We favor inclusion of the best 20,000 acres of the Saratoga, or Lance Rosier, Unit as a prime example of palmetto flats and the traditional Thicket, rather than a larger bloc there. If Congress would authorize and appropriate more than 100,000 acres altogether, then the Saratoga Unit might share in the increase.

CONCLUSION

A reasonable analysis of the advantages and disadvantages will lead the unbiased person to the conclusion that the Congress should adopt the streamways approach for a connected federal area of at least 100,000 acres, and preferably 191,000-300,000 acres.

TEXAS COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES,
Dallas, Tex., June 17, 1972.

Hon. Roy A. TAYLOR,

House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.

1

DEAR CONGRESSMAN TAYLOR: Enclosed is a blue brochure which contains resolutions of 75 organizations, including Texas Garden Clubs, Inc. (p. 30, 30a and 30b). Congressman Wayne Aspinall referred to this at the public hearing June 10, but somehow the whole thing was sent back to me by Congressman Eckhardt. Please make the entire brochure a part of the record.

Also, I have made a summary of twelve advantages of including connected stream corridors in a Big Thicket national area. I enclose it for incluson in the record, along with this letter.

It was a pleasure to be with you Friday and Saturday.
Sincerely yours,

EDWARD C. FRITZ.

SUMMARY ADVANTAGES OF STREAM CORRIDORS BY EDWARD C. FRITZ

1. Recreation. Boating, fishing, swimming, hiking and camping.

2. Wilderness. Longer trails and canoe trips. Estimated 500 miles.

3. Siphoning off pressure on choice ecological areas. Hikers, campers, picknickers can use some less fragile areas, away from the emeralds.

4. Protection of Waters Nourishing the Emeralds. National Park Service can better control pollution, intrusion by houseboats and devleopment, waterflow. 5. Buffering of portions of the Emeralds. Where stream corridors connect with emeralds, private development can be kept away.

6. Passageways and nursery bases for animals. For trapping and hunting outside national area: Beaver, deer, etc. Endangered species, otter, alligator, etc.

7. Spreadwasy for rare plants. Fruit and roots can survive and be carried along corridors by animals, wind and water.

8. Big Thicket drainage pattern. National Park Service can illustrate along corridors, how streams, large and small, flooded, carved out the basin corridors and deposited 100 soil types, formed ox-bows and sloughs, and laid the groundwork for the diversity of plant associations which distinguish the Big Thicket. 9. Absorption of tourists. Assuming an equal number of tourists either way, National Park Service can spread them out further apart in a more extensive pattern than in a more compact pattern. 500 miles of streamways versus 13 miles across a single block.

10. Decongestion of traffic. By hiking and boating along streams, visitors can reach all the emeralds without having to drive from one to the other over crowded roads.

11. Connection of Emeralds for Administrative Access. National Park Service personnel can have access to all parts of national area by traversing federal property, instead of having to cross state and private property.

12. Taking of fewest homes. These bottoms contain few permanent residences. Under federal ownership, the National Park Service can exercise sound floodplain management, keeping development away from the streams and thereby minimizing future demands for dams, channelization and other construction. Experience around the nation demonstrates that floodplains and their ecosystems

1 The brochure will be found in the files of the Committee.

can be managed successfully with narrow zones under government owenership or easement. Eventually, the state will obtain land use management authority to protect buffers alongside the zones.

Mr. TAYLOR. We have some questions. You understand that no hunting is permitted in the national parks.

Mr. FRITZ. In the national park, yes, sir, and what I was saying, Mr. Taylor, was that by having this as a sort of preserve spread out over this vast area, then the deer will move slightly to the sides, of course, and then there will be hunting all along the sides of the Big Thicket area and it will help the hunting tremendously.

Mr. TAYLOR. Now, will you point out on that map the areas as you designate them.

It may be better if you use the mike and get her to do the pointing. Mr. FRITZ. Well, if she knows.

Mr. TAYLOR. I want the people to know what is included and what is not included.

Mr. FRITZ. All right, sir. Would you do that, Mr. Kindschy? Mr. Kindschy will do the pointing, Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. You hesitate to give instructions to your wife.
Mr. FRITZ. I do, that is it.

