74 



Mr. Vento. Thank you. 



That will help us shorten up our questions to BLM. As you no- 

 ticed, I was trying to focus on what these base numbers were rath- 

 er than just looking at them in the abstract, because unless you tie 

 them down you aren't doing it. 



Mr. Gladics, I apologize for the shortness of time, but I am trying 

 to save some time at the expense of your colleagues here so that 

 you are able to make a statement for about five minutes. Please 

 proceed. 



STATEMENT OF FBANK GLADICS 



Mr. Gladics. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate that, and the folks 

 that I represent, the small lumber mills in the West, are very much 

 interested in trying to find ways to harvest our National Forests 

 and maintain our health. 



Sitting here today listening to the testimony, there are a few 

 things, though, that seem to have either been overlooked, or maybe 

 it is my perception, that I would like entered into the record. One 

 is that the Pacific Northwest was not all old-growth forests before 

 we started to make our mark on the forests, and I would submit 

 for you a BLM technical study that shows the amount of burned 

 areas in Oregon in 1850 and then carries up that life stage cycle 

 through the 19908, if I could submit that for the record. 



Mr. Vento. That will be submitted and properly referenced in 

 the committee hearing. 



[Editor's note. — The' document may be found in the hearing 

 file.] 



Mr. Gladics. The other thing I would like to commend to your 

 reading is a publication put out by the United States Forest Serv- 

 ice, but it was done by the Forest History Society down in Durham, 

 North Carolina, that looks at 100 years of forestry in America, and 

 I have a number of copies I can leave with the committee. It shows 

 that we have really done some phenomenal things in this country 

 in terms of reforestation and in terms of rehabilitating some of the 

 large game animals that were so heavily impacted. 



Mr. Vento. That similarly will be referenced in the committee 

 hearing and kept in the files. 



Mr. Gladics. Finally, I will leave with you something not from 

 the Pacific Northwest but something from the inner mountain West 

 on the Black Hills National Forest. It is a book that was put to- 

 gether on the Custer expedition, which was 100 years ago in the 

 Black Hills, and a number of matched photos that show what we 

 had when Custer went through the Black Hills, a veiy sparse for- 

 est, heavily impacted by fire and native fire, compared to what we 

 have now. I think that, too, tells a story that the American public 

 needs to understand of what happened. 



Mr. Vento. Similarly, that will be referenced. 



[Editor's note. — ^The document may be foimd in the hearing 

 file.] 



Mr. Gladics. Next, I would like to kind of touch on some ironies 

 that I heard about in the hearing today and ask this committee 

 and Congress to think about those as you formulate directions for 

 our Federal lands. 



