Welcome to the Washington District. This is the sunshine capital of the shuang'er national forest. Always accommodate people don't you take credit for that. I brought the son of a gun. It was here what you got here. Okay, this is map shows you Flynn Lake. And I'll give you a little back off in Lake is a little bit different than the other areas that you've seen today in that Flynn Lake was put in as a study area. When the Wilderness East Act of 75. So we have been in the process of studying this under that act and it is a study area and it also is a rare to area. A federal forest ranger conducting a tour of areas in the chequamegon National Forest recommended for permanent Wilderness status by The Carter Administration Congressman. David Obie had invited a couple of dozen Northern residents including local government officials representatives of special interest groups and other interested citizens to join him on a walking tour several of the tracks identified in a process called rare to roadless area review and evaluation. Tom. Klein is assistant director of the sigurd Olson Institute of Environmental Studies at Northland College in Ashland. It's been a very lengthy process of getting citizen governmental industry input in a decision to classify some lands in federal Force only as Wilderness. And rare to is the second effort to First quite a number of years ago and it came to an end last fall after a long series of public involvement meetings and Various opportunities to let points of view be made the forest service then looked at all of this information all the pros and cons of many different areas and they weighed and measured and came up with four recommendations for the chequamegon forest for different sites that they thought met the criteria for Wilderness and these four are then presented to Congress for their final resolution. Now, it could be that none would be approved. It could be all approved or anything in between and so today Congress an OB is here to look for himself at these lands and get some more opinions from people before that comes to the floor and that is quite a ways off. This is not a tomorrow or the next week situation the recommendations for the Shawarma then were different I gather from those on the Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota where I believe the forest service asked for no new Wilderness areas my correct on there that that's the difference in what what you're correct and there there's a lot of reasons for that. Obviously political reasons were Paramount that there was already so much controversy and anguish about Wilderness that The Boundary Waters fight in the rest, right? Exactly. Also in Minnesota. There is a large chunk of land The Boundary Waters canoe area that has been designated as a at least a semi Wilderness. And now that that legislation is passed that is Wilderness in contrast Wisconsin, even though it has a large acreage of federal land. They chequamegon Forest is roughly 700,000 Acres alone has only one fairly small area the rainbow Wilderness Area. So as in essence, you know unused territory for Wilderness purposes and that's why there were more recommendations for Wisconsin Congressman all be spent most of his time in informal discussions with the constituents who had joined him on the tour of Ashland and Mayfield counties. I'm not interested in what in what the forest service thinks of environmentalists are the environmental stink of the forest service or what the paper my paper mill. As an environmentalist think of each other because I've heard it all for 20 years. Well, I'm interested in knowing is what the people in each of the local areas really feel about Flynn Lake above porcupine about St. Peters Dome and about Ron Lake and that's the only question that I have that I have to try to decide. How do you know? I'm not here to try to decide which going to go on in areas. I don't know in areas. I don't understand and I'm not qualified to judge and I just want to know what when you put all of the rhetoric aside and put all of the and put all of the symbols aside. What's the Practical thing to do? Would you in those four areas of ending the rare program then that to hell? Yes. We've got so many problems piling up in this country and you cannot have been debating about Alaska since I went to a to Congress ten years ago and Nick begich was Nick all you ever heard from begich before he died was Alaskan lands of asking lands and we're still going through it again. And the I don't know anybody in congress who doesn't want to see this thing settled once and for all what I'm concerned about is that I think that you you've got I think you've got a situation where the interior committee has traditionally balanced. In favor of too much. So perhaps in favor of the environmentalists house I think is going to be split on the other end and if you don't get those two groups together so that you get a reasonable product out of committee which people will then stick to on the floor. Then you're going to have this going on again and again and again, but if you can get a if you can get people to drop the rhetoric and put together a package which they can live with like adults, then you can you can get it settled and move on to something else which is what we ought to be doing. Let's see. Yeah, they did eat together. And because the congressman insisted on it the discussions were relatively civilized but it was also clear the points of view are Divergent and our strongly held we talked with Tom Schmidt who represents to Industry groups the Wisconsin paper Council and the Wisconsin Forest