of St. George has given great support for site needs, and forty two different volunteers have given hundreds of hours to protecting the prints, to study, research, and to guiding the visitors to a rewarding unique experience they will always remember. Once our building begins we are sure that many people will step up to support, but first we must begin. Without initial funding we are afraid pending property development will necessitate loss of this significant discovery site.

All museums and schools indicate a desire to receive some of these Jurassic trace fossils, and we have enough to share, but first we must take care of what is on the site-then we can share. We feel that these prints were given to us that people all over the world can enjoy and feel the thrill of their existence.

With your help we will build an exciting place of preservation, discovery and imagination for America that will inspire inquiry and education. We are asking you to help us make a united dream of sharing come true.

Let me ask: clearly, this 20 acres is not the only place that dinosaurs walked in that area. Is it anticipated that if we buy this 20 acres, and then, there will be another 20 and then 40 and then so forth? Or is this the only place that you can actually—

Mr. JOHNSON. This is a peculiar site, because the whole 20 acres they want includes along the river, which would be a parkway along the river that would supplement-help visitors enjoy the site. The site is an uprift, upthrust hill that only includes about 3 or 4 acres. It is a hill that has been upthrust some 20 to 40 million years ago, and it is the only site where rocks will be found. So there is not a possibility of others, because it is the only upthrust. The rest of it is level ground.

Mr. MCARTHUR. The rest of it is developed, basically, around

this.

Mr. HEFLEY. And they have not found anything in the development process?

Mr. JOHNSON. Oh, no, no. The geology of this is that this is level farm ground except this one hill that was thrust up approximately 300 feet, geologists tell us, as it thrust up. I took the top 20 feet off. So the rest of that layer of ground where dinosaurs walked is 300 feet below the ground all over. And so, there is a possibility only in that hill to find that sort of it is a very select site.

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Fulton seemed to express the concern of the Department that the site would be cared for properly under your stewardship and under the plan in the bill. Would you like to speak to that?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Yes; southwestern Utah would not even exist if we were not able to cooperate with the surrounding agencies like the county government, school district, the college and other things. And in our discussions up to this point, we have seen that our resources have been taxed very heavily. We are the first ones to come forward and actually fence the site and actually put restrooms and other things on the site. They were portable restrooms and help working with the staffing of volunteers through the city staff.

And the goal has been from this point forward, of course, working with the State of Utah, with the educational system and other things to make sure that this happens, and I have no doubt in my mind that we can make it work working together. It is just the acquisition of the site; and then go forward from there in making it work.

Mr. HEFLEY. Ms. Christensen?

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I do not think I have any questions, Mr. Chairman. I just find it fascinating that you could see dinosaur footprints this well at this late date, and I am encouraged that the Department is willing to work with both the city and the Members of Congress in trying to find a way to preserve the area. Our concern is just the direct purchase by the Department of the Interior, which would be an unusual way to go about accomplishing this.

Mr. MCARTHUR. Could I say something? If you look in this particular spot, this is probably the only place that I know of that you would find a site like this right square in the middle of town. All the rest of the ground around here, it is all private land, whereas, most of the area of our county is Federal and state land. And therefore, you know, acquiring that property right in the middle of town is really critical to us, and we have already begun negotiations. In fact, I think we have pretty well negotiated a settlement price with the land owners that can work.

But I do not think that that is final, but I think that that is going to happen. All the parties involved, whether it is the land owners, whether it is the school system, whether it is the State of Utah, everybody is on board and making and saying that we have got to make this work: the BLM, the local BLM group is saying yes, we have got to make this work; we can make it work. It has just got to work within the confines of each one of our systems. Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Can I ask a question?

