26 



My point was that in terms of the priority access for timber sale 

 purposes we felt we were keeping up pretty well. It was a little bit 

 as opposed to a long-term progrcmi that would acquire all of our 

 easement needs for a 25-year period, for example. 



Mr. Vento. Chief Robertson, can you comment? You don't have 

 the same challenge with regards to easement, but I guess you still 

 have some problems in the area. 



Mr. Robertson. Yes, we have a serious problem. It is not like 

 BLM because of the checkered ownership, although we have some 

 checkered ownership. But we have an active rights-of-way ease- 

 ment program. I think we acquire about 500 rights-of-ways or ease- 

 ments a year. 



Mr. Vento. In Region VI? 



Mr. Robertson. No, that is national. 



Mr. Vento. National, yes. 



Mr. Robertson. And we have got large chunks of that 50 million 

 acres or whatever it is that we still need access to. 



Mr. Vento. Yes. Well, that is a nationwide figure for all public 

 lands that GAO provided for us. 



Very often. Chief Robertson, the work for reforestation plantation 

 is financed by timber purchases, isn't that correct, or are there 

 other dollars that come through other metms? 



Mr. Robertson. It is a combination of what we call K-V funds 

 from timber receipts, plus appropriated dollars. 



Mr. Vento. And so what has the ratio been in recent years? You 

 can always fill in the numbers here specifically if you feel more 

 comfortable, but I would like to get sort of a thumbnail sketch of 

 it now. 



Mr. Robertson. Well, for example, in Fiscal Year 1993 for refor- 

 estation we had $57 million of IC-V money in Re^on VI, and we 

 only had about a little over nine million appropriated dollars, so 

 that is about 6-to-l K-V. But most of our need tor reforestation is 

 created by timber sales and the need to replant and reforest those 

 areas. 



Mr. Vento. Do we reprocess all the funding through the timber 

 sales and eventually harvest? I guess at the time of harvest is 

 when we receive the dollars. But do we finance almost all of the 

 dollars? The individual contractors that are doing the harvest, do 

 they have certain responsibilities? They have credits for road-build- 

 ing and other types of activities that go on. Do they have other re- 

 sponsibilities that go on in terms of replanting or restoration at the 

 same time? 



Mr. Robertson. Well, we have a timber sale contract with very 

 detailed provisions about erosion control and fires and all of that. 

 But in the case of reforestation and timber stand improvement, as 

 they pay for the timber we take a certain percent of that, which 

 is determined before the sale is made, and put it into what we call 

 the K-V fund, which then is used for timber stand improvement, 

 reforestation, as well as watershed and fish and wildlife habitat 

 work. So, in that case we take the money out of the receipts. 



Now occasionally but not very often we will contract back or 

 work out an arrangement where they will do some of this work. 



Mr. Vento. Much of this is dependent upon a reframing of all 

 the pl£ins and putting in all the new information that we need. I 



