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<br />B-17 <br /> <br /> <br />0027j5 <br /> <br />our staff had already, that is, our recreation staff had already, <br />during the first year of our inventory gone through certain steps <br />that relate to wilderness. We had identified through a systematic <br />approach the highest visual resources, the Bureau has a visual <br />resources analysis approach that they used. We had gone through <br />that desert wide, we looked at many other characteristics and mapped <br />them that relate to wilderness qualities. But they don't track <br />specifically with the language of the act now. <br /> <br />Mr. Macias. Isn't there a minimum size? <br /> <br />Mr. Pfulb. Five thousand acres is the minimum given in the act. <br />There are some exceptions. But basically it's S,OOO acres. It is <br />one of the most difficult inventories I think that ever come along. <br />What your measuring is so suttle in many cases. To measure solitude, <br />to meaSUre as identify quote "Outstanding Natural Characteristics <br />to MeaSUre Untrammeled or the Presence of Man," either doesn't exist <br />or doesn't exist to the extent that it is still wilderness. Because <br />you've got some give there. To identify what is a road in this <br />desert is a lot more difficult than to identify what is a road in <br />many other types of environment. It is just fraught with all <br />these difficulties of defining terms and approaches to measure these <br />things. Yet it is going to be done. I want to assure that it will <br />be done. Because, it must be done. But internally as well as <br />externally we don't have our act quite together yet. But we expect <br />by the first of May to have it spelled out in procedural fashion. <br />We've announced a meeting to be held in Barstow and one in Orange <br />County. A public meeting at which time we will distribute to the <br />public the way we are going to approach this thing and how that <br />procedure tracks with the Secretary's instructions on how it should <br />be done in a general way. It is going to be tough for getting public <br />understanding, because while the procedures that relate to all of <br />the public lands, and inventoring the wilderness characteristics on <br />all the public lands is being developed this is going to take <br />probably the next IS years. We are in a special situation where we <br />have to get it done, basically in this year, in this much area. So, <br />again We are telescoping, we are having to do it in advance. That's <br />not going to be easy. <br /> <br />Mr. Raetz. Now you know how the weather service feels. <br /> <br />Mr. Macias. I would like to See what the reaction is around the <br />table here regarding whether, what we have just heard so very ably <br />by Neil Pfulb is being done in that part of the desert in the Pacific <br />Southwest, that is in California, being something that is desirable <br />that should be done beyond those borders in the remaining part of the <br />desert areas of the Pacific Southwest. We have heard some of the <br />