Mr. ICHORD. This would be a perpetual easement over the area. The Forest Service will enter into the terms of this special perpetual easement with the Frisco Railroad. I am not familiar with the terms of the instrument. As far as I know, that instrument has not yet been drafted. I am sure the members of the Forest Service will be able to answer the question.

Mr. ZWACH. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions?

Mr. DE LA GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I have just one question. If the lenders only require 25 years, why are you asking for a perpetual easement?

Mr. ICHORD. I checked with the Forest Service on this, sir, and looked into the past precedents, and that is the way it was handled in the case of the Cincinnati and Southern Railway. I am sure they would want it at least for the existence of the railroad.

I do not know the source of that. I know if I were the lender, I would not want it made on a 25-year basis. I would point out that the Secretary can revoke the grant for nonuse or for a period of 2 consecutive years or abandonment of the rights granted under the authority. So that would take care of the problem you have there. Mr. GATHINGS. Mr. Ichord, may I ask about the alleged deposits in that area. Have they been developed over a period of a number of years? Has the mining company been operating there for a long time? Mr. ICHORD. When I was a member of the Missouri Legislature we appropriated special funds for an aerial magnetic survey of the area. which was matched by Federal grants. The resulting magnetic mapping showed these areas of lead deposits. They were very deep and for that reason had not been discovered and developed. The gentleman from Arkansas is familiar with the old Lead Belt area of Missouri which centered around Plat River. This is 50 or 60 miles on down south. They are opening up several mines in that area. The deposits are a lot richer. The reason they were not developed previously is that they are so much deeper.

The CHAIRMAN. How deep are they?

Mr. ICHORD. They run several hundred feet down. But it is still pretty cheap mining because you can do what they call columnar mining in that area. You go in and dig out the lead deposits and leave the limestone and lead formation for your columns. So it makes for pretty cheap mining.

We have all of the major mining companies in that area. Nearby are some great iron ore discoveries of magnetic iron, which is 2 or 3 thousand feet down, I understand. One company has put about $50 million into one mine, and it is thought that this is going to develop that area into another Ruhr Valley. It is really booming. As the gentleman from Arkansas well knows, all we have had on top of the ground there are scrub post oaks and rocks. It is really transforming the area. I might state this area has recently been tranferred under the Missouri Redistricting Act to Congressman Paul Jones' district, and I regret that I will no longer have the privilege of representing the area.

Mr. JONES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, may I just make a little comment about this and first apologize for being a little late to this

meeting. I got interested in some of my mail this morning. In it was a press release containing a warning by a Texas Congressman on riots and looting. Through this release I found that our chairman was going to make a speech tonight. I just want to tell him that I concur 100 percent in his views and I hope he will "pour it on" when he makes that speech tonight.

That accounts for my lateness here at this meeting.

Mr. ICHORD. The witness will also agree with the Chair.

Mr. JONES of Missouri. The area that Representative Ichord refers to has been known all of my life as the Lead Belt of Missouri. Even the newspaper is called the Lead Belt News and everything is tied in with the Lead Belt.

In recent years the lead mining had deteriorated some, and then they found these new deposits which they have begun developing, which promise to be far greater than anything they have had in the past. The need for getting this rail line in there to move the ore out is important. In other words, the whole prosperity of that area is involved. There will be a time, and we do not know how soon it will be, when we will need this natural resource.

I might also indicate, and Mr. Ichord has mentioned about the iron deposits in that area, which have given evidence of being much richer than anything that we had anticipated or thought could happen in that district, although it is kind of coincidental, that years ago one of the counties in the area was named Iron County. We also have great deposits of structural stone there, and some of that has been mined and used in the capital. It is a very beautiful thing. It is a little north and east of this particular area.

As the witness has indicated, it seems that we have to go down deep there to get the full benefit of the resources that God provided in that area to start with, because on top of the ground it is just about as poor as anything you could imagine in this area, and it is rough. This is certainly a bill that I think deserves the immediate attention of Congress, and that we should do whatever is necessary to secure the approval of the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. ICHORD. I might point out to the Chair that already the Federal Government is receiving $400,000 a year from royalties from mines located on Forest Service land.

Many of the mines are on Forest Service lands. Next year that is expected to increase as additional mines come into production to a million dollars a year in royalties alone.

The CHAIRMAN. Without a railroad, they would not be worth much. Mr. ICHORD. You have to get that lead out to reach the markets down in Texas, Arkansas, and the other States.

Mr. JONES of Missouri. Most of the Missouri mules are gone, so we don't have the mules to bring them out.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any more questions of Mr. Ichord? If not, we are always glad to have you with us, Mr. Ichord, and we appreciate your statement. We will be glad to hear from any of the other witnesses in any order you care to call them.

Mr. ICHORD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I believe, Mr. Chairman, the only other witness we have today would be from the Forest Service, who have worked very closely with

the lead mining companies and the railroads, and I am sure they will give you the details of the perpetual easement they propose to execute. The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Nelson, we will be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF M. M. NELSON, DEPUTY CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to represent the Department of Agriculture today in support of H.R. 17320.

This bill would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a perpetual easement to the Saint Louis-San Francisco Railway Co. for a right-of-way across a portion of the Clark National Forest in Missouri. This right-of-way is already being used by the company under a revocable special-use permit issued by the Forest Service. It is occupied by the company's lead belt line which serves the growing lead mining and processing industry in that area.

We understand that, in order to obtain adequate financing for improvements on the line, the railway company must have a greater interest in the right-of-way than a special use permit gives them.

A perpetual easement would meet the needs of the company for this purpose. Under the provisions of this bill such an easement could be granted by the Secretary subject to conditions which would provide for adequate compensation and protect the overall public interest in the National Forest lands along the right-of-way.

