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eries, hydro, and harvest combined with habitats, species just don't 

 have the resilience to weather big extremes that we know we are 

 going to hit: floods, droughts, volcanoes, or forest fires. All of those 

 disturbances, events, are going to go on. And we have been manag- 

 ing for that kind of instance that we cannot predict. 



Mr. Vento. We cannot legislate it away, either. Although some 

 may suggest we can. So we really face a sort of a changed menu 

 of what the reactions or actions are, for instance, with the grazing 

 permits and new requirements for watershed protection. It may 

 make it uneconomic. We understand that. It may make it uneco- 

 nomic. But I hope that is not the case for the permitting to func- 

 tion. 



And we especially have, of course, an opportunity this year deal- 

 ing with that matter in terms of the administration's recommenda- 

 tion for modification of the fees and hopefully being able to put a 

 positive orientation on that in terms of what steps could be taken 

 and what steps are taken in terms of crediting permitees for re- 

 duced fee on the basis of that activity, I might add to those on the 

 panel and present today. 



One of the other aspects, of course, is road building. We talk 

 about different kinds of harvest of timber, but this is very critical 

 because road building or surfacing may, in fact, result in the tim- 

 ber sale, in a sense, if it is a cost to the Forest Service in the terms 

 of increasing or enhancing that road as being a deficit timber sale, 

 which trips over to some other problems. 



Mr. Leonard or Mr. Penfold, can you talk to the costs associated 

 with that and the importance? We are not just talking here about 

 not necessarily building new roads, but going back and maintain- 

 ing existing roads as well. 



Mr. Leonard. I will start and say that, you know, in a sense, the 

 cost is irrelevant in that we are not going to build roads unless we 

 feel that we can meet the requirements of good stewardship to the 

 land. 



Now, our perception of what that is has changed substantially 

 over time, and our standards for surfacing, for culverts, and all 

 have evolved as our understanding has changed. 



The real problem that we, frankly, have as our timber harvests 

 have dropped and we have major parts of the road system which 

 will only have minor timber harvesting or no timber harvesting in 

 the long-term, our abilities to utilize the timber values through ap- 

 praisal adjustments and what not, to get maintenance of those road 

 systems is declining very rapidly; and we are not getting other al- 

 ternative ways to do those. So we have got a big road system with- 

 out the capability of maintaining it to the standards that we need 

 to be sure that culverts don't fail; that surfacing is maintained ade- 

 quately. 



So we have a major problem with the existing road system out 

 there. 



Mr. Penfold. Just briefly, this is same situation we face with 

 our checkerboard pattern out there. Most of the areas that we man- 

 age are eroded. Where we need new roads we have learned from 

 mistakes of the past how to do that and design them so that the 

 stream zones and watersheds are protected. The challenge that we 



