lime when western Montana experienced anadromous fish runs, when 

 salmon and steelhead ran up into the Bitterroot country and those 

 tributaries on the head of the Clearwater as well as the ones on the 

 Columbia. Those fish aren't there anymore and it's because those 

 rivers weren't managed or fish. They were managed for hydroelectric 

 production and other things without fisheries values being taken into 

 consideration. And I think this is one thing that I would hope that the 

 media here could help us a little bit on. Put the publicity where it 

 belongs in these regards. We've lost many rivers. I heard a fellow 

 yesterday mention that the Yellowstone River was the only free-flowing 

 river left in the country. I'm glad to tell you that's not true. There 

 are quite a few, but not very many. The vast majority of our rivers 

 have been impounded and are nothing but a series of lakes. As well as 

 the sports fishery that I'm involved with, there are many others that 

 depend on anadromous fish runs. The ocean fisherman, the ocean 

 commercial sportsman, the ocean troliers, the Indians who utilize this 

 resource in the rivers, all depend on the free-flowing areas of these 

 rivers to spawn the anadromous fish so that they can make the runs to 

 where they can use them. 



White water recreation is another very valuable industry that 

 started up in the past 20 years. In the last 20 years we've seen this 

 industry grow dramatically to whdfe now river-running is one of the 

 most popular sports in our country and contributes substantially to the 

 economy of our states. For instance in Idaho recreation is the 

 third-largest industry in our state. It contributes over $600 million 

 annually to the economy of our state. And a very large part of this 

 comes to the state of Idaho because of the fact that we have such an 

 abundance of free-flowing water, rivers that are classified wild and 

 scenic and many who come up and run their entire length within 

 wilderness areas. This means a lot to people and they will come to see 

 these things. The outfitting industry in the state of Idaho has also 

 shown substantial growth as the river popularity has gained. I believe 

 in 1968, directly, without multipliers, the outfitters in the state 

 contributed over $23 million to the economy. A very, very large part 

 of that was due to activities on our rivers. For instance, in 1968 the 

 outfitters accommodated a total of 10,319 people. In 1978 that number 

 upped nearly 600 percent to 65,000 people. That's over six times as 

 many people in a ten-year period. I might add that recreational users, 

 the people who use our rivers, really don't cause all that much burden 

 to our political system, to our cities and our municipalities. We don't 

 have to provide schools, fire and police protection, sewe facilities and 

 this sort of thing to those people. In Idaho, they pay a three percent 

 sales tax on the money that they spend, which goes to support these 

 other things that I've just mentioned, that are normally supported by 

 the taxpayers of the state. Also, the people who operate and take 

 trips on these rivers and the people who use them for recreation are 

 doing a fairly energy-efficient thing when they take their vacation on a 

 river. For instance the 6,000 people who floated the Middle Fork last 

 year transported themselves over 100 miles without burning one gallon 

 of gas. They spent a week in there and I'm sure that you'll all agree 

 that this is quite an efficient means of spending a week without using 

 some of our depletable natural resources. 