No authority exists for granting an easement for a railroad rightof-way across National Forest lands acquired under the Weeks Act of 1911. H.R. 17320 would provide such authority in this case. In a practically identical situation in Kentucky in 1960, the Congress enacted S. 3665 (Private Law 86-748) authorizing the Secretary to grant a perpetual easement to the Cincinnati Southern Railway.

The Department recommends enactment of H.R. 17320.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement.

The CHAIRMAN. Did that Private Law 86-478, come out of this committee?

Mr. NELSON. I believe it did.

The CHAIRMAN. I presume it did. I am not questioning it. I just do not know.

Mr. NELSON. I have here a copy of our report made in the Senate to Senator Ellender on the Senate Bill so it was before the Agriculture committee in the Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. The fact that it went to Senator Ellender's committee does not necessarily prove that it came to ours.

Mr. NELSON. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. It may have been sent around to some other place. I did want to ask you, Mr. Nelson, this question: There is no provision in here as to the amount of the compensation. Have you agreed with the railroad as to the amount of the compensation?

Mr. NELSON. We have not made the final appraisal but I can tell the committee that it will be in the neighborhood of $13,000 to $14,000 for the value of the land. I should point out, too, that there is no severance damage involved because that has already been taken care of by the Railroad under the special-use permit. They have, for

example, cured the relocation of any roads or conditions which a railroad often cuts off. So that has already been taken care of. So basically, the appraisal will be for the value of the land that they

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The CHAIRMAN. The Federal Government could not enjoy the income that it is now enjoying and the income that it hopes to enjoy in the future without this railroad, could it?

Mr. NELSON. Absolutely not. You see, as Congressman Ichord reported a minute ago, we own the minerals on a considerable amount of the land that is being mined. We expect in 1969 that the revenue on these minerals to the Federal Government will be in the neighborhood of a million dollars. One-fourth of that goes back to the counties for schools and roads within the counties, as do all receipts from the national forests.

The CHAIRMAN. You made reference to the act of 1911. That is the act under which you acquired lands, is it not?

Mr. NELSON. Yes, it is. The map over here shows in green the lands that we acquired in that district. That map also shows the railroad. as it exists. All of that land was purchased under the Weeks law of 1911.

The CHAIRMAN. On lands where the Federal Government has never divested itself of title, such as the lands of much of the West, you can grant these rights-of-way; is that right?

Mr. NELSON. We can grant a special-use permit as we have in this case for the railroad. We also have easement-granting authority for roads, but not for railroads.

There was a special bill passed in 1964 which gives us this authority for roads.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the difference between the Weeks Act and the land that came out of the public domain?

Mr. NELSON. There is no difference in the way we manage the lands, but if the lands came out of the public domain the Interior Department has responsibility for certain mineral activity and for issuance of patents. The Interior Department does have authority for granting a railroad easement of this type based on the act of March 3, 1875, on national forest land created from the public domain. This authority does not apply to lands purchased under the Weeks law. Neither does the Department of Agriculture have easement-granting authority for railroads on this land. In 1964 the road easement bill passed Congress which authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to issue easements for roads both on the national forest land created from the public domain and that which was purchased under the Weeks law.

The CHAIRMAN. Why don't we give you general authority to issue these easements? Is it because we do not expect any more railroads to be built?

Mr. NELSON. We would recommend a general authority. In fact, the 88th Congress had a bill before it that would give both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior general authority for issuing easements of this type, along with some other types of easements for which no authority exists. That bill did not pass at that time. It has not been sent back to this Congress. I can say

the Department of Agriculture would welcome a chance for the Secretary of Agriculture to have an easement-granting authority as he does now for roads.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you run into any trouble with powerlines?

Mr. NELSON. I am not exactly sure where the trouble was. One of the things I have been told was that some of the attorneys that were working on the bill felt that it should also repeal any previous authority, and name each one of the laws that the Department of Interior or Agriculture had for granting of this type of authority. The bill that was sent to the Congress did not name those. Consequently, that was one of the reasons, I have been told, why it did not get through the committees at that time.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions?

Mr. MYERS. This involved about 23 miles. How many acres is involved here? I say it is about 23, is that correct?

Mr. NELSON. That is about right. The actual acres of national forest land that it covers is 138.7 acres. It crosses national forest land, the green in the map there, for 14.17 miles.

Mr. MYERS. Will the railroad take more land than they are using now under this bill?

Mr. NELSON. No.

Mr. MYERS. It is going to be a different provision for this railroad than you have now?

Mr. NELSON. It is just a different instrument under which they will hold the easement in this case, rather than a special-use permit, which is revocable.

Incidentally, the railroad company has done all the cleanup work, the provisions for erosion control that were required in the specialuse permit, so that part has been taken care of, and incidentally they did a very nice job. I have been on the area and have seen where they were constructing the railroad at the time they were constructing it.

Mr. MYERS. The chairman was speaking about easements providing for power transmission lines. What is your policy now concerning transmission lines and possibly even a utility line running across a national forest?

Mr. NELSON. We first issue a special-use permit for construction of such powerlines. If it is a major powerline, it might come under the Federal Power Act in connection with a Federal power project, and it is then authorized under the Federal Power Act. We also have authority to issue easements for powerlines for a period not to exceed 50 years.

The minor lines are those that are not connected with a Federal power project and are handled under a special-use permit if voltage is less than 33 kilovolts, or by limited easement if voltage is over 33 kilovolts. We have many, many miles of such powerlines on the national forests, both minor and major. We do, in connection with those, have a hand in the actual location, and we have requirements to protect resources and prevent damage such as erosion, and to consider the location in relation to the natural beauty along rivers, or major scenic highways.

Mr. MYERS. But an individual who through necessity might need to cross part of this, would have relatively no problem in getting power.