Industries Council and with John Moran of Ashland area supervisor for an acoustic a paper first Schmidt. We look at from a couple of points of view one is that the areas that are up for consideration now basically none of them meet the criteria for a Wilderness Area. We do have the position. However that certain areas that do have a unique aesthetic Environmental Quality should be protected the see Peters Dome and the Falls are do fall in that classification. Our question would be as you know, do you need Forty Four Hundred Acres to protect an area you also use the word protect. You cannot preserve a forest or a tree more you can protect preserve a human being protected. But you can't preserve it and we're looking at it from the point of view of the overall Forest products industry and society's needs sizing. These for Forest product is going to double by the year 2000. So there's gonna be increasing demands and pressures for use of our from multiple use of our forest. And so we're seeing it, you know, take a long hard look at this. And so you would like to see something done to protect at least some of these areas but something short of a full Wilderness designation, that would be correct. That would perhaps allow some some Timber cutting to continue under some circumstances that kind of exactly. Yes the you could do selective Cuts in certain areas. They're also for example some areas that were looking at today have a heavy stands of Aspen Aspen is a short Loop species for 60 years. And when S-Pen becomes over mature and dies, it does not regenerate itself unless it's been cut or through a forest fire type of situation. It doesn't regenerate so consequently Resorts or revert to a brush brush. She stayed and so we think that is a waste of an answer. Soros considering the yellow society's demands and the future is your company having trouble coming up with enough raw material in this area already and end would taking some of this land out of production hurt. Well, my company does get considerable amount of their soft wood requirements from out of the state at this time. And I think the state as a whole it's a very good percentage of your soft wood requirements from outside of the state of Wisconsin would Wilderness designations of these areas further cut the supply. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, you have to keep in consideration here to that. You're not just looking looking at seven areas here in Wisconsin. You have to consider the areas of Minnesota out west and Dakota's the Wisconsin paper industry is importing right now about 62 percent of its soft wood knees and this is not just coming from the boring you Of sure we're getting it from Minnesota goes out to Dakota's further west and that all has a whole rear to hold another concept has an impact now just the paper industry, but everybody else that relies on Forest products industry. So if you lose a little bit of the productive area in many different states, the the cumulative effect is fairly serious on the industries that were denounced it could be and we're looking also at concern that we have is one that that this rare to process could become like a cancer type situation you have pockets. Now who says that this is going to stop at rare to what prevents it from being a rare three are rare for and that's where our concern is. I have been instrumental with two other people and getting this Gathering to take place today and my my feeling is that the local people have not been heard as much as they should have in this whole rare to process. Believed in people Drummond's should be considered much more when you talk about Flynn Lake in the people from Madison or Milwaukee these people live in the area and it's going to affect them much more than the people down state or out of state Tom. Klein of the Sigrid Olsen Institute told me he hadn't made up his mind yet on whether all four of the tracks should be designated Wilderness. I have not looked at all of them myself. I believe firmly in the concept of wilderness. I believe we need it in Wisconsin. I heard a lot of arguments today and I've heard for a number of years and why we shouldn't have it and none of those have been persuasive the sites that we visited this morning. I think are very unique and definitely should be included. That's the site at Saint Peter's dome which overlooks like Superior a just a spectacular view large waterfall in the area another site. We just heard a few minutes ago. Was that pork? Pine Lake which is also a unique area. There are a couple others or at least the one we're going to next Flynn Lake that I've looked at and many other people in it. It does not have the immediate appeal as the others do and I would be far more open to to compromise on on an area that does not have something that you know isn't outstanding than another so I might say that I would be in favor of three of the four that have been recommended but I'm not going to say I want everything that's recommended to be there probably other areas in the state that have not been recommended that should be looked at more carefully, even though there are two process was lengthy. You just can't look at every chunk of land in the state and make you know, a very detailed evaluation of it in the time that was allowed. I sense some Spirit of compromise in the are here today. That I've been told there hasn't been a lot of shouting and screaming and yelling and in the course of the tour are maybe environmentalists and those who hold some different use multiple use people if we might call them that coming a little closer together on this particular