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Show Thursd 0cials mwlyze i0,8 respmases U MM U '' I ev(''t' v " , . -it Amfi urni o.f s.-omj; nlnt KAKK U. I'liiuoiil.-! SlnltMiitMit) of KKH II tlusrtdlcss Arvii Kc-xicw tid K ctUinl kvin) is lht Kv'ifl S-iue to h(il) the public decide s liul they vwiut til id) wild public liuitls tlml Imvo no roods on them. Over 10.1HK) responses lime been received by (ho r'oie.it Service so ,u. Itesponses rano liom one .simple sentence to tliiity pa;o "books." Those inputs (lilleis, veibal comments, petitions, lo-poits, lo-poits, and research analysis) analy-sis) couio from all over the U. S. and eventually anivi' in Salt Lake City wlieio this new 1'oiest Seivice unit called the "Public Involvement Analysis Ana-lysis Center" is located. Puity lour people aie picsonlly involved in "coding" these letters. I bill of the codets ale peimanent, public in-lonuation in-lonuation Purest Seivice employees from llie nine Purest Service regions in the United States. The other half are people locally hired in Salt Lake City and surrounding arras These people re sponded to ads in riews-papiis, riews-papiis, undeiwent a two day training session and then were unsigned regions re-gions to "code, ' ' Many of these men and women of vaiious ngi s are liom nil over the U. S. mid have a variety of backgrounds and interests. What is a "coder?" The coder reads the HAHK II letter thoroughly. Heshe then converts the letter's content into u computer code. Computer sheets that may not be "folded, bent or mutilated" will be fed into a terminal computer compu-ter in Sun Mateo, Calif., at the end of September. The computer will synthesize, all the data. The data will return to regions and the Porest Service Washington Washing-ton oil ice to help ill mailing wilderness ici umi-riiendiitions umi-riiendiitions to Congress and non wilderness decisions deci-sions on others. Some ares where controversy or resource re-source values conflict may be left in "future planning" plan-ning" lor later decisions. Most letters have been 'top (iiality, well written mid full of good data and substance," accoring to Steve Harper, Project Director. ("oilers are averaging fifty letters per day per person. The Southeast and Northeast Regions of the U. S. have currently received the most responses. respon-ses. In coding letters, coders are instructed not to interpret or assume anything; any-thing; they can code only what is written. No "values" or corrections are lidded to inputs. For instance, if a person writes that h(i doesn't want wilderness in area H becuusii he can't hunt in a wilderness; and the coder knows that this statement is falsi; because people, are allowed to hunt in wilder ness areas, the coder may not make this "correction" "correc-tion" but must codu the letter exactly as the writer expressed it. These misunderstandings mis-understandings will be considered later in the final stages of the decision-making process. The deadline for letters is October 1 . New cxJers will be trained as the volume of responses in- creases. |
