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wilderness. I am not arguing against what was already done but we 

 have to recognize that that is what makes this forest different, dif- 

 ferent than any other forest, accessible timber put into wilderness 

 and the rest of the timber unaccessible and that was the consider- 

 ation Congress made. This is basically a commitment that there 

 would be $40 million to access this remaining timber so now we are 

 taking that out and that was the main objection — why should the 

 Tongass be different, why should it be funded differently so we 

 have withdrawn that from the legislation and said no $40 million 

 but here again we go back to the reasons, the question asked of Mr. 

 Pihl. I think it is evident that those were the circumstances that 

 led into the decision to take it, a million acres out of the commer- 

 cial forest and put it in wilderness. 



Senator Wirth. In the creation of wilderness in other national 

 forests in the country, in all the other national forests, have those 

 forests then had a legislative target of the number of board feet to 

 be cut or have those forests had long-term contracts on them? 



Senator Murkowski. You have recognized that in 1952 you had 

 very little industry here because the question was what are you 

 going to do with the vast majority of the hemlock species when the 

 demand for timber was limited to spruce. The export of some of 

 that spruce was started later. I think in the first World War they 

 made airplanes out of the spruce, they used to make salmon boxes 

 out of the spruce, they made piano sounding boards, a relatively 

 limited market. 



The reality of how you develop markets over an extended period 

 of time so there are many factors to consider when you look at how 

 the industry grew, how interdependent on the species of the forest 

 and why the pulp mills came in here. There was a territorial gov- 

 ernment. Governor by the name of Frank Heinselman. Frank 

 Heinselman was committed as a former Chief Forester to try to get 

 the industry to come to southeast Alaska so he went out personally 

 and asked the Governor of the Territory and attempted to get in- 

 terested parties to come in. Four pulp mills were set up, one in 

 Juneau, one in Wrangell, one in Sitka and this one in Ketchikan. 

 There were only two pulp mills ever built. Because there were a lot 

 of objections to the Juneau Mill, the Champion U.S. Plywood Com- 

 pany signed a contract and the contract was later canceled and the 

 Wrangell allotment some say was not sufficient to support the pulp 

 mill in any event. There were two mills and in order to induce 

 them to come in they were given long-term contracts and they am- 

 ortized their investment and as is indicated they now have got 15 

 years left. 



I do not know, Mr. Pihl, what you are going to do in 15 years but 

 that is your own business. I assume that if we cancel the contracts 

 you are going to sue the Federal Government for breach of contract 

 and I do not know how much that is going to be worth but I 

 assume it will be a full employment act for the lawyers in town. 

 [General laughter.] 



Now these are some of the harsh realities. You could not bring 

 any industry in here in the early fifties and the early sixties out- 

 side of the salmon canneries and the reality of that was simply 

 there are other places more accessible to get wood fiber to supply 



