below Rapid City on 

 the lower confines of Rapid Creek. 



I would urge Congress to take a good look at the appeals system 

 that we have that is endangering the lumber industry right now in 

 western South Dakota. But in the long term, we must address 

 water conservation. 



I think the Black Hills National Forest Revision Plan has a lot of 

 merit, but the one thing I would have Congress look at before they 

 ever do that, I think there should be a hydrological study done on 

 the areas that they're recommending for wilderness areas in the 

 Northern Hills or in the Belle Fourche watershed, because the 

 Belle Fourche watershed is also very, very important to the Black 

 Hills area. 



I would urge you to go back. Senator Pressler, and do everything 

 you can to get rid of these frivolous appeals and to come up with 

 some recommendations that's going to help the economy of this 

 area instead of hinder the economy of this area. 



Thank you. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Percevich follows:] 



