Mr. EVERETT. Can you indicate at this time the ratio of easements to fees for the past year?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. The ratio at the present time is approximately 1 acre of fee acquisition to 4 acres of easement acquisition.

Mr. DINGELL. The Chair would like to ask if you will yield?

Mr. EVERETT. I yield.

Mr. DINGELL. Tell me, is that done by an internal decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior or is it done by reason of directives that have been given to the Interior Department by the Appropriations Committee?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. When the program was originally justified, Mr. Chairman, we had established a tentative rationale or goal of approximately 2 acres of easements for every acre of fee.

Mr. DINGELL. Why have you gone to four from two?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We have received rather strong and emphatic suggestions from the Appropriations Committee that it would welcome a program that used the easement approach because of the greater acreage that could be acquired with the same amount of money. Mr. DINGELL. Gentlemen, is there anything in the legislation that directs you to go to four rather than two or to change the understanding that this legislative committee had at the time his program was first before this body?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. No. This was to a large extent a practical application of the program on the ground, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DINGELL. I want to make it very clear to you gentlemen that this is one of the things I wanted to raise in the committee today. There has been no instruction or advice of this committee received from the Interior Department regarding this matter of instructions from the Appropriations Committee or advice from the Appropriations Committee, and I intend to raise this matter on the House floor at the appropriate time this year. So that it is very clear, I want you to know that there has been no change that has been expressed in my hearing by any member of this committee with regard to the 2 to 1 ratio dealing with acquisition of lands and easements and I do not look with kindness, gentlemen, upon the idea of other committees intruding into the appropriate jurisdiction of this committee; nor, gentlemen, do I look with any kindness on committees which have not studied this matter with the care that this committee has directing the Interior Deparment to do otherwise. And I want you to know that I do not look with any kindness at all on steps being taken which would force the sportsmen of this country through their duck stamps to keep buying the same tract of land over and over again, where there is no clear reason why this land should not be acquired in fee wherever the circumstances appropriately dictate.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that we submit for the benefit of the committee a written statement on this general point? Mr. DINGELL. I think it would be well advised.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I think there are considerations that the committee should have before it, and I would like them to be specific and definite enough that I am afraid of what I might put in the record if I tried to give this to you ad lib.

Mr. DINGELL. I am aware of the sensitivity of the matter which you are discussing. I want you to be apprised of the opinions of this com

mittee on the subject and apprise you that there has been no change in the feelings of the subcommittee on this over the years because this did not originate in the Appropriations Committee, gentlemen. It originated in this subcommittee, and you will recall that I was the author of it.

I say this without criticism because I have a high regard for you. Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Mr. Chairman, I think that history will record that this Wetlands Loan Act was one of the greatest pieces of conservation legislation that was ever enacted, and the extension will be equally important. In other words, we are most conscious not only of the interest you have shown but the positive action that has resulted

from it.

I do think, however, that we need to look fairly and squarely at this question of easements versus fee and to recognize that there must be in that area a generally acceptable balance and that may be closer to four than two in reality because when we set the program up, we had no basis of experience from which to work.

For example, Mr. Chairman, we are operating now not with temporary easements, not with 20-year easements, but permanent ease

ments.

Mr. DINGELL. You are operating with permanent easements.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We are operating with permanent easements. Mr. DINGELL. When did this change take place?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Approximately 5 years ago.

Mr. DINGELL. In other words, you are not operating on 20-year easements any longer?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. No. sir.

Mr. DINGELL. Do you have a program or pattern for changing your 20-year easements to permanent easements?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I don't think that is feasible, but the number of them is relatively small. We didn't take very many acres under the 20-year easement. This is some of the information that I would like to put in a report to you on this question.

Mr. DINGELL. It would be very, very helpful for this committee to have, and I will see that the record will remain open, but I think on receipt of that it will be necessary for the committee to direct further inquiries to you, and we may have to keep the record open for that, but I hope at your very early convenience, gentlemen, comfortably that we will have this information available to us.

