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<br /> <br />Mr. Sanders noted that this was the first meeting of the combined <br />Water and Vegetation Technical Subcommittee. They set their meeting <br />up a day ahead of the Executive Subcommittee meeting with the hope <br />that by so doing we would have more State participation in the Sub- <br />committee activities - this was not generated. There may be several <br />reasons for it. Apparently Utah and Nevada have selected to take <br />an inactive role on the Parent Committee and as such, they no longer <br />feel they will participate in these. Of the three States that were <br />present when it comes to rotating the Chairmanship as we had selected <br />in our procedures to which would make a state responsible for Chairing <br />the Subcommittee, none of those present felt they could do it for <br />various and sundry reasons. This puts it back then to the Federal <br />Agencies which has really become a Forest Service responsibility <br />and if that's the only way that the Subcommittee is going to continue <br />to exist then we as Forest Service representatives will have to <br />decide o~ whether we feel that we can devote that amount of time on <br />a continuous basis to maintain the Subcommittee. Maybe we have outlived <br />our purpose, We indicated we didn't have any real work plan for the <br />coming year. There are a couple of things, that we are going to look <br />at and see if there are some aspects of them that we could take on <br />as a Subcommittee in the coming year, that were discussed at our session, <br />if so then we will generate some work items from those. As "Red" <br />indicated in his discussion, they are non-technical technical sub- <br />committee and maybe that's what we're going to have to be. Maybe we <br />have gotten to that point, because of the austerity movement in states <br />and Federal agencies we can no longer devote the agencies manpower <br />and dollars to develop technical reports in the Subcommittee. We feel <br />there is a place for us and we do have 'a place in the PSIAC organization <br />that we can be of value. But no one, it appears, wants to generate <br />allY particular work items that are going to make them responsible for <br />devoting time and effort into this. Maybe the Parent Committee may <br />want to take a look at whether the Subcommittee really needs to con- <br />tinue to exist. <br /> <br />Mr, James. Question, Mr, Chairman. I wonder if part of the <br />dispropoltionate role that shows up in Subcommittees isn't partly a <br />matter of expertise. Vegetation Management, the Forest Service is <br />going to find itself very often the agency which has an awful lotto <br />con~"'ibute, maybe from your standpoint it's unfortunate it should show <br />up that way, But I recall that the Environmental Committee first was <br />put together some years ago, initially EPA took a fairly active role <br />and partly because this made good sense. They were the lead agency <br />in the area and they had a certain amount of expertise to contribute. <br />Guess what I am suggesting is that perhaps because you don't always <br />find a Federal agency such as HUD willing to take on this kind of <br />work, doesn't mean that it isn't perhaps highly appreciated and a very <br />useful thing to do and you may find that as long we we have specialized <br />committees that agencies with special. expertise are going to find them.. <br />selves very often taking the lead role at least from the Federal side. <br />I\s an Urbanist, I would like to say that I appreciate this kind of <br />work and certainly would not want to offer my services as a Chairman <br />because I couldn't perform it. But that doesn't mean that I, from <br />HUD's standpoint, want to see these kind of things disappear. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />B"6 <br />