be found in the statement made by Emil O. Kindschy representing the Big Thicket Coordinating Committee. Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Policy Center strongly endorse Mr. Kindschy's statements of fact and policy.

When ariving at the above tracts of land as being representative of the Big Thicket of East Texas, the Big Thicket Coordinating Committee was not speaking in terms of future compromises. This 100,000-acre proposal is a bare minimum. These representative portions can be protected only if the Streamway Corridors are well established and further development on their banks permanently halted. Nothing less than the above proposed concept of a Big Thicket National Park or Area can adequately protect this beautiful region.

As concerns the various proposals presently before the National Congress, the Environmental Policy Center and Friends of the Earth are looking forward to cooperation between the members of the Texas Delegation. Specifically, we hope that the bill sponsored by Congressman Eckhardt and the bill by Congressman Brooks will receive your serious attention. Both call for the establishment of a Big Thicket National Park or Area of exactly 100,000 acres; and while Mr. Eckhardt's bill identifies the prime areas on an acre by acre basis, it should be remembered that Congressman Brooks' bill calls for streamway protection and establishment of larger ecologically unique profile units. Both bills are consistent with our recommendations.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Archie Fullingim.

STATEMENT OF ARCHIE FULLINGIM, KOUNTZE NEWS

Mr. FULLINGIM. My name is Archie Fullingim, and I am editor of the Kountze News, a weekly newspaper published at Kountze, the county seat of Hardin County, Tex., which describes itself as "the Big Light in the Big Thicket."

I respectfully request that my statement be a part of this hearing. I favor saving a 100,000-acre block of the Big Thicket on the Pine Island watershed, which would be an acreage 12 miles square, or 144 square miles; this would be neither vast nor large in comparison with the 3 million acres that originally comprised the Big Thicket.

This part of the Big Thicket is located in what is known as the Kountze, Saratoga, Sour Lake triangle. For decades, people of the Big Thicket area have agreed that this triangle is the depth of the traditional Old Bear Thicket. I have published thousands of words about the Thicket from residents, and none has ever questioned this location. of the Thicket, and no homeowners have objected to saving it, for the simple reason that no homes are located in the triangle; some on the edges, but none in the depths of the Big Thicket. Therefore, nobody would be displaced, no homes possessed.

I favor saving the depths of this Holy Ghost Thicket because it is truly Nature's museum of birds, plants and animals. It must be saved to provide a habitat for them. I believe that if it is saved it will eventually become the habitat of the rarest bird on earth, the ivory-billed woodpecker. Thousands come to this area every year; our fear is not that they will not come, but that they will be elbow to elbow. Mr. TAYLOR. That finishes your statement?

Mr. ASPINALL. You were talking about the people being elbow to elbow, not the ivory-billed woodpecker? [Laughter.]

Mr. FULLINGIM. That is right.

Mr. ASPINALL. As I understand it, you favor a congested district and not one that is spread over a lot of tributaries.

Mr. FULLINGIM. I said 100,000 acres. I believe it would be plus 60,000 acres in the triangle plus the so-called String of Pearls.

Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MAYLAND E. HARRIMAN, THE STAR-QUE
RESEARCH UNIT

Mr. HARRIMAN. You will note on the bottom of this presentation, which is my entire presentation, that I have Star-Que Research "Inquest of Knowledge." This is our avocation, of course, because I have another job, veteran's service job in the county, but our avocation is learning. The major thing is we support-let us get out of semantics— a park, a monument, something of that nature, in one solid chunk in the Saratoga-Kountze Triangle. We do not believe in the corridor bill. We want this to protect the land from the people not for the people as much as from the people.

I mean by this that we want people who are studying ecology, studying birds, bats, everything, to be able to go in there. We just do not want to see the beer cans lying in there.

So really, it is protecton of this land from the people for the study of the people. Recreation, I do not believe is a question.

As I stated in my brief statement, here we are buying a small plot of land on Village Creek, We like this land. We need to relax on the weekends and as soon as this meeting is over we are going up there.

We have been paying $25 a month since 1964 to try to buy this land. Well, the value of the land at the common market value, I do not have any idea what it would be but it is costing us 8-percent interest all the time since 1964. So, really, a lot of times I think the money angle is not the most important angle because lifetime tenancy, well, what about my grandchild? Would my grandchild perhaps want this? Mr. Brooks made the statement about his farm in Jasper the other day at the Big Thicket meeting, how much it meant to him. This is it. It is not always just exactly the dollars.

