39 



of drought and insect infestation. And then the photo to the left is 

 where a fire occurred, which new fires can occur then after that. 

 So our concern is that the program is not happening. I don't know 

 if you have a response to that. 



When we hear the statement that you made, which I know was 

 made earnestly, that you feel the program is working great and 

 that you're doing everything you can. I can tell you to talk to the 

 people that live in my area and they feel 180 degrees opposite of 

 that. 



Under Secretary Lyons. Well I can understand that, Mr. Herger, 

 when they can see stands like that and they wonder why they're 

 not being harvested. I mean I would come to the same conclusion. 

 But the fact of the matter is given the work objectives set by par- 

 ticular forests, and given their goals, which emanate from the for- 

 est level, our performance has really been excellent. You know, 

 that's not to say there is not a tremendous amount more work to 

 be done, but we do have limited resources and manpower, and fur- 

 thermore we have shifted our program to try and focus on the for- 

 est health salvage issues. 



I would offer this as an example. Back in 1986 salvage was 10 

 percent of the national forest system timber program, 10 percent. 

 In 1996 it's 44 percent. So we have tried to shift resources and 

 focus to what we consider a priority need. Salvage sales obviously 

 have a high risk of loss of value over a very short period of time 

 and obviously in some instances create a risk of fire. So we are try- 

 ing to take those resources and refocus to where the priorities 

 ought to be. 



I think the only other thing I could offer is one of the difficulties 

 we're having right now, and it's not true everywhere, but in some 

 instances we simply can't sell these sales. The material that we're 

 taking out of stands such as this aren't nearly as valuable and is 

 oftentimes not merchantable in a traditional sense as what was the 

 case. You know, nationally we've sold 1.2 billion roughly of salvage 

 to this point in time. Only 816 million of that has been harvested. 



Now there is always some delay because we have contracts that 

 run two to three years to harvest this material, but one would as- 

 sume that the salvage volume, particularly in situations such as 

 you described where mills face closure because of a shortage of sup- 

 ply, would be harvested more quickly. 



We have actually engaged the Forest Products Laboratory to 

 work with 



Mr. Herger. May I comment on that, Mr. Lyons, and I apologize, 

 but we don't have a lot of time, but let me, because this is some- 

 thing that comes up all the time about all this product that has 

 been put up for sale, and yet for some unknown reason what has 

 put up is not purchased, and I think the prime example is what 

 we're looking at in the Six Rivers. 



When the Clinton Administration is successful in stalling this 

 long enough when you have white fir as we have here, and you're 

 successful by stalling it when it only has about 18 months life be- 

 fore the insects eat it up, it shouldn't be any wonder why no one 

 is going to buy it 



Under Secretary Lyons. But, Mr. Herger 



