60 



After I got to talking to some of these Forest Service people, they 

 are being infiltrated drastically. It seems like our good people are 

 being transferred out. I have seen a lot of people that were on our 

 side, they are gone, and they bring in others, and, I mean, we have 

 good Forest Service people, but what I am saying is they are on the 

 decline, even at the local level. 



The Chairman. There are 564 Forest Service employees in 

 Southeast Alaska today, and I can assure you that if we do not ex- 

 tend the contract and, in fact, the pulp mill in Ketchikan was to 

 close, not only will we lose the jobs, there will only be about, 

 maybe, 124 Forest Service employees 



Ms. Gerrits. They need to think about that, because they might 

 not be one of the 120. 



The Chairman, [continuing] because it is going to be dras- 

 tically cut back, because there would not be any sales. Everybody 

 knows — ^you went back to the old days when I first came up here 

 before the pulp mill went in, we would have A-frame, beach-type 

 operations, high-grading of timber, and the reason the high-grading 

 stopped and the pulp mills went in is because there were so many 

 old dead trees and unsalvageable logs left in the woods that could 

 not be acceptable, and the pulp mill came in — very frankly, we 

 gave them a tax break. Governor Egan gave them a tax break to 

 let the pulp mills in. 



Originally, there were five mills in Southeast Alaska, five pulp 

 mills, and how many sawmills we do not know. The estimate at 

 that time was a sustainable yield forever. Now we are down to one 

 pulp mill, I think one sawmill, if we have that, and yet we are ar- 

 guing over that 10 percent. That is the difference. 



I go back to, very frankly, what we are doing here today. I do 

 not think Alaskans would tolerate that. Jerry Mackie put it very 

 succinctly. State legislative body is backing my bill. The governor 

 is saying we have got to extend the contract. He does not back my 

 bill, but there is a definite interest on the State level, including 

 people from Anchorage and Fairbanks, understanding that there 

 has got to be some support from you, too, not just for those people 

 up far north. 



And, by the way, the beetle kill far north far exceeds what you 

 have down here, but you do have beetle kills. You may not get the 

 forest fires, but you will lose trees. We had the big fire at Big Lake, 

 and now we have the potential on the Kenai Peninsula to really 

 having a holocaust. They are not the big trees you have here, but 

 they are pretty good-sized trees. 



If you do not have anything else, I just would like to say one 

 thing. I heard from the last panel about the State not — concern 

 whether the State could do it. Do you have that problem? 



Ms. Gerrits. No. Like I said, we have good leadership. We are 

 going to be OK. 



The Chairman. Well, the State — and I will be honest with you — 

 you will hear testimony later on that they do not think the State 

 can do it. Of course, this is a slow process. I want you to know this 

 hearing is — like I say, we will have these hearings. When it comes 

 out of the House, when it is signed into law, then the State has 

 to take its time, and that is where your input comes, too, before 

 they ever say, "Yes, we want it." We are not making anybody do 