(The information to be furnished follows:)

THE WATERFOWL PRODUCTION AREA PROGRAM

The objective of the waterfowl production area program is basically to preserve waterfowl breeding habitat by acquiring land or interests in land to prevent destruction of its wetland character. Under the program the general concept is for the more permanent types of wetlands to be acquired in fee as nucleus areas throughout the prairie pothole region. These are the deeper marshes which, barring drainage, can be expected to retain water throughout the growing season year after year. Surrounding these nucleus areas are less permanent types of wetland (including both shallower marshes and lands only intermittently under water) which afford breeding habitat during wet years but may contain no water in drouth periods or dry up in late summer. These are the areas on which easements are being taken under which the landowner agrees not to drain, fill or level, or burn marsh vegetation.

The permanent potholes provide an ideal ecological complex for waterfowl production. The requirements are adequate upland cover for nesting, shallow water areas with intermittent cover for protection of newly hatched ducklings from predators, and late season open water to provide for exercise for development. These open water areas also serve as staging areas for birds gathering from temporary water areas before the fall migration. The nucleus areas selected for fee purchase are the best permanent pothole areas and generally include adjacent upland which increases the nesting potential of the pothole. These nucleus areas provide the year to year "hard core" of dependable waterfowl production.

In the early spring, each mating pair of ducks has certain space or “privacy” requirements which do not apply after the hatching. This space can be provided on the less permanent water areas that provide nesting cover in areas too wet to plow and generally provide sufficient water until the ducklings are able to walk or fly to the more permanent water areas. It is these temporary areas that are covered by easements to provide the "extra" nesting space.

A comparison of fee and easement areas on the basis of cost per acre alone is not valid. The fee nucleus area provide an opportunity to maintain and develop nesting cover on the upland which will increase the amount of nesting and the chance of survival. There may also be an opportunity to improve water conditions. Thus the nucleus areas provide for total management of habitat which benefits waterfowl and other wildlife as well. These opportunities for management are not available on the easement areas which have a more limited use but do provide the needed extra space for nesting. It would be impractical to purchase in fee the myriad of small scattered wetland areas that provide this extra nesting space.

There is a need for balance between the fee and easement acreages which we estimate to be about one fee acre for each two easement acres. The ratio of those acreages acquired each year has varied. At the beginning of the program, emphasis was on fee purchases because the easement concept and an appropriate document to implement that concept had not been perfected. As the program progressed local opposition to removal of land from tax rolls slowed down the fee aspect of the acquisition program but this opposition was largely overcome by the enactment in 1965 of the amended refuge revenue-sharing legislation. The first payments to counties under the new formula were made of the fiscal year 1966 revenues. The ratios of fee acreage to easement acreage acquired for the period the waterfowl production area acquisition program has been under way are as follows:

Fiscal year:

Ratio of acreage fee to easement

The trend of the last few years is toward the ultimate overall ratio of one to two although it will probably be several years before the ratio will be reached. The period covered by the easements in the waterfowl production area program has varied. At the beginning of the program the easements were all for a twenty-year period, except for one easement for a period of thirty years. Since the summer of 1962 all easements purchased have been perpetual. During the seven-year accelerated land acquisition program, fiscal years 1962-1968, there have been 86 easements purchased of twenty-year duration involving 5,010 acres of wetlands, one of thiry year duration involving 12 acres, and over 6,700 in perpetuity totaling about 488,000 wetland acres.

Accelerated Federal waterfowl land acquisition program, fiscal years 1962-68 ACRES ACQUIRED OR CONTRACTED

Dr. CAIN. In the Department report on H.R. 480 and 482 to Mr. Garmatz, dated April 21, on page 3, we have two paragraphs on the very point that you have raised.

The first of these two paragraphs at the bottom of page 3 refers to the statement of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, 89th Congress, and I quote:

The committee expects that the Bureau of Sports Fisheries and Wildlife will continue the policy of more widespread acquisition by easement instead of purchase in fee and reduce the cost of the program.

However, you will notice in the subsequent paragraph that we state very clearly that we are seeking a balance of 2 to 1 which is the exact basis on which we started.

Mr. DINGELL. Then are you saying that the Department of the Interior has been adhering generally to the original understanding and did not feel itself impelled particularly by the comments of the Appropriations Committee to change from the ratio of 2 to 1 to 4 to 1? Is that what you are saying?

Dr. CAIN. No, Mr. Chairman. Let me first read the specific sentence which is:

The whole program is based on the need for a balance of fee and easement acquisitions. We estimate this balance to be about one fee acre for each two easement acres.

So that in this sense we are just where we started in what we believe in. History has shown in many cases that it has been possible to acquire a perpetual easement when we could not buy fee, and consequently the