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eral government can offer us is to give land that industry can build 

 on, thus broadening our tax base and providing badly needed jobs. 



As I have said before, Lincoln County is 98.8 percent Federal 

 land. As a rancher and miner's daughter, I can tell you of many 

 battles with state and Federal agencies just in trying to carve a 

 living from our land. 



When your private land is surrounded and sometimes it is at 

 seige by the Federal lands, you face many difficulties not encoun- 

 tered by other property owners in the United States. I use "at 

 seige" because ranchers and miners and other public lands users 

 are constantly under the gun. 



Here in the east you can raise 40 cattle to the acre. You can 

 hardly imagine an area which is considered fairly fruitful for 

 Nevada, needing 15 acres a month to support one animal unit. 



I can make this point because so many huge tracts of land are 

 being grabbed in the West with no concern for the impact on the 

 local people. Our lands are not as productive as the lands in the 

 east, therefore we need much more land to simply survive. 



It is unnerving to have to deal with the fact that your life and 

 livelihood would be sacrificed, because even though you are an 

 American, you are expendable because you lack votes, therefore po- 

 litical clout. 



The arbitrary land grab of the Groom Mountains of 80,000 acres 

 in the southern area negatively affected the land users there. No 

 concern for their plight was shown. Seven ranchers and miners in 

 the area near the national park were seriously affected by that ac- 

 quisition. 



The wilderness areas picked always seem to go after prime min- 

 eral deposits and grazing lands. Why? My theories are not appro- 

 priate here. But I am gravely concerned for rural Nevada. 



We not only face losing our access to the lands that support us, 

 but we also face the constant threat of the state park system con- 

 demnation proceedings, because our family ranch of over 100 years 

 would be a nice addition to a huge, largely unused park system in 

 Lincoln County. We are in double jeopardy, and that is supposed to 

 be unconstitutional. 



Rural Nevadans face economic hard times. We have been in de- 

 cline for 20 years and when we think we have reached the lowest 

 point, we find that there are lower points. Ranching, mining and 

 the railroad once were booming industries in our county. 



Now, within five years, all three are all but gone. Agricultural 

 lands are out of production. Only 10 percent are producing and 

 they all face bankruptcy. All mines are shut down and the railroad 

 pulled out. 



Lincoln County faces extinction in a very real sense of the word. 

 Our organization was once the Economic Survival Task Force. It 

 was named so because of the severe economic hard times we faced 

 and were in and because of the determination we have to survive. 



The sad fact is, though, all the determination in the world 

 cannot save a dying county without government help instead of 

 hindrance. Land values in Lincoln County have dropped 50 percent 

 in 10 years. 



You will find the land value analysis done by a master appraiser 

 at financial designs. You will note the drop of land values of 11 