Mr. HEFLEY. Sure.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Fulton said in his testimony; yes, this is the right bill: an exchange might be a viable option. Is that something that has been looked at? Is there some other property that could be

Mr. MCARTHUR. The difficulty of that, like I said, is most of the property around there is already under governmental control. We are already the largest landowner in the river system because of endangered species and others that are found uniquely in our Virgin River System. We are already under a plan that is called the Virgin River Management Plan that we have all parties assigned trying to recover the species and others, and we have been the largest trying to acquire land, either by donation or purchase or swapping what land we have had. But we have no more land to swap, and we own it from our southern border to the northern border, and Dr. Johnson owns some other property along this river that he is working with and donating or through purchase that we can do, and then, we will tie all that together with a trail system and other things for the use of the public.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you; I am sure Chairman Hansen does not agree that that is a viable option anyway.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HEFLEY. Well, I think that is a good question: Dr. Johnson, is there any-if most of it is government-owned land around there, is there any government-owned land around there that you would like that you would consider a trade?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am sure if that is the need, we would do that. We are not trying to make a lot of money on this. Even the price, we are giving lots of acreage, and it is costing-I would have been really well off if I had just turned that stone under to begin with,

because it has cost me a lot of money and a lot of time, and I am not trying to do anything but get it before the public.

I am sure if you could designate some land around to trade for it, government land, it would be possible. We would not stop it; that is for sure. We want to make it work, whatever we have to do.

Mr. HEFLEY. Okay; Committee, other questions?

All right; thank you very much.

Mr. Hansen?

[Laughter.]

Mr. HANSEN. I can hardly wait for full Committee.

Mr. HEFLEY. Have you noticed I lean over to my left over here? Have you noticed that, Mr. Hansen?

Mr. HANSEN. I have noticed that.

Mayor McArthur, how do you envision-let us just say hypothetically this thing comes about; that we are able to pull it off here; the part that we play in it. As you mention, there are a lot of entities involved. How do you envision this coming together? Give us a little vision here of how you envision this thing to happen.

Mr. MCARTHUR. Well, I envision the State of Utah coming forward to help us also. They have expressed a lot of desire to do that through the legislative process and other things and acquiring some funds. Like I say, we have been strapped with that, but I believe that through the efforts of the local college and educational system as well as our own system and the volunteers which we have, which we have a tremendous amount because of our retirement area; you see how St. George is growing or at least Washington County over the last decade; I have seen it double in population over the last decade, and that has been the history of it with people moving into the area. We have a tremendous volunteer effort working.

And what I see in this particular thing working together is trying to work with either ASIA, which is a volunteer organization of the BLM and others in recommending places that people can visit, either through the National Park system or through the state park system or even the other areas, but we believe that working together with the BLM, whoever we have to work with, and the schools is very possible. It has worked in the past, and we have a commitment from them at this point and forward to do it.

I am not exactly sure how it would work, but I know it would be under, right now, under the direction of the City of St. George, and we are committed to make it happen.

Mr. HANSEN. So let us just go to the bottom line on it. Let us say we are able to do the part that we are asked to play on it. The city is involved; the state is involved; the county is involved; the schools are involved; and we have got a private entity that is going to run this show, or is it going to be the City of St. George?

Mr. MCARTHUR. No; it will probably be a private entity is what we would try to get.

Mr. HANSEN. Which all of these other entities would help-
Mr. MCARTHUR. Would work together, absolutely.

Mr. HANSEN. With funding or whatever it is. Okay; the first thing, then, is the land.

Mr. MCARTHUR. Yes.

Mr. HANSEN. Get that worked out.

Mr. MCARTHUR. The preservation.

Mr. HANSEN. That is taken care of. Then, somebody is structured to run this private entity. And then, they put a plan together and say, all right, all these people here are going to put money in, time, whatever it may be, and then, you come up with a plan of what to put there: structures, parking lots, fences. The Doctor mentioned going down in that lower area by the Virgin River as kind of a scenic walkway or something; is that right, Doctor?

Mr. JOHNSON. A scenic walkway that would enhance the park itself. The stones are on an area of about 2 acres total, but that is so small, there is hardly room for the parking lot. And so, down along the edge of the river, which we have volunteered to give to the entity, whoever it would be, would make a beautiful parkway, a Jurassic park, so to speak, so that people could have places to go picnic and to take their families and to have an experience and be able to spread out under trees and picnic tables, and that would join-it would be part of that.

