Ill 



Mr. Vento. We would invite Mr. Higgins now to make his state- 

 ment. 



STATEMENT OF PAT raOGINS 



Mr. Higgins. Thank you. It is an honor to be here today. I am 

 a fisheries biologist from northwestern California, and the case 

 studies that I draw on here will illustrate that what Chris Frissell 

 has said of areas further north is true in my area. I am active in 

 my Humboldt chapter of the American Fisheries Society. I am a 

 principal author of "Stocks at Risk in Northern California" which 

 chronicles the extinction of Pacific salmon in our region. And the 

 stated intent of that was to let people know where our problems 

 lie and to win cooperation. 



And the problems, certainly, in habitat in northwest California 

 are linked to sediment. We have 60 feet in the Eel River and 30 

 to 50 feet in the Klamath. And I helped to write the Klamath River 

 Plan and guided over $40 million in the 20-year restoration pro- 

 gram, and it takes a similar approach. But there is no funding 

 mechanism. 



My trip to Washington has been sponsored by the American An- 

 cient Forest Alliance because there is a growing recognition that 

 the last existing salmon are dependent on the last existing forest. 



I am currently working on a restoration action plan for the South 

 Fork Trinity River, and why the salmon are becoming extinct. The 

 Plumber Creek is the last viable juvenile-rearing habitat in a thou- 

 sand mile sub-base basin. And the reason that Plumber Creek is 

 functioning is that it has an undisturbed sub-basin called Jim's 

 Creek. If Jim's Creek were cut, the lifeline for spring Chinook 

 salmon in this basin would be severed, and we would lose the seeds 

 of tomorrow for a thousand square miles in California, in the larg- 

 est wild and scenic river. 



There is pressure to cut the trees. Private land has been overcut. 

 Six miles of forest in our area that is doing good in terms of water- 

 shed restoration models private lands as all-cut, every year and 

 that's apt. It's apt. Unfortunately, the U.S. Forest Service lands 

 and BLM lands are nested in devastated private timber lands in 

 California. And you think you need to look to the EPA to have 

 more teeth, but the Federal process has failed in California to pro- 

 tect public trust resources. We need legislative action to protect 

 roadless areas because they harbor the seeds of the last remaining 

 fish. 



Immediate action is needed, and I am pleased to see that there 

 is such strong interest because the threat of flood is real and we 

 could lose the fish through sediment impact. But we need special- 

 ized inventories. 



And I am going to turn the page and talk about institutional 

 problems within the U.S. Forest Service and BLM to meet this 

 problem with current staff. It is my understanding that we have 

 on the order of 3,500 timber workers employed by the U.S. Forest 

 Service at this point in the West; and there is a great temptation 

 as timber cutters are reduced to move these key workers. And tim- 

 ber workers are now driving the fish and wildlife programs. These 

 guys like to fish, but they are not capable of running these pro- 

 grams. If we do that over a large area, as we get watershed moneys 



