348 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



I would like to further comment that our local people, because of 

 the economic impact, jobs and such, refuse to do anything, and our 

 State government has just failed to act. So my question is, what 

 can be done? 



Mr. CAUDILL. Well, if I had the answer, I would be a rich man, 

 but I think the answer will have to be as distasteful as this may 

 seem to a great many people at the Federal level. This is a great 

 Federal problem. The people who are pauperized in the process of 

 land destruction frequently wind up on the public welfare rolls, and 

 that is Federal. The mud moves in interstate streams, and that is 

 Federal. And there is simply lacking, at the local level in a great 

 many areas, the necessary land ethic to achieve effective action at 

 the local level or even at the State level, and I can see no real hope 

 for this kind of situation until the land ethic, if there is one, is brought 

 to bear in these communities. That must be, in my opinion, the 

 role of the Federal Government, in one form or another. 



LARRY COOK. My job is reclaiming strip mine land, and it has 

 been for the last 20 years. 



I want to pay tribute to the U.S. Forest Service, particularly, in 

 my area, through the Central States Forest Experiment Station and 

 to the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, to Ohio State Univer- 

 sity, and Kent State University, and to all of the agencies that have 

 worked with us to find the answers to the reclamation of strip mine 

 land. 



I think we have a lot of the answers. I cannot be on the defensive 

 here today, because I can show you thousands of acres of beautiful 

 reclaimed strip mine land. 



Unfortunately, we have about 10,000 additional acres every 

 year. No matter how much we reclaim today, there will be more 

 to be reclaimed tomorrow. 



Mr. Mott, I agree with you that man, in his genius, has constructed 

 some tremendous equipment 210-ton shovels but he has not dis- 

 covered how to grow trees faster. 



This is a problem time. If we have the time and the money, 

 we can properly reclaim strip mined land. 



Mr. MOTT. The public feels that this is an urgent problem and 

 that we must get on with solutions as rapidly as possible. Maybe we 

 should be doing research on how to produce trees that will grow 