We are not talking about a lot of money, and even then, we have offered the site, the site right on the road for $45,000 an acre, and that would be, you know, $90,000 for the whole thing. So we are trying to give as much as we can and still make it possible within our limits.

Mr. HANSEN. I appreciate your generosity, and the people of St. George have surely commented on it as has your media in that area of what you have been able to do. But this is not a money making thing. This is for either the city or any of these entities, this is an idea to make this open but, yet, in a way that we do not desecrate it or hurt it in any way.

So this entity would then figure out the logistics: what we are going to build; the time they can be there; do we have to charge to offset maintenance and all that kind of stuff? Is that what we are envisioning here?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Yes.

Mr. HANSEN. And then, who owns it?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Well, the City of St. George—

Mr. HANSEN. In other words, who takes fee title?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Takes which?

Mr. HANSEN. Fee title.

Mr. JOHNSON. The fee title.

Mr. HANSEN. Who takes title to it? I mean, if we are going to negotiate a sale here, we have got to have a seller. And we have got the seller sitting here. Who is the guy that is going to own it?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Well, the City of St. George, unless, out of this negotiation that we work on who runs it and how it works in the future; if something changes, the City of St. George is the owner. Mr. HANSEN. I guess it would come under the direction of St. George.

Mr. MCARTHUR. That is right.

Mr. HANSEN. Because you are going to be the number one entity. It is in your confines, in your jurisdiction; is that right?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Yes, and we are willing to take that lead.

Mr. HANSEN. So in your best estimation, if all these ducks line up, when are we going to be to that point?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Congressman, the sooner the better. The city has not just looked at, you know, you have heard people say that we have to protect the site. We have already gone in and are looking at some materials to help protect the site as best we can. It is not a permanent building by any means of what we are trying to do, but there has already been a structure put over it to keep the sun somewhat off, and now, we are trying to do another one by maybe investigating putting-if there is some material and things on the side that we can actually enclose them somewhat for temporary protection until some funds can be acquired, either through the state or through this, that can actually build something on site. We are planning on building something on site and going forward with the design.

Mr. HANSEN. Like an enclosed area?

Mr. MCARTHUR. An enclosed area.

Mr. HANSEN. Enclose some of those areas?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Enclose them.

Mr. HANSEN. Make an area where they will not be deteriorated further?

Mr. MCARTHUR. Exactly.

Mr. HANSEN. Something like that.

Mr. MCARTHUR. And then, let them go ahead and develop them and look at them later through study.

Mr. HANSEN. Dr. Johnson, you have an interesting situation here. As you both testified, and I have seen with my eyes, visitation that exceeds some of our national parks. I could name four or five national parks that do not even come close to what you get. I will not, because Lee Davidson will print it in the Deseret News, and I will be in trouble. Sorry.

But anyway, you get down to the idea that-how do you handle that? How do you handle that? Here is one man and his wife who discovered this who probably wants to retire-I assume you are retired now.

Mr. JOHNSON. We retired, and then, all of a sudden, this hit us, and we had to be committed to something. And we started there early in the morning, 6 or 7 in the morning, and we would be there until 9 or 9:30 at night. In fact, people would come up with their headlights and say it is too late to see, but I will shine my lights on it. And we would say we are so exhausted, we have got to go home!

Finally, the City of St. George and the surrounding areas developed a volunteer bureau, and we have finally found 42 volunteers to help us guide these people through this great find, and they have been working the last year under extreme conditions: the heat and the wind and the rain and everything, and they have just hung in there, and I said someday, we will have a cover for this. We have got to. I have exhausted about all of my resources to cover it and to do the things I have needed to do, but now, it is to the final-we have got to do something else, you know. It has to be covered and has to move on with a greater entity, more than just the enthusiasm of my wife, LaVerna, and I, because we are getting too old and too tired.