The Beach Creek unit is a vital ecological area connected with the Neches as we propose. Joe's Lake pasture is one of the finest and oldest, very best forests of all. It has been carefully preserved for private hunting purposes. The next one down the line includes on the east side of the river the Neches Bottom unit which the committee has visited and on the west side, Jack Gore Baygall and Deserter's Island. Mr. TAYLOR. But you propose to have a continuing corridor all the way down the river, do you not?

Mr. FRITZ. We do.

Mr. TAYLOR. But a broader place at these areas.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes.

Mr. TAYLOR. Do you have an idea how broad those strips are?

Mr. FRITZ. We figured out it comes to only a couple of hundred feet on each side but this gives protection for the canoeists so they will not have a subdevelopment moving in all over the place on them and gives the National Park Service control over the watershed, which is very important.

Mr. TAYLOR. One hundred feet on each side is the narrow strip.

Mr. FRITZ. It would average about 200 feet on each side as we computed it. Some places we would like to see it wider and take in choice oxbows and sloughs. In some places perhaps it could be narrower where the river bends right then.

Mr. TAYLOR. Continue.

Mr. FRITZ. The Beaumont unit which Congressman Brooks correctly stated is very vital. That is practically a virgin forest.

Saratoga unit or what we call the Lance Rosier unit, which has a choice sample of the traditional Big Thicket and has a good palmetto hardwood flat in there and the palmetto unit which is right next to it there, giant palmetto unit which has larger palmettos in general. Then the profile unit running on up the rest of Upper Pine Island Bayou and connected through Menard Creek and finally connecting over there to Big Sandy, which is the head waters of Village Creek.

Mr. TAYLOR. How broad is that unit?

Mr. FRITZ. It varies up to about-I think in places they have it expanded to where it might cover 2 miles, but I would say that the Park Service, I hope, and the committee would work out one to where the really choice areas like this one just north of Segno would be wider and areas where you have to skimp would be narrower.

Mr. TAYLOR. Now, this area consists of several narrow strips reaching up the river like fingers?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes.

Mr. TAYLOR. I do not know of any other national park that is created in strips. Usually when you go into a national park all that you see in all directions becomes a part of the park.

Do you not see difficulty in administering this as a national park when it just consists of narrow strips? For instance, you mentioned hunting. How are hunters going to know when they are in the park and how are their dogs going to be able to refrain from entering the park?

Mr. FRITZ. Well, Mr. Taylor, you have profound knowledge of dog hunting, I can see that. Of course, their dogs will not know but this will not matter. This will not matter too much because at least if the hunters stay outside and we have this kind of a stream corridor protection and fostering grounds for deer, then we would like to see the hunters get some of those deer, you see. They overpopulate. They need to be controlled. And there will be plenty of them that will be able to survive in this kind of an area in order to maintain good hunting outside of this kind of an area.

I did mention the most vital of all, perhaps, and that is the Turkey Creek, which is in the form of a corridor, but actually there are parts of its that contain choice samples of up to six or seven of the major plant associations and, therefore, that is one of our vital desires alsorecommendations.

Mr. TAYLOR. Now, as a general proposition, dogs in national parks are supposed to be on a leash. I know in the Smoky Mountains National Park they have antagonized a lot of dog owners by impounding the dogs that were caught in the park.

Mr. FRITZ. Well, I think

Mr. TAYLOR. I can see here a great amount of difficulty hunting around the edges and not violating the restrictions on the park.

Mr. FRITZ. Well, the dog hunters are down to-actually there is a good group of them. I have been out with them and it is legal in this area, as you know, and I do believe that for a while we could tolerate some dogs getting over in here and making mistakes and things like that.

Mr. KAZEN. You may tolerate it but the Government is not going to do it. [Laughter and applause.]

This is where the rub comes in. [Applause.]

Mr. FRITZ. The Government would have to tolerate it.

Mr. KAZEN. No, no.

Mr. TAYLOR. I suggest again that we refrain from applauding. My experience has been in hearings that when we start it, the one side tries to outdo the other. Pretty soon the time will be taken up and

the witness' time will be less and less. Frankly, it has a negative effect when a group applauds after they are asked not to, at least, to me it has a negative effect.

Does the gentleman from Colorado have any questions?

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, if I understand Mr. Fritz correctly he would omit the Pine Island Bayou linkage, if necesary, and use available acreage elsewhere, is that correct?

