542 



Mr. RoppEL. We have 192 shareholders, but they listed 212 that 

 participated in the construction of the plant. The largest sharehold- 

 er has a little bit less than 7 percent of the issue which is held in 

 spinning companies, all kinds of Japanese corporations, through 

 trading companies. There are some banks involved. All kinds of 

 Japanese — shipping companies. 



Senator Wirth. And they are all losing money too? 



Mr. RoppEL. As far as I know, we have never paid any dividends. 

 They made their investment and, as far as I know, they never re- 

 ceived any dividends in return for them. 



Senator Wirth. But, overall, all the companies are losing money? 



Mr. RoppEL. I have no idea of what their profitability is. 



Senator Wirth. There is no possibility that we are seeing a little 

 bit of an accounting operation in such a way that they are claiming 

 this in terms of losses in money for tax situations or whatever, 

 something like, of course, other corporations have never done? 



Mr. RoppEL. They have been in this Company now since 1957 or 

 1958 and I am sure if they were taking losses on their investment, 

 they would have long since written them off. There are no taxes 

 due. They have a corporate accounting the same as the United 

 States. 



Senator Wirth. If they are losing this much money, why are 

 they continuing this operation? 



Mr. RoppEL. Well, I think they have the philosophy that they 

 started the corporation and they do not walk away as easily as 

 other people do. 



Senator Wirth. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate very 

 much your being with us, and, Ms. Brown, and all, thank you very 

 much. 



Our final panel today, if they come and join us, we would appre- 

 ciate it. Dixie Baade, Lee Schmidt, Alice Johnstone, Margaret 

 Calvin, K. J. Metcalf and Florian Sever. Thank you all. You are 

 familiar with our rules. 



Mr. Baade. 



STATEMENT OF DIXIE BAADE 



Ms. Baade. Senator Wirth and members of the committee, I am 

 Dixie Baade. I am a resident of Kupreanof, Alaska, a small commu- 

 nity off of the coast of Petersburg, Alaska. 



I came to Southeast Alaska in 1944 to work for the Territorial 

 Department of Health. My background is in public health laborato- 

 ries. I operated a laboratory in Ketchikan for 17 y2 years. 



I am one of the founders of SEACC. I became involved in conser- 

 vation after I saw the devastation that occurred from the pulp mill 

 operations. 



Some are led to believe that the pressure for reform is coming 

 from outside Alaska. I can assure you that it comes from those of 

 us who live here and have seen firsthand what is happening to our 

 land. We do welcome the help we are getting from outside. 



Senator Murkowski's bill fails to address the problems of man- 

 agement of the Tongass. It considers the 4.5 billion board feet of 

 timber logging. It fails to protect key fish and wildlife habitat, and 

 it does not deal with the problems of the 50-year contracts. 



