32 



Now the same question to BLM. You have already essentially, I 

 think, in your presentation shown that there £ire some areas where 

 you have got some carry-overs, particularly fertilization, pre-com- 

 mercial thinning. But beyond that, we have had the concerns about 

 the access and others. How much more money would it take to sat- 

 isfy these other than, you know, annual recurring backlogs? How 

 much would it take to get us basically up-to-date and only dealing 

 then with future occurrences? 



Mr. Shepard. The estimate we have right now is around $48 mil- 

 lion and approximately 3 years to do it in. I would caveat that. 

 That is with the uncertainty of not knowing what land is going to 

 be available. It would just not pay to pre-commercially tend an 

 area that is going to be managed on a 300-year rotation or not 

 managed for timber at all. 



As far as the easements go, I don't have a number on that. How- 

 ever, I would state that we have never been unable to offer our 

 ASQ as a result of easements. We get the easements as we go, and 

 that is why they are spread out over a large number of years. We 

 would like to see more emphasis on easing that position, but it 

 hasn't really stopped us from selling timber. 



Mr. DeFazio. Since you depicted the pruning activities, how 

 many acres of pruning did BLM engage in, do you know? 



Mr. Shepard. We are just starting to get into pruning. We have 

 done very little of that right now. It is something we are looking 

 at as the economics change, as you mentioned. Right now, that is 

 not a part of our timber management plans, but may be in the fu- 

 ture. 



Mr. DeFazio. Okay. 



Just back to the chief for a second: I assume on your pre-com- 

 mercial thinning backlog the same question prevails; that is, in 

 terms of what percentage, some percentage, of those 400-some- 

 odd 



Mr. Robertson. Four hundred and twenty-nine thousand acres. 



Mr. DeFazio. Right — would possibly not be in a future timber 

 base? 



Mr. Robertson. No. Well, I should be careful about what is in 

 our timber base and what isn't. It is what we anticipate that would 

 be in our timber base. 



Mr. DeFazio. Given the proposed recovery plan, or given your 

 proposed plans, or what is the caveat? 



Mr. Robertson. Well, I would say there is an element of uncer- 

 tainty about this, and I don't know to what degree. 



Mr. Vento. If the gentleman would yield, I would have the same 

 question to the Chief that Mr. Penfold wasn't able to answer, and 

 mat is, what you are basically talking about is secondary growth 

 areas, £ind I was iust wondering what your universe is. You have 

 24 million acres, but you subtract from that wilderness, you sub- 

 tract a lot of other areas, and then you subtract virgin areas, be- 

 cause you obviously aren't pre- thinning in those areas, I don't 

 think. 



I think it would be useful for us, especially retrospectively look- 

 ing at what is the base number of acres we are telking about here 

 in secondary growth as opposed to the whole 24 million acres, and 

 excluding the virgin areas, if you would give us some idea of that. 