So otherwise my brief statement I submitted.

Mr. TAYLOR. You say you want to protect the area from the people, not protect it for the use of the people.

Mr. HARRIMAN. I want to protect it for the people to study, for the people to go in and learn more about this ecology or the types of fauna and flora, but what I meant is I want to mainly protect it from me and everyone else.

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, now, creating a national park ordinarily increases the number of visitors to an area.

Mr. HARRIMAN. True. That is why I say semantics. This morning I learned a lot about a national park and monuments and recreation area which I did not know before. So I am not smart enough to answer that.

Mr. TAYLOR. Would you not have fewer visitors if you leave it in present hands?

Mr. HARRIMAN. You are going to have fewer visitors anyway because the mosquitoes, chiggers and snakes are going to keep people away. I have Village Creek in my cabin 6 inches deep and I am still going back.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. ASPINALL. If I understand your position, Mr. Harriman, you agree with Mr. Fullingim.

Mr. HARRIMAN. Yes; I agree with him.

Mr. ASPINALL. All right. I think I understand.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you for your testimony.
(Mr. Harriman's statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF MAYLAND E. HARRIMAN, STAR-QUE RESEARCH UNIT,
PORT ARTHUR, TEX.

My wife and I wrote to Mr. Brooks, Mr. Eckhardt, Mr. Bentsen and Mr. Tower about the Proposed Big Thicket National Park and told them we did not feel the banks of the Neches River, Village Creek and Turkey Creek should be included in the park. We feel this is not the true Thicket. More importantly, our letter explained that in 1964 we had begun monthly payments on two 75 by 165 foot lots on Village Creek. We could not really afford to buy this land at that time but we really wanted it. In 1966 another lot next to ours became available and once more we took on more expense than we should have to give us more space on the creek. Mr. Bentsen and Mr. Eckhardt both write us very nice letters in which they state no one is going to loose their homes or camps without proper remuneration. Gentlemen, this is not a matter of money alone... we are paying $25.00 a month to secure one small area of Village Creek's Banks so that we can get away from people, pressures and pavements. You can't pay my wife and me for that because we don't want a section of Wildwood or Ivanhoe with golf courses and boating and paved streets. We like the quiet woods. And, as to lifetime tenancy, my three-year old granddaughter may not want to give up the land when we are gone. The corridor idea to us is not practical. We don't want the state or national government owning every foot of creek bank in East Texas. This is not why we are asking for a Big Thicket National Park. Put the park in the Saratoga Triangle area and leave the Neches River and Village Creek alone. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. R. G. Merrifield.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT G. MERRIFIELD, HEAD OF FOREST SCIENCE, TEXAS A. & M. UNIVERSITY

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am Bob Merrifield, head of the Department of Forest Science at Texas A. & M. University. I would like to briefly discuss two fundamental points concerning the proposals for a Big Thicket National Park.

My first point is that the Big Thicket fails to meet the standards established for national park status. The National Park Service studied the Big Thicket question in 1967 and concluded that, "Preliminary studies of the Big Thicket by the National Park Service revealed many uses in the area-mining claims, oil wells, logging, operations, powerlines, gas lines and vacation homesites-which are inconsistent with criteria for establishing national parks." They further proposed the acquisition of about 36,000 acres of land containing several unique biological systems for inclusion in a national monument or national recreation area. As far as I know, this is the only reported professional study of the Big Thicket that has been made. The others that we hear about from time to time, apparently are merely conceptual proposals without regard to consideration of the criteria employed by the Park Service to classify the various park units.

I strongly support the national monument approach. It represents a fair and realistic appraisal of the biological and social values of the

Big Thicket. The role of recreation in the Big Thicket is placed in proper perspective; that is, it is placed in a subordinate position. The Big Thicket has a very low potential for most forms of outdoor recreation. Except for some limited primitive recreational experiences this area has little else to offer. The principal resources of the Big Thicket are the unique biololigical systems which the Park Service would preserve in a national monument. Amid all of the clamor for a national park we should not lose sight of the realities of the situation.

