Scat 11. Natural resources.-The economically important minerals which the have been or may be produced in the Kentucky Basin, include bituminous and cannel coal, petroleum, phosphate rock, building stone, calcite, barite, fluorspar, galena, sphalerite, cement rock, and oil shale. At present coal is the only one of these minerals that occupies an 1 important place in national production. Considering the coal field as a whole, its deposits are unexcelled in quality by those of any other bituminous field. The Minerals Yearbook for 1939, compiled by the da United States Bureau of Mines, lists the following coal output for the nine most productive counties lying wholly or partly within the di Kentucky River watershed. In 1938 the total production of fluorspar did not exceed 600 tons of fluxing gravel and acid lump fluorspar combined. Barite has not been mined in commercially significant quantities since 1920. Zinc and lead (in the form of sphalerite and galena) are present as vein fillings in the Bluegrass region. More than 20 years ago efforts to obtain lead near Gratz in Owen County were abandoned. As recently as April 1940, however, efforts have been renewed in this general area (near Lockport in Henry County), slope and vertical shaft entries having been driven to deposits which may prove workable. The clays found in the Kentucky River Basin are suitable principally for the manufacture of common brick and drain tile. Kilns producing these products are located at Lexington, Nicholasville, Stanton, and Hazel Green. Fire, ball, stoneware, and flint clays also are obtained from coal measures within the basin. Limestone rock is quarried in various regions throughout the basin. Current trends in building practice and highway construction have changed the procedure from quarrying building stones to obtaining crushed rock for the heavy aggregate of concrete structures and road surfaces. Production of crude petroleum within the Kentucky River Basin has declined since 1920 until only a few oil pools are now actively being worked. In the future, the extensive outcrops of oil shales may assume significance. The production of natural gas is increasing but not rapidly enough to assume economic significance as yet. Of the wells drilled in 1938, 55 percent produced crude oil, 10 percent delivered natural gas, and 35 percent were dry. Pipe lines serve most of the oil and gas producing district which, in the Kentucky River Basin, principally comprises Estill, Lee, Wolfe, Powell, Menifee, Owsley, Breathitt, and Clay Counties. The once enormous timber reserves within the basin have been depleted until at present it is estimated that less than one-half billion board feet of the original stand remains. 12. Water resources, general. The water resources of the Kentucky River Basin have been relatively well developed during either early or present eras. Such development has comprised that for water power, hydroelectric power, water supply, abatement of stream pollution, and navigation. The first four of the developments are described and discussed hereafter in paragraphs 13 to 16 inclusive. Since navigation 13. Water power.-The availability of water power has played an important role in developing the Kentucky River Basin. The sites of many towns presently situated upon the main and tributary streams can be credited to the one-time location of a water-propelled gristmill or other power installation at that place. Improved transportation and the availability of superior types of power have, however, effected almost complete extinction of these installations. Throughout the navigable portion of the river there remains only one such development, namely, that operated by the Kentucky River Mills at lock and dam No. 4, Frankfort, Ky. This firm holds a 99-year lease on land and water power at lock No. 4, the lease expiring in 1977. The power installation consists of one 68-inch Sampson turbine, 300 to 500 horsepower. The United States currently receives regular rental payments of $180 per annum in consideration of this lease. de ant 15. 50 14. Hydroelectric power.-The Kentucky Utilities Co. of Louisville, Ky., successors to the Kentucky Hydro-Electric Co., owns and oper- FS 1 ates a hydroelectric generating plant located on Dix River 3% miles above its confluence with the Kentucky River at High Bridge. Dixters River is not navigable and has no commerce. A 300,000-acre-foot ter reservoir has been developed behind a rock-fill dam 287 feet high and th approximately 1,080 feet long. Power is generated by three 7,500-00 kilovolt-ampere turbo-generators. The Dix River project was compters pleted in November 1925, at a cost of approximately 5% million dollarse tots exclusive of transmission lines. The same company operates a low-lens head, run-of-river plant at navigation lock and dam No. 7 on the Kentucky River. This development, completed in 1928 under Federal batar Power Commission project No. 539, consists of three propeller-type ter turbines directly connected to three 680-kilowatt generators. The plant, reported to have cost $535,000, is operated automatically from the Dix River power station. Between 1924 and 1929 numerous ap plications for license to develop power at various sites on the Kentucky Health River and its tributaries were made and preliminary permits granted co streams onstruct by the Federal Power Commission. From this group of permits, serving & only one license, project No. 539, was issued that to the Kentucky Hydro-Electric Co. on April 19, 1926, for the construction of facilities at dam No. 7. All other preliminary permits have been allowed to lapse and none are pending at this date. The annual amount of power, 16. P 96802 in kilowatt hours, generated at these two plants for the period of opertation to and including the calendar year 1939, is shown below. TABLE NO. 7.