316 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



rock to build our freeways. We need coal for coke to feed our steel 

 mills and to produce electricity. These companies are helping to 

 build the United States, to build our Great Society and they are an 

 important part of the economic growth of this country. 



It seems to me that the creative mind of man, the country's wealth, 

 and our advanced technology could devise ways of restoring the 

 beauty of the landscape destroyed by surface mining, effectively and 

 efficiently, if the same effort is directed toward restoration as has been 

 expended in extraction. 



Have we not come to the realization that our natural resources 

 are neither inexhaustible nor indestructible? The public's interest 

 in the landscape of this country requires that the utilization of our 

 natural resources, so essential to the growth and development of the 

 economy of this country, be mined according to a plan that envisions 

 the restoration of the area to its former beauty and this dictates a 

 policy of mining that must, by advanced regional planning and 

 control, be established that will protect the ecology and environment 

 of that area and guarantee to the people the restoration of the beauty 

 and productivity of the land at whatever cost and by whatever means 

 is necessary. 



There can be no halfway measures nor can there be a timid 

 approach to solving this problem. The extraction of coal, sand, 

 gravel, and crushed rock from the earth has not been a timid 

 operation. 



The seal of California states, "Give me men to match my moun- 

 tains." We have developed machines to tear down and destroy 

 the mountains. Now it's time to give us men with the wisdom and 

 courage to restore beauty to the landscape, matching the beauty and 

 majesty of the mountains. 



Provincial thinking, politics, and the exploitation of our natural 

 resources must not enter into the discussion. Every citizen has an 

 interest and should be concerned. Private enterprise, if it is to be 

 worthy of the great advances and the economic growth that it has 

 so ably fostered, must from now on accept responsibility for restora- 

 tion of the mined areas and the wise use of our natural resources in 

 the total public interest. In other words, profit and quality of the 

 environment must be considered together, not separately. 



Mr. PYLES. The quality of our landscapes suffers from a variety 

 of causes including erosion gullies, wildfires, subdivision scalp- 

 ing, slovenly road construction, and many other acts that bare 



