creasing mineral production and increasing demand from an expanding population that enjoys the highest standard of living in the world.

Within the southwest part of the Blackfoot-Sun River Divide area and near Mineral Hill are located the Klondike and Porto Rico mines, and 4 miles southeast of Red Mountain is Cotters mine and other properties developed primarily for copper and gold.

Senator BURDICK. May I interrupt? Will somebody who knows the area get a pointer or pencil and identify some of these?

(Whereupon, Mr. Cecil Garland designated the areas on the map to the committee.)

Mr. JOHNs. Production statistics were not determined for these properties. Placer gold deposits on Lincoln, Beaver, Stonewall, Liverpool, Keep Cool, and Seven-Up-Pete Creeks are peripheral to the south boundary of the proposed addition to the Bob Marshall Wilderness area, but the placer gold deposits in most of these drainages are believed to be derived from gold-bearing quartz lodes in the southern part of the proposed area (Red Mountain and vicinity). Lyden (Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Mem. 26) reported about $7,025,000 of placer gold recovered from operations in Lincoln and Stonewall Creeks. Production figures from the other four drainages are not available but it is believed to be substantial.

Considering that the total placer-gold production from the peripheral area north of Lincoln exceeded $7 million and that this production is believed to be derived from Red Mountain and adjacent areas within the south confines of the proposed wilderness area, together with the exploration of a disseminated copper deposit by Bear Creek Mining Co. on Copper Creek and impending production from The Anaconda Co.'s development in the Heddleston district just southeast of the area, the mineral potential here is sufficient to justify the request that this part of the proposed addition be excluded, especially in view of the current critical gold situation. We need gold. This area proposed for exclusion is the area in townships 15 and 16 N., from the eastern border of the Blackfoot-Sun River area west to the North Fork Blackfoot River.

In the U.S. Forest Service report titled "Patterns for Management, Blackfoot-Sun River Divide Area," hereafter referred to as the Blackfoot-Sun River report, a statement concerning minerals is as follows:

Mineral occurrences are present but their extent and value are not generally known. Prospect drilling recently completed may reveal commercial deposits in the Mineral Creek, Red Mountain, Bugle Mountain, and Alice Creek areas.

About 8 miles southeast of the southeast corner of the Blackfoot-Sun River Divide area is the Heddleston district, where a large porphyry molybdenum-copper deposit is being explored. The possibility for the occurrence of similar deposits in the Blackfoot-Sun River Divide area should be given very careful consideration, especially in view of Bear Creek's findings in Copper Canyon.

Melville R. Mudge and associates, of the U.S. Geological Survey, completed a reconnaissance survey of the southeastern Lewis and Clark Range during 1964-66, and during this investigation they used geological mapping and geochemical and geophysical methods to outline the South Fork thrust zone, within which are prospect areas that show anomalous amounts of lead and zinc. The width of the thrust zone

ranges from one-half mile to 3 miles, and trends from the junction of Falls Creek and the Dearborn River (east-central part of the Blackfoot-Sun River Divide area) northwesterly for a distance of 29 miles (to near the junction of the Sun River and the West Fork South Fork tributary). Anomalous metal values were determined in T. 18 N, R. 7 W.; NE14 T. 18 N, R. 8 W.; SE14 T. 19 N., R. 9 W., and in a zone extending from the southeast to the northwest corner of T. 20N., R. 10 W. In the U.S. Geological Survey 1967 open-file report by M. R. Mudge and associates, titled "Reconnaissance Geologic, Geochemical, and Geophysical Studies of the Southeastern Part of the Lewis and Clark Range, Montana," Mudge delineated a narrow northwest-trending belt about 30 miles long of lead-zinc mineralization. The distribution of prospects having anomalous amounts of lead and zinc seems to be spatially related to and controlled by the northwestward-striking South Fork thrust zone. All samples within the belt, however, contain anomalous amounts of lead and zinc.

In the final paragraph of the report, Mudge states,

In conclusion, it seems worthwhile to review two of the many areas in this belt that may merit future exploration: (1) The area of the Wood Creek prospect. The float piece of stromatolite comprising 6 percent zinc and the 100 feet of soil samples containing anomalous amounts of metals indicate that the upper part of the Helena (Formation) contains anomalous amounts of lead and zine. This upper part, about 550 feet thick, consists of dolomite beds with abundant stromatolites, especially in the upper one-third of the formation. Here almost all the Helena is concealed by dense forest and relatively thick soil. (2) The Elk Creek area, where the Devonial rocks may warrant deeper prospecting. There the badly fractured rocks are in a tight overturned fold. Prospecting at depth in the fold would penetrate fractured Cambrian carbonates, which should be equally good hosts for mineralization.