Mr. FRITZ. I would not recommend that, Mr. Aspinall. I would recommend keeping this 20,000 acres in the Little l'ine Islands Bayou area. I think that that is a very vital representation of what we call the traditional thicket, but what I do recommend is that it not be expanded at the expense of the diversity of the entire Big Thicket, that it be kept at that 20,000 acres and, therefore, will have the other seven plant associations.

Mr. ASPINALL. You answered my question.

Now, do you know what 100,000 acres means?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir. It is about one-third of 1 percent of the actual area that is within the Big Thicket Basin.

Mr. ASPINALL. That is all right. It means five townships that is what it means. And if you have six townships, that means a block of land 12 miles long and 18 miles wide when you are talking about a more or less compact group.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes.

Mr. ASPINALL. And this apparently is going to be one of the matters that we have to resolve. There is going to have to be some give and take.

Now, Mr. Kindschy, you said you represent thousands of people. What do you mean, thousands of people? We always have just a little bit of fear when somebody

Mr. KINDSCHY. We have a number of

Mr. ASPINALL. Just a minute. I have not finished my question.

Mr. KINDSCHY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ASPINALL. We always have a little bit of a fear when somebody comes before us and says they represent thousands of people, or hundreds of thousands of people, or millions of people.

How do you use this term?

Mr. KINDSCHY. We have 23 conservation organizations in the Big Thicket-that have representation on the Big Thicket Coordinating Committee.

Mr. ASPINALL. And how many members?

Mr. KINDSCHY. In these 23 organizations, the last time that I counted, with the exception of one which is a rather large organization who are going to speak for themselves later on this afternoon, in the other 22 organizations there are a total of about 7,000.

Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you very much.

Now, what is your definition of the word conservationist?

Mr. KINDSCHY. My definition of the word "conservationist" is a person who wants to preserve something which is vital to preserve for the enjoyment of the future generations of Americans.

Mr. ASPINALL. Then you are a preservationist, not a conservationist. Mr. KINDSCHY. Yes, sir. I am a preservationist.

Mr. ASPINALL. All right. A conservationist, however, can be a good user, a wise user of our natural resources, can he not?

Mr. KINDSCHY. I understand some people use that definition: yes, sir. Mr. ASPINALL. That was Theodore Roosevelt's and Governor Pinchot's definition.

Now, Mr. Gunter, may I ask you a question?

Mr. GUNTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. ASPINALL. First of all, I want to thank you for that book and I am going to read the book with a great deal of interest.

What is your definition of a conservationist?

Mr. GUNTER. I accept Theodore Roosevelt's definition as one who wishes to use. However, I would like to point out that both Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot included within that wise use the setting aside of certain natural areas as such.

Mr. ASPINALL. You are absolutely right.
Thank you very much.

Mr. GUNTER. You are welcome.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Texas.

Mr. KAZEN. Mr. Gunter, I want to commend you on the statement that you made before the committee, sir. I think it is a very well thought out statement. I know that you have spent a lot of time on this subject as have the other witnesses that have appeared before us. However, one point that you make is the urgency of creating this Big Thicket park and the setting aside of this area as soon as possible. Mr. GUNTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KAZEN. Yet, followed by Mr. Fritz, who now proposes this particular plan, you realize, of course, that it is going to take a long time to make these surveys and to work out these boundaries. I think on the one hand you are saying what you want and on the other hand you are giving us a procedure that is going in itself to take a long time.

This committee itself cannot do this. You are going to have to work with the engineers and-who is involved in this, Mr. Chairman? The engineers of the Park Service. And this in itself is going to take a long time, we are saying one thing and then arguing against it at the same time.

I just want to bring this to your attention because this is what is going to be involved, the technicalities of working out this particular type of a plan is going to take time.

But I do want to commend you for the statement that you made before the committee this morning.

Mr. Fritz

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, Mr. Kazen.

Mr. KAZEN. You have been talking about emeralds. Now, is this the same thing as the pearls that we have been hearing?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir, except they are green.

Mr. KAZEN. I am not being facetious. I want to know if you are using the terms synonymously.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir, except, for example, when the 1967 study report was made by a study team of the National Park Service, they did not include all of the items that we now include, and so it also helps by using that term, helps me to distinguish the original pearls from the present choice ecological units.