issue. I think that's only because we had a free lunch at noon, even though there has been a certain amount of decorum and Harmony in this tour. They the opinions are very entrenched and one of the purposes of our Institute at Northland college is to provide information and I'll give you just a brief example, one of the arguments that ensued during the tour today was overhunting where one of the people who opposed the Wilderness concept for porcupine like said, well, you know, I hunt here and I will be able to do this so I'll have to buy a new stamp where I can only hunt with bows and arrows simply not true. If these areas became Wilderness the same hunting Raja's would be in effect and there would be absolutely no change other than you could not bring in four-wheel drives or any motorized vehicles. And another of the misconceptions is that when you think of wilderness you think of these enormous chunks of land 20 miles 30 miles across we have very much mini-world earnest as we're talking about today for to 6,000 acres and that even sounds like a lot but you can hike across those in an hour's time most are no more than two or three miles at their widest point. So it does not exclude these areas from hunting or from use by the general public and this is one of the strong arguments against Wilderness is that it shuts out people it locks out people and that may be true where you're dealing with the Wilderness this 30 square miles. A lot of people couldn't get to the middle if they so wanted to do here anyone can virtually that can do any other recreational activities in the state other arguments came up about fire protection if with the Wilderness will burn down and here again, the forest service was able to answer those questions factually that mechanized equipment. It can be used to protect property private property or or lives and they can be used to protect the resource if the for service desires to do. So so a lot of information misinformation is still flowing. I think today has been fairly harmonious in that Dave OB is a very articulate and strong-minded person and is told people in essence. Let's keep to the facts. Let's not rehash ideology. Let's talk about these four areas and about the choices we have to make and he's kept it free from the very extravagant manipulation of fact that has been the case in many of the previous public meetings about Wilderness, but the feelings are indeed running strong on this and and there's apt to be a fairly emotional struggle before this is all decided. I would guess then I would say that's that's correct. And I don't know it's inevitable and that's not necessarily bad if out of those two opposing I choose can come. You know, I reasonable middle ground that both can live with that's great. I don't think anyone in the environmental movement expects. Every recommendation for rare to to be accepted nor does industry probably think they can oppose all of them and Congress should all be was fairly blunted if he went back to his colleagues in Washington and said, sorry boys, we you know, we don't want any here that they would not respect him and he would have no influence on the total package because Wisconsin does have a lot of federal lands and Wilderness is a national need not a local need so there probably will be some Wilderness in Wisconsin Congressman old me meantime was engaged in further dialogue with constituents. All I know is that my husband was one of the people that logged in that area about 20 years ago and all of a sudden he said this is pristine Wilderness. I can remember going down there and walking around with my said they must have done a really a great job because all of a sudden people wanted it. I mean does this really meet the criteria of wilderness? That's what I'm that's what I'm asking. I'm you know that I'm trying to look at all of these areas, you know when we will see which which I think doing which I think don't you trying to tell me something when we walked up to a question. We need to get going to have a permit if you if this would be considered a Wilderness Area like the porcupine. Would you need a permit to go in there? I didn't hear anything about him. Did you hear that? I say if the say the parking paint area was made into a Wilderness. Would you need a permit to go in there? Jack told me that they do have a registration system now in effect that rainbow which is the only Wilderness Area that they administer and but it is not a limiting factor it simply so that they know how many people are coming through all that. I know they could Suppose a permit situation. If there were too many people, you know, if they were hordes of people trying to get in there Jeff Jack you don't have a permit system at Rainbow. Do you you do assignment system self registration, but but is it butthead? Do you exclude people? No, sir. Also, we had fourteen hundred and forty-four people registered at Rainbow. Has anybody tried to get in not been able to get in not at all? We're nowhere near that suppose. So you've got essentially a sign-up system but not an exclusionary system. That's right. All it is is to tell us how many people are using it how long they're staying what they're doing where they came from this kind of thing just to management. But but what is it cost to people nothing nothing and it's right at the entry point self-registration you fill out a form and then it was off to view more of the lands in question. Congressman. OB says, it may be a year before the house deals with the Wilderness proposals and that intends to keep sampling public opinion until it does this is Dick daily.