On the basis of this U.S. Geological Survey work and conclusions, it is requested that the N1/2, T. 18 N., R. 8 W.; T. 19 N., R. 9 W.; NE corner 19 N., R 10 W.; T. 20 N., R. 10 W., and the SW corner T. 21 N., R. 10 W., be excluded from the proposed addition to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.

In support of the statement made in the introduction of this testimony concerning increasing demand and decreasing mineral production over the next several decades, I would like to quote from testimony given on March 21, 1968, by Dr. W. R. Hibbard before the Subcommittee on Minerals, Materials, and Fuels, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.

Senator METCALF. You are quoting ourselves to us. This is the Senate Interior Committee to which Senator Burdick and I both belong. Go ahead.

Mr. JOHNS. Portions of his statement follow:

I [Dr. Hibbard] appear before you today as your minerals adviser. My purpose is to draw your attention to a situation that is emerging which appears to threaten both the adequacy and dependability of our supply of minerals and mineral fuels. This conclusion has resulted from a long-range study which I initiated a year ago ***

Our projections based on population growth indicate that by 1985 our mineral and fuel requirements will increase by about 50 percent on the average, and in some cases by as much as 100 percent ***. Our capability to produce minerals from domestic sources may not only remain static but in some cases disappear.

Dr. Hibbard places new technological advances in the minerals and fuels industry as most important to meet our Nation's increasing mineral demands in the future. In addition to technological advances, however, I believe that we must continue to practice the multiple-use concept and not withdraw from mineral exploration and development large acreages of the public domain that have potential mineral resources. Any one withdrawal certainly will not create a serious threat to the economy of the country 20 or 30 years from now, but an accumulation of land withdrawals with restrictions on, or the elimination of, prospecting certainly can have a deleterious effect on future domestic mineral production.

A report published by the U.S. Department of Interior, titled "Public Land Statistics 1966," gives the acreage of federally owned U.S. Forest Service land in Montana as approximately 1611⁄2 million acres. There are presently nine wilderness or proposed wilderness areas in western Montana. The area and acreage are as follows:

The addition of one-half million acres to the Bob Marshall Wilderness would bring the total acreage to approximately 211⁄2 million, roughly 15 percent, or more than one-seventh of the total Forest Service land in the State. These figures would increase if additional acreage for the Absaroka and Beartooth areas, soon to be submitted for reclassification, is requested and approved.

In the U.S. Forest Service Blackfoot-Sun River report, the alternative possibilities for management of the Blackfoot-Sun River Divide area are (1) wilderness classification, and (2) coordinated resource management of the entire study area. The second alternative-coordinated resource management of the entire study area-would permit two scenic drives with short spur roads to camping facilities to be built through the area, managed logging operations in the lower timbered country, and snowmobile access and ski resort development in the higher country when this becomes desirable. It would permit development of the mineral resources in the study area.

The following statement is quoted from the Blackfoot-Sun River report:

Adding another half million acres to the Bob Marshall Wilderness. already close to 1,000,000 acres, would not appreciably increase its wilderness character or its usability.

Because the addition of this acreage would place restrictions on mineral exploration and development and preclude the staking of mining claims after 1983, the Bureau is against the inclusion of this one-half million acres in the Bob Marshall Wilderness area, particularly the areas having substantial mineral potential.

Senator METCALF. I want to emphasize, if I may, Senator Burdick. Senator BURDICK. Proceed.

Senator METCALF. I want to emphasize that last statement. Passage of this legislation would include this area as other wilderness areas, subject to the current Wilderness Act, and it would be open to mining exploration until 1983.

Mr. JOHNs. Yes, I understand that.

Senator METCALF. And it would be just as other primitive areas, and so forth, that have not yet been classified and acted upon by Congress. The passage of this bill will not alter the opportunity to explore, except by certain methods, for minerals until 1983.

Mr. JOHNS. Yes.

Senator BURDICK. Just a minute. I would like to ask a question. A former witness testified as follows on a subject you dealt with:

Once an area is designated as wilderness, it is still susceptible to future development should the situation need it in the years to come.

There was nothing destroyed in the present wilderness, it was just locked up in a safe. It isn't gone; is that right?

