537 



timber sale. For this fiscal year, 170 million to 180 million board 

 feet of timber is readily available from the APC long-term timber 

 sale, free from ongoing litigation, and to date, 100 million board 

 feet in short-term sales is fully prepared and ready for sale." Have 

 you seen those previously? 



Mr. ROPPEL. I do not agree with this. We cut all of the timber 

 that was available to us last fall. The Forest Service does have 

 timber sales that no one has bought, not ourselves or anyone else. 

 Just because the Forest Service puts up a timber sale does not 

 mean it is a viable timber sale, and if they were such good timber 

 sales — other people were complaining and have complained to you 

 about a shortage of timber who surely would have bought those 

 sales themselves. 



Senator Wirth. And if the Forest Service goes to the bother of 

 putting up timber sales and they are not viable timber sales — why 

 does the Forest Service do that? 



Mr. RoppEL. That is a very good question. I suggest you ask 

 them. We have asked the same question, and we cannot get a good 

 answer. 



Senator Wirth. Is that not because they are driven by — going 

 back over what we were discussing earlier this morning, the 450 

 million board feet per year or 4.5 billion per decade goal, that they 

 were desperately trying to get to that number? Therefore, they 

 were putting up a variety of timber for sale, some of which is not 

 viable? 



Mr. RoppEL. I think that is a valid observation. When we first bid 

 on the contract in 1957, there was over 1.1 billion foot annually. 

 Now it has dwindled down, without the intensive forestry compo- 

 nent, someplace about 350 million feet. It is not unreasonable that 

 those people that heavily relied on being able to get faulty timber 

 are not able to get the faulty timber that they used to. It just is not 

 available for the Forest Service to put up. And so when they put up 

 scratchy sales or poor sales or sales that are very expensive, people 

 cannot afford to buy, but still they feel that they are satisfying 

 their obligation of putting up timber for the dependent industry. 



Senator Wirth. Does that suggest anything to you about whether 

 the 4.5 billion per decade ought to be changed? 



Mr. RoppEL. I think that what it suggests to me is that too much 

 timber has been put out of the commercial availability of the 

 Forest Service. 



Senator Wirth. Why is that? 



Mr. RoppEL. I think that too much timber has been taken out of 

 the commercial component of harvest and put into wilderness 

 areas and other non-commercial availability and what is left does 

 not give the Forest Service adequate timber to work with. 



Senator Wirth. Well, We went through that analysis of after it 

 has been put into wilderness and that which is commercially 

 viable — well, we went through all of that this morning. 



Mr. RoppEL. I was here, but I do not necessarily agree with your 

 analysis. 



Senator Wirth. Well, let me ask you — I will make sure that you 

 get a copy of the Forest Service numbers. I would be happy to give 

 you a copy of those, if I could see where it is that you do disagree 

 with those numbers. 



