Page images
PDF
EPUB

local skiers, then to invade the last remaining semialpine wilderness area in southern California.

Summary: Other methods of providing additional skiing areas in southern California are available and the development of San Gorgonio is not a necessity.

5. The proponents of commercial skiing on San Gorgonio propose that acreage equivalent to the 3,500 acres to be withdrawn from the Dry Lake Basin Area in the wilderness be added to the wilderness area on the southeast side of the current boundary. It is important to realize that the 3,500 proposed enclave is the heart of the present wilderness area and its finest scenic attraction. No equivalent acreage added outside the current boundaries of the area could possibly substitute for Dry Lake Basin.

In addition, the normal counterparts of civilization such as litter and noise will certainly affect a much larger area than the 3,500 acres formally requested for development. It is not possible to develop a facility of the magnitude necessary to utilize San Gorgonio wilderness for skiing and not disturb the ecology of the entire area. Consideration of proposals for development of San Gorgonio must not only consider the requested 3,500-acre enclave but the effect on the entire surrounding wilderness area as well.

It is my feeling that a precedent has been set as to the opening of previously classified wilderness areas to commercial development in the case of the recent decision against a permit for a ski development in Onion Valley in the Sierra Nevada Range, Calif.

Summary: The development of commercial skiing in the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area will affect the ecology of a far greater area than the proposed 3,500-acre enclave in the wilderness area. The proposed addition of lands to the present wilderness area on the southeast as an "exchange" for the 3,500 acres of Dry Lake Basin in no way affects the arguments both pro and con over the development of Dry Lake Basin specifically.

Conclusions: It is clear from the foregoing points that any commercial development in the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area is against the public interest for reasons previously described. It is absolutely imperative that the will of the majority be observed and the integrity of the last remaining semialpine wilderness in southern California be maintained.

The San Gorgonio Wilderness Area is presently open to skiing and family winter recreation. I am a skier and have visited San Gorgonio in the winter. Some of the best cross-country ski-touring available in California is right at the back door of Greater Los Angeles. It is open to all; there are no lift tickets to buy, no lift lines, and no parking fees to pay. This is a fine area and should be preserved in its wilderness state not only for the cross-country skier, the mountaineer, and the nature lover, but also for the thousands of children who derive so much from the summer use of the area and for the untold thousands of southern Californians coming in future generations. Respectfully submitted, Robert C. Gardner.

Thank you.

Mr. BARING. Thank you, sir.

The next statement will be that of Mr. Rodney Ellsworth.

58-133-67- -9

STATEMENT OF RODNEY ELLSWORTH, TEACHER-NATURALIST

Mr. ELLSWORTH. My name is Rodney S. Ellsworth, teacher and naturalist. Many statements will be made at this hearing regarding the recreational use of lands bordering on the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area. My purpose is to inform you of the educational use being made.

The East Whittier City School District is a part of the public school system of California. The district operates an outdoor school in Mill Creek Canyon which borders on the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area. We have operated this school in this location for 5 successive years. Every year we have transported an average of 1,500 sixth grade children and some 50 teachers from the city of Whittier which is about 75 miles away. Here the children and their teachers devote a full school week in this outdoor laboratory learning basic facts about the outdoor environment, gaining an appreciation of nature and wilderness values. Time was when America was largely rural and the country child grew up surrounded by nature and lived out his life in the natural scene. Now, since most people live in cities, the city child lives in an environment that is man made or man altered. The majority of city children do not have much contact with undisturbed nature.

We justify taking the child to nature because we believe that important understandings and appreciations can be more effectively grasped when the child is exposed to the real thing. We maintain that we have a better chance to teach elementary ecology and to open doorways of understanding through direct and meaningful learning experiences. It has been said that this generation is a lost generation because of ignorance about our environment. We are teaching citizens of the future how man influences his environment for good or bad, how he is linked with the environment, and how he depends on nature for his existence. Wise use of the environment and good management best assures human survival.

Reservation of Federal public lands for wilderness has provided an area ideal for our outdoor school. The program would suffer a tragic loss if the expansive solitude around us were disturbed and the untrampled naturalness impaired.

I would like to read into the record a statement by our school superintendent, followed by another statement of mine.

