Roads and Transportation Task Force found that it could not justify supporting the State Highway Department's proposal for a Lake Powell Parkway because it bypasses all communities in the area and thus did not have favorable cost/ benefit ratio. My class assignment was to study alternatives to the State Highway Department's proposal. Due to that study, I am now a strong advocate for the Escalante Wilderness Committee's proposed Canyon Country Parkway System which provides improved access to local towns and to the many national parks. monuments and recreation areas. I recommend that you study the Roads and Transportation Task Force's careful analysis of the transportation problems of the area. In summary, at the end of the semester, Professor Olpin's environmental law class, for the most part, had been overcome with the exceptional natural beauty of the Escalante and are now strong advocates for preserving one of our nation's most magnificant wilderness areas. I would like to conclude by urging you to adopt a bill which is essentially identical to Senator Moss's bill S. 27 which offers a reasonable approach to the study of the various problems of the area and protection of its outstanding values. Mr. TAYLOR. Carol Hughey. STATEMENT OF MISS CAROL HUGHEY Miss HUGHEY. My name is Carol Hughey and I happen to be by choice a New Mexico school teacher, but it matters to me what happens to the wild land fragments and patches all over. I am here to help convince and persuade people with decisionmaking powers of the importance of not dividing the proposed Escalante wilderness area with a highway of any kind. We Americans have too much and for too long have been carving, clearing off, asphalting over and modifying the acreage of America. I have a strong degree of public interest in our dwindling wild land. If you men have hiked into canyons, if you have crawled between the narrow walls, if you have lost shoes to these canyons, if you have been bruised, cut, scraped by them, if you have sucked into your mind all the old formations and the rich beauty of these canyons, you know the wonderful feeling that it has given you. It is like a good dream only with a foundation, like finding a rare treasure, which it really is. Can we steal, can we rob from the people these good feelings and these exquisite treasures? Build a road across the proposed wilderness area and we do just this; we rob them. It upsets, it aggravates me that Americans are either overruled or allowed to blast, to bulldoze, needless highways. People cannot and will not enjoy the Escalante Canyon country speeding through in cars. The highway commissioner should improve the existing roads outside the proposed wilderness area and there will be less littering, there will be less erosion. Cut a corridor, road corridor, and we possibly sell under the banner of progress another potential public park to land developers and prospectors for oil. We Americans have carved out of this country towns and metropolises which insult our senses. They bombard our lives with artificial lightning, congestion, and stench. The upspoiled wild lards like the Escalante Canyon country give us timeless human values that we Americans need for inner stability and for tranquility, as a kind of spiritual enrichment, and for some people just simply a rebirth for sanity. For these reasons I favor the Escalante country as a wilderness area and support S. 27. Thank you very much. Mr. LLOYD. I did not get the identity of the witness. Miss HUGHEY. Carol Hughey from Los Alamos, N. Mex. Mr. LLOYD. Thank you. Mr. TAYLOR. Tony Heller. STATEMENT OF TONY HELLER Mr. HELLER. Dan Tyers is not here. I prepared a speech originally saying about the same thing as everyone else has except I decided to change that. I am going to do it more on the economics of the situation. I mean coming from northern New Mexico, which happens to be even poorer than southern Utah, I know what happens when you try and bring people into the State. The government of New Mexico has done this. They improved the highways, they promoted the film industry, they have done everything to bring people into the State and as a result, instead of helping the people of the State, their condition has gone down and unemployment has gone up. And all the money is, instead of coming into the State, going out of the State to big business in the East. And this is not too good for the economy. And also there are other things like we started huge land developments and these developments-there is not enough water in New Mexico. We are a very dry State and now all these people from the East are coming out here and they are finding that there is no water, coming out to New Mexico, and so they spend all their money on these places. So, I just think that the people of Utah have been fooled by everyone telling them that this highway will help their economy because if it works like it did in New Mexico, it is going to hurt them. So, I just cannot see any justification for defacing this beautiful wilderness. And so I urge you to vote for the Senate bill and the road in question. It will cost the natural beauty of our environment too much to be a worthwhile endeavor. So I am referring back to a statement made by a gentleman earlier in the hearing. He said that the wilderness was like the Mona Lisa. Well, building a road across this wilderness would be like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Thank you. Mr. TAYLOR. Have you seen the wilderness area of which you spoke? Have you been in it? Mr. HELLER. Yes. Mr. TAYLOR. Of course, we flew over it and traveled through it a good deal yesterday. It seems to me there is a wilderness there regardless of what we do. I think there is more than wilderness there. I do not think much of anything else can be made out of it, but you want us to officially designate it as one. Mr. HELLER. Yes. Mr. TAYLOR. Loren Byers. Mary Louise Williams on deck. STATEMENT OF LOREN BYERS Mr. BYERS. All the ideas that I might have expressed have already been well expressed. So I would like to say that I support the preservation of the Escalante area as a wilderness and I would like to say that there is nothing more valuable to me than the solitude and peace in a wilderness. Thank you. Mr. TAYLOR. Are you a member of the Los Alamos group? Mr. BYERS. Yes. Mr. TAYLOR. I would like to state that I agree with you that our Nation needs solitude and peace. I think a lot of our problems are caused by too many people crowding on top of people. And we do need places where people can get away from the rush and away from the crowd and where they can have solitude and peace just as you expressed it, and that is the main reason this committee is in business creating national parks and recreation areas, and so forth. The gentleman from Wyoming. Mr. RONCALIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Are you aware that the Senate bill also provides for an alternate road which calls for a study up to 2 years? Yesterday I tried to fly myself from Bullfrog Basin down to Page by flying what would be a proposed route as close to the water as possible, leaving all of the Escalante plains free to be wilderness. Do you find that objectionable? Mr. BYERS. I cannot say that I am well enough informed that I understand your question. Mr. RONCALIO. Thank you. Mr. TAYLOR. Mary Louise Williams. On