[Peter Metcalf]{.smallcaps}

[President]{.smallcaps}

[Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd., Salt Lake City, Utah]{.smallcaps}

[Board Member]{.smallcaps}

[Outdoor Industry Association]{.smallcaps}

[Testimony for the]{.smallcaps}

[Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests]{.smallcaps}

[Energy and Natural Resources Committee]{.smallcaps}

[The United State Senate]{.smallcaps}

[Hearing on S. 3636, the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act
of 2006]{.smallcaps}

[November 16, 2006]{.smallcaps}

[Introduction]{.underline}

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee about
the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act, S. 3636. My name is
Peter Metcalf. I am a Utah resident and the president and founder of
Black Diamond Equipment, a Utah-based outdoor equipment company with
annual sales of approximately \$60 million per year with over 300 Salt
Lake City based employees, another 30 in Europe and 50 more employees in
Asia.

I am also appearing before the committee today in my capacity as a
member of the board of directors and vice-chair of the Outdoor Industry
Association (OIA.) OIA is a national trade association whose mission is
to ensure the growth and success of the outdoor industry. The outdoor
industry is made up of over 4000 businesses with 500,000 employees in
all 50 states, generating \$33 billion in sales every year. Last year,
159 million Americans participated in outdoor recreation, with the
greatest numbers in the gateway sports of hiking, biking, camping and
paddle sports. OIA\'s member companies include Yakima, Mountain
Hardwear, The North Face, Cascade Designs, Vibram USA, Johnson Outdoors,
REI, Eastern Mountain Sports, JanSport, Smartwool, Timberland, Columbia
Sportswear, Black Diamond Equipment, GoLite, Vasque/Redwing and more.
Attached is a letter concerning the Washington County Growth and
Conservation Act to the Committee from thirty-one retailers in the
outdoor industry.

I appreciate that the sponsors of the legislation have attempted to
craft legislation to address the needs of communities and public lands
in southwestern Utah. This legislation has sparked a helpful discussion
about the future of Washington County and our public lands. I am
encouraged to know that a local planning effort, known as Vision Dixie,
is underway. The local planning process is dearly needed and I hope this
continues, however, the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act is
premature before completion of the local planning.

The OIA opposes this legislation because we are concerned that the bill
falls short of truly protecting our public lands and balancing the needs
of the region. Our recommendation is that the bill be withdrawn and
reworked to allow for more public review and improvements. It is our
hope that such a process may ultimately lead to a bill that could be
more fully supported by Utah citizens and all citizens who care about
our public lands.

[Wilderness and the Outdoor Recreation Industry]{.underline}

Many Americans may not know of Washington County by name, but many
Americans do know of this region's spectacular landscape protected
within Zion National Park. Zion National Park is but one piece of the
county's spectacular wild landscape. Many lands outside the park deserve
protection as well. At the same time, the landscape is clearly under
pressure from the region's intense population growth. The OIA has taken
a position in opposition to this legislation because we are concerned
about the specific impacts this bill would have on public lands and
recreation opportunities in Washington County. We also have concerns
about this legislation as a matter of public policy.

First, we are concerned that the legislation fails to protect many wild
public lands in Washington County that truly deserve protection. The
legislation designates roughly 220,000 acres of wilderness across
Washington County. Much of the proposed wilderness (120,000 acres) is
located within Zion National Park. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the
wild Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land outside the park would be
protected under this legislation. Many stunning canyons and desert
expanses near Zion National Park or in the Mojave Desert have been
excluded by this bill. Similarly, the bill would add less than 3,000
acres of Forest Service wilderness despite the fact that the county is
home to over 380,000 acres of Forest Service land. Just 50,000 acres of\
Forest Service wilderness is currently protected in the region. The
legislation would actually strip Wilderness Study Area protection from
over 15 square miles of now protected lands. On a whole this legislation
would leave out many treasured local canyons, forests, and mountain
landscapes.

The OIA supports the protection of wilderness and strongly urges
sponsors of this legislation to protect all of the region's deserving
wild lands. These areas are, in part, what makes Washington County
unique and a desired place to live, work and recreate.

[Selling Public Land]{.underline}

We are also deeply concerned that this legislation would allow the sale
of significant amounts of public land and direct those sale proceeds
toward funding local and federal government projects. Under Title I of
this legislation, as much as 24,300 acres of public land in a single
county could be sold off for development. As I understand from the
Bureau of Land Management, the agency has already disposed of roughly
18,000 acres of BLM land in the past ten years. Still this legislation
calls for more disposal of public lands in Washington County. We are
concerned that this legislation promotes the sale of public land in a
region already struggling to preserve open space and faced with
diminishing opportunities for close-to-home outdoor recreation
opportunities.

