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I am Frank M. Gladics, Vice President of Western Forest Industries Association (WFIA) located 

 in Portland, Oregon. WFIA is an association of small independent sawmill owners with 

 operations in South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, 

 California, Arizona, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Our members depend heavily on 

 federal lands for their supply of timber. We represent the following companies which have 

 operations in and around the Black Hills National Forest: (1) Continental Lumber in Hill City; 

 (2) Neiman Sawmills in Hulett, Wyoming; and until just recently (3) Little River Lumber 

 Company in Piedmont, South Dakota. 



Western Forest Industries Association and its members appreciate the opportunity to describe the 

 importance of the Black Hills National Forest planning effort, how national forest management 

 has effects on the small business sawmills, and our views on the preservationists' wilderness plan. 

 Our testimony and data will focus on those companies which purchase saw timber from the Black 

 Hills National Forest. Although there are several other forest-products companies in and around 

 the forest, they purchase small stem material which cannot be made into lumber. It is the lumber 

 mills that have the most economic impact on the local economies of the cities and towns around 

 the Black Hills. 



Given the timing of the hearing and the limited time allowed for oral statements, we ask that our 

 written statement be made part of the official record for this hearing. 



FOREST PLANNING IN THE BLACK HILLS 



Commitments Made By The Forest Service In Past Forest Plans 



Over the last twenty years the U.S. Forest Service went from an agency that encouraged 

 economic development (the construction of sawmills) in the Black Hills, to one that daily sends 

 signals that they want nothing to do with the sale of timber from the Black Hills. As recently 

 as the middle 1970's, the Forest Service was telling the forest-products industry that the Black 

 Hills National Forest had far more timber than mill capacity. The agency made estimates of 