Again, we would direct your attention to the recreational opportunities that abound on the national forests to the north of the Big Thicket. There are four major lakes in some 700.000 acres of national forest lands in east Texas and the opportunities for outdoor experience range from primitive camping to intensified recreation around the water impoundments. The recreational potential on these public lands has been only partially realized. While public use of developed areas is extremely high-millions of visitor-days annually-there is a great need for further developmental programs for recreation on the national forests. Rather than acquiring large acreages of land in the Big Thicket that has a low recreational potential, why not direct these resources to existing public lands that offer vastly superior opportunities for recreational development?

My second point is concerned with the larger question of the impact of land withdrawals on our timber resources. As a nation we can expect to face serious shortages of timber within the next 10 to 20 years. There is an increasing demand for forest products as well as a rapidly diminishing land base of commercial forests. The latter factor is a major consideration with the possible withdrawal of substantial acreage in the Big Thicket National Park.

You have the rest of my testimony.

Mr. TAYLOR. You do favor creating national parks in some of the beautiful and attractive areas of the Nation?

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Yes, sir; where it is appropriate. What I am saying here, in looking at the Park Service criteria that they spell out for the various units, that this area does not meet the park classification. It does meet the monument classification.

Mr. TAYLOR. Any questions?

Mr. ASPINALL. Can you tell me the difference between the values in the Arches National Park of Utah and the Colorado National Monument of Colorado?

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I have never been to either one, so I could not say. Mr. ASPINALL. The reason I bring this up to you is because their values are practically the same. One is called a park and the other is called a monument. One is now a statutory area in Utah and the other is purely an Executive order area so far.

I have one other question. What is a limited primitive recreational experience?

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Well, these are-by limited I mean they are limited in the areas that are available for this sort of thing, the rivers, and so on, and the primitive recreational experience has to do with very undeveloped sort of recreational activities, not developed.

Mr. ASPINALL. Well, you are limited-you are limiting the word experience. You are not going back to the primitive urge? Mr. MERRIFIELD. My grammar

86-024-729

Mr. ASPINALL. OK.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Texas.

Mr. KAZEN. Mr. Merrifield, further down in your statement you are talking about the withdrawal of 100,000 acres of forest land and timber

and

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I just use that as an example.

Mr. KAZEN. Will you explain to me the example that you set out here of 100,000 acres of forest lands in the Big Thicket being withdrawn but then it would be necessary to increase the annual rate of growth by 10 percent on 1 million acres of land of equal productivity just to break even? How do you explain that to me?

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I am just assuming 100.000-granted all of any proposal would not be entirely forested but this is just an example I am using. It is not necessarily restricted to the Big Thicket question. It is restricted to any land withdrawal situation that removes commercial forest lands from our land base and when you remove a big block of land like that, in order to maintain the supply of forest products to the Nation, we are going to have to shift this burden on existing forest lands and we do this by one way. We improve our managerial technology on these other lands.

What I am saying is, just for example, if you take 100,000 acres out, then you are going to have to shift this over on a million acres. If you want to use that figure, you woud have to increase it by 10 percent. Mr. KAZEN. Are you acquainted with the lumbering situation in these various proposals and their location?

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Not specifically.

Mr. KAZEN. The value of that timber, and so on?

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Well, not specifically. Generally; yes.

Mr. KAZEN. I will wait and ask my questions later.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Your statement contains some fine operations and very positive conclusions. Explain to me your examination of and your experience in the Big Thicket area on which you base these conclusions.

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Well, my personal experience is one as a researcher and one as an administrator of professional researchers that are working in the Big Thicket area right now, and in discussions with these people, people on my faculty, and my own personal experiences as I go down there with them, this largely constitutes the basis of my experience.

Mr. TAYLOR. You stated that a group from Texas A. & M. University working through the department of forest science is now making a study of the area.

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Yes; but not related to the Big Thicket National Park proposal. This has to do with something else. Timber production, if you will.

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, thank you.

(Mr. Merrifield's statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF ROBERT G. MERRIFIELD, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREST SCIENCE, TEXAS A. & M. UNIVERSITY

Mr. Chairman, I am Robert G. Merrifield. Head of the Department of Forest Science, Texas A. & M. University. I would like to briefly discuss two fundamental points concerning the proposals for a Big Thicket National Park.

My first point is that the Big Thicket fails to meet the standards established for National Park status. The National Park Service studied the Big Thicket