The legislation earmarks two percent of land sales proceeds to the
County for administrative services, eight percent to the Water
Conservancy District, five percent to the state for education, and the
remaining eighty-five percent to various federal projects in Washington
County. On a national perspective, we are deeply concerned that this
legislation sets a dangerous precedent of selling federal lands owned by
all Americans to fund local and federal government projects. We are
sympathetic to local governments which face funding shortfalls, however,
we urge the committee not to create the expectation that our public
lands should be sold to meet short-term funding deficits.

[Conservation Gains at Risk]{.underline}

The legislation contains numerous provisions that promote development of
public lands without an appropriate balance for conservation of at-risk
wild lands. The bill establishes hundreds of miles of corridors for
utility lines, highways, and pipelines. Public lands would also be
dedicated to water development and dam sites. The legislation also
authorizes the BLM to create a county-wide off-road vehicle trail, yet
the bill fails to consider other types of recreational use of the
landscape or the need to develop a long term travel management plan on
public lands in the county.

The outdoor industry depends upon the long-term protection of our public
lands and has worked to help achieve protection of lands that outdoor
users can enjoy. As the outdoor industry has grown over the years, this
industry has increasingly worked to reinvest in our public lands and
enhance the public's enjoyment of open spaces. We are concerned that
this legislation would turn back the progress protecting our public
lands that many outdoor retailers have sought to achieve over the years.
Further, if this approach is repeated across the nation, many lands
across the American West or beyond could be at risk of being sold.

[Local Communities and the Outdoor Industry]{.underline}

The failure to protect wild lands in Washington County could have direct
economic and cultural consequences to the communities in the region.
Active outdoor recreation is increasingly a strong and vital part of our
nation's economy, especially in rural areas.

This year, Outdoor Industry Foundation, with the support of many other
trade groups including the travel industry, completed the industry's
first study quantifying the contribution of active outdoor recreation to
the US economy. We looked at eight activity categories: bicycling,
camping, fishing, hunting, paddling, snow sports (including downhill
skiing, snowboarding, cross-country/ nordic, snowshoeing), hiking and
backpacking (including mountaineering/canyoneering), and wildlife
viewing. With the support of Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne
and Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, we released the findings this summer and
the numbers are impressive.

Active Outdoor Recreation contributes:

-   \$730 billion to the US economy

-   Generates \$289 billion annually in retail sales and services across
    the U.S.

-   Touches over 8 percent of American's personal consumption
    expenditures--- more than 1 in every 12 dollars circulating in the
    economy

-   Generates \$88 billion in annual state and national tax revenue

-   Supports nearly 6.5 million jobs across the U.S.

The bottom line is that recreation and public lands play a special and
critical role in our economy.

Active recreation and public lands offer other benefits as well: The
study also shows that outdoor recreation is a primary vehicle of
transferring wealth from our wealthier urban/suburban parts of the
states to rural areas. It's a way of taking the dollars and casting
those dollars to the areas where they are needed most.

In addition, we know that outdoor recreation improves the health of
Americans. Studies cite 25% higher health care costs for those people
who are physically inactive. An OIF research project titled Exploring
the Active Lifestyle examined "how, when and why active Americans become
active" and it showed that 8 out of 10 active Americans feel that they
are happier, have better family relationships and less stress in their
lives when they are active. And 80 million Americans currently use
outdoor activities as their main form of exercise.

Protecting the public lands that support outdoor recreation is critical
to establishing and sustaining balanced local economic ecosystems across
the nation, especially in the West. We urge the committee and sponsors
of this bill to look at ways that communities can maximize the benefits
from our public lands, rather than simply selling them off for private
development.

[Local and State-wide Concerns]{.underline}

Finally, I want to take a brief moment to explain how this bill is being
received in Utah. It is nearly impossible to miss the widespread concern
about this legislation throughout Utah. Many Utahns, including myself,
care deeply about this region, but feel that this legislation falls
short. A June 21^st^ statewide poll showed that eighty-nine percent of
Utahns think public hearings should be held in different locations
around Utah before the legislation is voted on in Washington, DC.  This
legislation has not gone through the needed public review. Even in
Washington County, the local sentiment is split. Three city councils
have passed resolutions opposing the bill, four have passed resolutions
in support, one city council has opposed a resolution for the bill, and
four have taken no action.  Over forty letter-to-the-editors against the
bill have been published in Washington County newspapers.  The Salt Lake
Tribune has run three editorials and many LTE's opposing the
legislation.

[Conclusion]{.underline}

In closing we suggest that the sponsors of this legislation withdraw
this legislation so that there can be more public review and
opportunities for improvements. Many Utahns have concerns with the
legislation and want a better public process. We believe that our public
lands ought to be protected for the enjoyment of current and future
generations. Instead of proposing to sell off our public lands for
private development, at a time that many communities in the west are
taxing themselves to use public money to buy private land to prevent its
development, we urge the subcommittee to find a more sustainable
approach to public land management and addressing the funding needs of
the local and federal government. As Stewart Brand has written: "Natural
systems are priceless in value and nearly impossible to replace, but
they are cheap to maintain. All you have to do is defend them."