41 



Chief Thomas. Sequoia, all right. We had 6.7 available and we 

 sold 5.8 and we've got .9 to go. 



Mr. Doolittle. The figures I've got, I guess this was not just sal- 

 vage, but the total amount of timber was 50 million board feet, 

 most of it being salvage, but they sold only 4 or 5 million. 



And you're saying — give me those figures one more time. 



Chief Thomas. 



Mr. RlGGS. Well in terms of the salvage program we had in- 

 tended to sell 6.7 million, and we've sold 5.8 leaving .9 in salvage. 

 That doesn't include the green program. 



Mr. Doolittle. I guess the figures I have include the green pro- 

 gram. 



Chief Thomas. I don't have that in front of me. I'll have to get 

 it for you. 



Mr. Doolittle. OK. Include that and get back to us on it, will 

 you, please? 



Chief Thomas. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Doolittle. In other hearings it has come out in testimony, 

 and you can please confirm this or deny it, if you will, that I be- 

 lieve the figures are annually we have four times the amount of 

 new board feet of timber being grown than are being harvested. Is 

 that consistent with your understanding? 



Chief Thomas. I don't know the exact ratio, but certainly we are 

 growing more timber than we're harvesting. I think the question is 

 what size classes are involved, but I would certainly agree that we 

 are growing timber much faster than we're harvesting it at the mo- 

 ment. We're growing wood I'll put it that way. 



Mr. Doolittle. That concerns me. I mean a lot of Sierra Ne- 

 vadas look like that picture on the left when I fly over them. It's 

 my understanding that we have more standing timber in this coun- 

 try than at any time in the 20th century. The forests are vastly 

 overcrowded. 



As forest managers for the both of you when we're growing four 

 times as much timber as we're harvesting annually aren't we fac- 

 ing a crisis of enormous proportions? I mean it seems like we're 

 just barely scratching the surface with this salvage program. Un- 

 less we had a massive logging effort, we're going to have forests 

 that are in unbelievably bad condition, aren't we? Am I missing 

 something? That's the conclusion that I derive just by those figures 

 if they're right. In other words, there is a lot more timber being 

 grown each year than we're harvesting each year. 



Chief Thomas. I think that's quite correct, but I think it's a bit 

 more complex than that. That's wood that we're growing. Timber, 

 if you relate that to saw timber, most of that would be a chip or 

 something else. 



Mr. Doolittle. Right. That would be like undergrowth and stuff, 

 too, right? 



Chief Thomas. No. If I could have about two minutes. 



Mr. Doolittle. Sure. I'm the Chairman. 



Chief Thomas. As Chief of the Forest Service I'm going to tell 

 you that we've got a problem. I'm also going to tell you that we're 

 nibbling around the edges of this. If we had cut 6 billion board feet 

 of salvage instead of 3.8 or 3.9 it wouldn't have made a flick in the 

 problem. Now it would have helped those mills, and I don't want 