Mr. JOHNS. Yes.

Senator BURDICK. Mr. LaGrange, I believe, is here now, of the Bear Creek Mining Co., Spokane.

STATEMENT OF JOHN LAGRANGE, BEAR CREEK MINING CO., SPOKANE, WASH.

Mr. LAGRANGE. I am Don LaGrange, senior geologist and land man, and speaking on behalf of Bear Creek Mining Co., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kennecott Copper Co.

The pending proposal to establish a wilderness in the Lincoln back country essentially eliminates any practical exploration or development of mineral resources in the area affected.

Senator METCALF. Now, wait a minute. The mining companies and the mining officials were before the committee before Congress in working out the Wilderness Act. A compromise was effected that I discussed with the previous witness, Mr. Johns, that wilderness areas would be opened for exploration until 1983. Maybe you are going into that. There are certain types of exploration that are not permitted in these wilderness areas. But that statement is not an accurate statement, "essentially eliminates any practical exploration."

Mr. LAGRANGE. I would like to say this for our purposes as a modern exploration company, we do not look to wilderness areas because of the stringent restrictions on motorized equipment and access, and for modern exploration it is not a feasible situation to explore the wilderness. This is why I made that statement.

Bear Creek Mining Co. opposes all such proposals and suggests that instead the area be left under multiple-use management supervised by the U.S. Forest Service.

A great deal of concern has been directed toward the ultimate problem of production of sufficient renewable crops to feed peoples of the United States. To date, the country has been eminently successful in this regard and has remained self-sufficient in feeding its peoples. The people and the Government of the United States have not shown the same concern for a continuing supply of mineral resources, without which the economy of the country would rapidly decline or be maintained only by importing raw materials from potentially unreliable foreign sources.

At the present time, the United States is by far the largest consumer of mineral resources of all the nations in the world, in many instances consuming one-third to one-half the world production of certain minerals. The United States has never been totally self-sufficient in its production of minerals, but the situation has never been as unfavorable in the past as it is at the present time. With the exception of coal and one or two metals, the United States is a net importer of most mineral commodities used in our industrial complex. The U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted that the mineral and fuel requirements of the United States will increase 50 to 100 percent in the next 15 years, making this situation even more critical.

Mineral deposits, by their nature, are nonrenewable and are highly restricted in the area of occurrence. Once mined out, they are gone forever. Established mining areas are, and will continue to decline in productive capacity. The search for new mineral deposits is thus moving to new areas where previous production is or has been minor or nonexistent. The proposed Lincoln-Scapegoat wilderness is one such area. Mineral exploration has reached a high degree of sophistication, eliminating many of the poor conservation and restoration practices which prevailed 50 to 100 years ago. Vast areas must be explored in detail, in many instances for many years, in order to discover the isolated tracts of land which bear the requisite concentration of minerals. In most cases, these discoveries will be based upon what is considered uneconomic mineralization today. These undiscovered deposits will undoubtedly be the principal source of metals produced in this country in the future. If we are to maintain domestic sources of metals and avoid becoming unduly dependent upon imported metals to support our industrial complex, it is essential that sufficient lands be, and remain, available over long periods of time for mineral exploration and development by private industry. Exclusion of access to public domain where mineralization is present is comparable to restricting the use of fertile land for growing crops. The land held by the U.S. Government in its various capacities, represents the principal resource of the mining industry in its attempt to maintain sufficient domestic output of metals. It must be stated categorically at this point that the mining industry has to have access to a maximum amount of public land for exploration, development, and exploitation of mineral deposits which may be discovered, and it must have such access under conditions which will attract the large amounts of risk capital necessary to explore for, and produce, metalliferous minerals.

Bear Creek has spent considerable effort in reconnaissance exploration and drilling in the area now proposed as the Lincoln-Scapegoat wilderness. It presently has unpatented lode claims in the area. Industry and the U.S. Government has shown that the area has potential for mineral production. The U.S. Geological Survey has conducted geologic, geochemical, and geophysical studies in parts of the area. The results of this work are available in USGS Montana Open File Report No. 58. This work has shown several anomalous geochemical conditions and a large untested geophysical anomaly heretofore unknown. Further investigations into the potential of the area have been recommended by industry and government. Under the Forest Service plan of development, these recommendations can be fulfilled.

It is submitted that our natural resources can be best conserved for the greatest numbers of our public, not by locking them up in a