deck, Alexis Kelner. STATEMENT OF MISS MARY LOUISE WILLIAMS Miss WILLIAMS. My name is Mary Louise Williams and I am a teacher of history at Los Alamos High School, and I am also a sponsored organizer of the group, Student To Save Our Environment. Mr. TAYLOR. How many of these students are your pupils? Miss WILLIAMS. I have every single one in my class but I have about 50 more back in Los Alamos. Mr. TAYLOR. How many from your school are here today? First of all, I am going to scratch everything that I had prepared to say because as you know from my position you know what I am standing for. But I would like to add something in addition to that, the reasons why I brought these students here today. First of all, I brought them here because I thought it would be a really tremendous educational experience to see how the Government goes about making its decisions, and I also thought it would be a good idea to encourage them to participate in the decisionmaking process. And first of all, I would like to commend you, Representative Taylor, for the comments you have made to the students in encouraging them to do so, but on the other hand, I would like to point out to all of you that when you put a student on the spot by asking them questions which he or she may not be prepared to answer, you are doing something which is very embarrassing to them and goes exactly against what you have originally intended to do and that is to encourage them to participate. Mr. TAYLOR. Now, do you not put them on the spot by asking them questions that they may or may not be prepared to answer? Miss WILLIAMS. I want to point out I do not ask them questions we feel Mr. TAYLOR. We have not asked them questions to embarrass them. I have tried to make some points. Miss WILLIAMS. I am not specifically referring to you, Mr. Taylor. I am specifically referring to Representative Lloyd, who attempted to embarrass that young man there and I really objected to the manner in which he did it. The second thing that I would like to point out, too, that they have learned here is that it is a very difficult process making these kinds of decisions and I think you have shown a great deal of patience in listening to us. Sometimes your expressions have shown to them that you also get very bored, but the last thing I think is of extreme importance and what they have seen here today is that they are facing a world where economics always rule and esthetics come last. Thank you. Mr. TAYLOR. I think you will find, in the main that the members of the committee by their comments and questions are trying to reason with these young people. We want to get their thinking and at the same time maybe show them that there is another side to the picture that they may not have thought about fully. Miss WILLIAMS. Representative Taylor, why did you not do the same thing to some of the other adults, to the adults? You did it to the students consistently but not to the adults, particularly the ones who are in support of the road, and I felt that you put our side on the spot and not the other side. Mr. LLOYD. Mr. Chairman Mr. TAYLOR. I think sometimes Mr. SKUBITZ. Mr. Chairman Mr. TAYLOR. While I am a great booster of young people, I think sometimes they do need to be told that all that is old is not bad, that all that is old should not be changed, and that all that this generation has done is not wrong. Now, I started out during the depression when jobs were scarce, when the economy was at a very low level. We did not have the affluence that these young people have, that they have grown up with and that they have granted that they would keep forever. They are assuming that we can stop all this development and discontinue the use of all minerals and timber here in the West and at the same time have the economy that we are now having. Well, I think it is our duty to reason with them and to discuss these things with them. We should listen to their responses. They learn and we learn, too, and I believe-I hope-you do a lot of the same things as their teacher. Miss WILLIAMS. I do. Mr. TAYLOR. And you have done a lot to encourage their interest in the outdoors and in conservation and I commend you for it. If someone had not encouraged their interest they probably would not have known about this hearing and would not have been here. Mr. LLOYD. Mr. Chairman Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Utah. Mr. LLOYD. I might say to the lady that I have counted her witnesses-12 students from Los Alamos Miss WILLIAMS. Ten. Mr. LLOYD. Each one of which has pointedly testified against my bill, and it is in the record and there is not one of your students that I have embarrassed by questioning their actual knowledge or asked for a greater explanation because I respected the fact that they were here expressing themselves, on limited experience. There is not one of your high school students that I have asked a question of other than to have them identify themselves. That is 12 of them. I have heard each one of them. I have not asked any one of them an embarrassing question despite the fact that 12 of them have gone on record just the same as if they were in Washington, D.C., in opposition to my bill. And I am sure I am going to read in the papers or somewhere, have it testified, that it is the unanimous opinion of the young people that they are opposed to my bill. I had an opportunity to explore their attitudes and to ask them questions that perhaps I knew some answers to that they did not but I did not do that. The young man you referred to, I am sure can take care of himself. Miss WILLIAMS. I am sure he can. Mr. LLOYD. He told me he is not a high school student. He is going to the university. Did you not say you said you came over from Colorado? I think you and I can take care of ourselves. He was no student from your class. I think your students should know this in addition to the fine presentations they have made and the opinions that they have expressed, seven Members of the U.S. Congress have given their time to listen to them and to listen respectfully. Some time they may come up before a congressional committee which is trying to take full advantage of the time and they will be examined in great, great depth, great, great depth. I personally thought, being the Congressman from Utah, that the chairman was exhibiting great interest in these expressions of your young students. It seemed to me that he was encouraging them and, as a matter of fact, I was rather respecting the way that he was not only listening with patience and keeping us here to hear the same thing 12 times over but at the same time he was so interested that he was asking in such a way that I thought he was encouraging the students, and I would like to compliment the chairman of this committee on the attitude he has taken. Miss WILLIAMS. I am not attempting to be disrespectful but I am just pointing out that for many of these students it is the first time. and they are scared to death and in some cases this kind of questioning might inhibit them. Mr. TAYLOR. I agree with the gentleman from Utah that the students have taken care of themselves not only in the prepared statements but in their answers to questions. Miss WILLIAMS. I agree with that. Mr. TAYLOR. And if we did not value their response we would not ask questions. The gentleman from Kansas. |