Mr. BARING. All right, sir, without objection, you have permission. Mr. ELLSWORTH (reading):

The East Whittier City School District maintains an outdoor school almost on the threshold of the San Gorgonio Wild Area. The district rents buildings and facilities from the Forest Home Christian Conference Center in the San Bernardino National Forest of California.

This is written to give you some facts and statistics on the values and benefits of the wild area from an educational standpoint.

The school is located less than a 2-hour drive from the center of Los Angeles via the San Bernardino Freeway to Redlands, thence up a gradually rising mountain canyon called Mill Creek. In fact, the very easy accessibility to one of the Nation's larger population centers makes the canyon highly vulnerable to the destructive forces of urbanization and is the compelling reason why the San Gorgonio Wild Area should continue to be maintained as it now is, a part of the national wilderness system.

The San Gorgonio Wild Area occupies the upper part of Mill Creek Canyon and is in full view from our outdoor school. The undisturbed naturalness of the canyon and the dominance of wild nature are qualities of the environment that make the location so choice for our purposes.

The district goes to the effort and the expense to transport the child to these unmodified mountain surroundings in order to impress and to more effectively teach the importance of natural values and benefits. It is difficult for a cityreared child who has grown up in a greatly altered and man-subdued environment to understand his relationship with nature. As would be expected, the child has a sort of artificial store-packaged idea about his source of supply of food and fiber. Cut off from nature and having no direct contact he has no firsthand proof of our dependency on nature.

On the other hand, when the child lives for a week with his class and teacher in a real natural outdoor laboratory, he has all about him opportunities for concrete learning and direct experiences which make these understandings clear and meaningful.

There is a second difference between an urbanized dominated landscape and a natural wild one. The environment of the school, home, and community have become commonplace. It has lost the appeal of novelty and wonder. But in a wild natural mountain valley the landscape is fresh and striking. It has a subtle and distinctive stimulation and is even wonder-evoking. Doorways of apprecia tion and understanding that remain closed in the city suddenly open. This, then, is why a wild area such as San Gorgonio provides the choicest kind of an outdoor classroom with everything arrayed in unabridged form that the learner is striving to understand and appreciate.

This year our district transported nearly 50 teachers with their sixth grade classes. More than 1,600 children benefited by living and learning through having a week's experience at our outdoor school.

Enclosed are some background facts and figures, prepared by Rodney S. Ellsworth, naturalist, which tend to reveal the importance of the San Gorgonio Wild Area for the future.

Sincerely yours,

ODEN W. HANSEN,
Superintendent.

Then, my statement: "Values and Benefits of Wild Areas for Outdoor Education," by Rodney S. Ellsworth.

The background facts and statistics given here are drawn from a series of conferences held by the University of California on its different campuses on California's growth and future. The material selected has its focus on southern California and the problems that the university experts believe will arise as the environment is reshaped by urbanization.

Besides the campus conferences a statewide conference on "Man in California-1980's," was managed by the extension division of the university. It was the culmination of 2 years of work of a group of 50 leaders in science, government, and business. In the group's look ahead and planning for the next 20 years, two questions were posed:

1. Should our ultimate goal be the greatest possible material wealth for Californians?

2. Should it be the preservation, capture, or recapture of an ideal way of living?

California's emergence as the most populous State has been accompanied by two factors that threaten the wild areas. The State has an extremely high rate of urbanization and a highly mobile population.

Far-reaching changes will occur in the coming 20 years. It is important to be aware of this. It is especially important to recognize that some of these changes can prove irreversible. Before the damage is done that cannot be corrected, it is essential that the harm never happens. Wild areas must be reserved now as a part of the nonurban hinterland.

It is a mark of blind progress to permit all the best high wild areas in southern California to become commercialized. There are now some 13 areas in southern California available to skiers. San Gorgonio should certainly remain wild.

The Forest Service has worked out what they call "safe capacity use." Even now the mountain highways are fairly choked with automobiles. Today there are 1.3 passenger cars for every family. The trend is that this mobility will increase, not lessen.

The population explosion is so phenomenal in southern California that it is as if America was tilted west and a great hunk had broken loose and was crowding westward. The university experts maintain that urbanization will stand out as a compelling factor and will have an overall dominance.

The Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission estimated that Los Angeles County's population had surged to 6,701,874 by April 1964. The population of the city has zoomed to 2,677,283. The 74 cities of the county had a total of 5,585,035.

The metropolitan area of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties is expected to make an equally dramatic growth. The population is predicted to climb 43 percent above the 1963 population and job opportunities to double. Every new job adds nine more people to the population.

If the prophecy of planners come true and the population doubles as is predicted in the next 20 years, we will have around 14 million people in Los Angeles County alone. Most of the people will be concentrated in the cities.

Progress and technological change has caused a major shift from the country to the city. California is no longer an agricultural State. Today only 6 percent of the people actually live on farms and but 10 percent are engaged in agriculture.

Not only is agriculture in retreat, but the country is fast disappearing. Urbanization is a dominant factor. The landscape is being transformed both in a wholesale way and at a rapid rate. Surroundings predominate with the works of man. The old natural landscape is going, going, and in 20 years will be almost entirely gone.

Most people come to California from small towns. They wanted a single-family dwelling with a front lawn and a backyard. They developed an astonishing amount of out-of-door living. Patios and barbecue pits are common, while swimming pools are surprisingly

numerous.

The old type of housing with all its advantages and amenities will no longer be a feature of living. The population explosion has changed the way land will be used. Land values are spiraling upward. The average wage earner and homeowner will not be able to afford a house with a front lawn and a backyard replete with patio, barbecue pit, and swimming pool.

High-rise apartments will replace the single-family dwelling. Authorities are agreed that lofts stacked one on top of the other are not as suitable for rearing children as single-family dwellings.

Younger marriages are the rule today so that there is a larger portion of the population of younger age with children. The median age of the population moving into California is below the national average.

Commendable as it is, these young people are not in search of a better life, but a superlife. Will California prove the paradise they hope it will be?

There is a second group whose dreams may never be realized by the life of the city. Farmers struggled with nature for a livelihood. They left the farm for the city only to learn that the struggle was not over. It was only of a different kind. The city had transformed the conquest. Instead of being a conquest between man and nature it was now one between man and man. The city also spawned a conflict within man himself.

Dr. Melvin Calvin, Nobel laureate at the University of California, Berkeley, said at the Davis conference:

One must watch in horrible fascination the bulldozer leveling an orchard, the mixer covering all with cement and the life in the soil destroyed for generations. The suburban area built by man has destroyed the landscape. *** Eventually, as with lemmings, the irritation of his own numbers may increase beyond tolerance.

Natural areas and open space may prove invaluable as a means of relieving high tension and giving solace.

Great oil companies have spent literally millions to find the best lubricant to keep friction down in machines. We have made such great progress in technology and are so lagging in our social and behavioral sciences that we seem to regard the machine as of great worth and man as worth almost nothing. We need to make strides in cutting down friction among men and in lessening mental and emotional stresses and tensions.

If man is to live the good life of which he dreams, one that yields an array of satisfactions and an overall sense of well-being, he must be able to leave the frustrations, confusions, and anxieties of the city behind and go out into the country. He must have opportunity to experience open space and to relax and enjoy life in the presence of unsubdued nature.

Childhood is a time of preparation. If the city dweller as a child has gone to an outdoor school and has been prepared by education to understand and appreciate nature, it seems reasonable to expect that as a citizen he will attach importance to natural values and benefits. He will want to see them conserved.

Let us hope we have the wisdom today to preserve wild areas for the needs of tomorrow. Wild areas are one of the essential building blocks important in building a better America for the great society to come. Mr. BARING. Thank you, sir.

Our next statement will be that of Jeanne Goodman.
Mrs. Goodman.

STATEMENT OF JEANNE GOODMAN

Mrs. GOODMAN. I am Jeanne Moore Goodman.

As cross-country skier, hiker, backpacker, camera-and-pen buff, naturalist's wife, and mother of three children who have packed into the more remote sections of the wild area for days at a time, I am opposed to commercialization of this priceless country.

Our family has its happiest times enjoying the wilderness together. We hike into the San Gorgonio complex at all seasons of the year, but least of all in summer when it is hot and dusty.

« PreviousContinue »