-Hydroelectric power 96892-44-4 38, 248, 000 The annual amounts of generated power shown above reflect the annual gross generator output to and including 1938. The 1939 production shows the net generated output at the buss bars. 15. Water supply.-Forty towns in the Kentucky River Basin have water supply systems. Twenty-one of these systems use surface water obtained from impounding reservoirs, from the river, or from both sources in combination. It is estimated that approximately 18,000 persons within the basin are served by systems using ground water supply and about 133,000 are served from surface water sources. The total daily consumption of these several towns exceeds 10,000,000 gallons per day. Table No. 8 lists the communities obtaining their water supply in whole or in part from the Kentucky River and its tributaries. The consumption rate shown in the table is the total water consumed per day in millions of gallons and does not represent the demand on the river except in cases where the river serves as the sole source of supply. 16. Pollution. Statistics compiled by the United States Public Health Service indicate that 23 towns discharge wastes into the streams of the Kentucky River Basin through sewerage systems serving about 103,000 persons. Thirteen of these towns have, or are constructing, sewage treatment plants. 1 TABLE NO. 8.-Communities obtaining water supply from Kentucky River 1 Supplies South Danville, Junction City, Shelby City, Moreland, and Hustonville. * Supplies Ravenna. * Supplies adjacent communities. Spring and river. River and wells. River. Wells and river. River. Do. Do. Do Do. Do. Do. Do. The existing facilities vary in efficiency but reduce the "population equivalent" of these wastes to about 55,000 persons. The largest towns not having treatment facilities are Frankfort and Georgetown in the Bluegrass section, Irvine in the Knobs country, and Hazard in the mountain region. There are 27 plants discharging untreated industrial wastes into the river. Sixteen plants have instituted at least minor steps toward reducing river pollution either by making changes within their plants or by treatment of wastes. It has been estimated that as much as 80 tons of mine acid was being discharged daily inte the headwater tributaries before mine sealing was undertaken. In Letcher, Perry, Knott, Breathitt, Lee, Wolfe, and Clay Counties in the upper watershed there are 177 active mines, 62 marginal mines, and 416 abandoned mines. The mine-sealing program, while in oper ation, sealed 137 of the latter group. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of the present industrial pollution is contributed by the distilling industries of the basin. The degree of pollution, bacterial count, and sanitary condition of the Kentucky River is being investi gated by the United States Public Health Service in connection with the Ohio River Pollution Survey. 17. Transportation facilities.-Transportation facilities within the basin comprise the highway systems, various railroad facilities, a nar igable waterway, and minor airway facilities. The first three types are of the most importance and are described hereafter in paragraphs 19 to 21, inclusive. The airway facilities are less developed, the sec tional aeronautical charts of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey showing only four airfields within the basin. These are a municipal airport at Lexington and three marked auxiliary fields st Balls Landing, Danville, and Beattyville. The general elevations of these fields, in the above-named order, are 910, 500, 990, and 655 feet above mean sea level. No regularly scheduled air service to Lexington is available at the present time. 18. Highways. The Kentucky River Basin is served by a fair network of Federal, State, and county roads. The Federal and State routes in general are all-weather roads surfaced with concrete, bituminous macadam, crushed stone, or gravel. Some county roads in the Bluegrass section are of similar construction. In addition there are some unimproved roads which provide access to intermediate points, but because of the topography these are less numerous than usually encountered in areas having equivalent densities of population. The locations of the Federal and State routes traversing the watershed are shown on plate 1. The total improved mileage of these routes within the basin is approximately 1,500 miles, of which over 400 miles are in hard surfaced Federal routes, 750 miles are in hard surfaced State routes, and about 350 miles are in State routes having surfaces denoted as "gravel or equivalent." The highway facilities are much better in the northern half of the basin than they are in the mountainous southern section. In the latter section, primary highways are few and widely separated. County and local roads in this section are also scarce, a goodly number of these being unimproved and oftentimes impassable. Many of the bridges now serving the various routes are substandard for the classification of the highway served, but replacements are in evidence. 19. Railroads.-Approximately 600 miles of railroad line now exist in the Kentucky River watershed. The Southern Railway operates over a double-track main line between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Chattanooga, Tenn. In its 100-mile course across the Kentucky River Basin, this line traverses rich agricultural areas and spans the Kentucky River high above the stream near lock No. 7, river mile 117.9. The doubletrack main line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. from Cincinnati south to Knoxville, Tenn., traversing the basin 35 miles from Winchester southward, crosses the Kentucky River at Ford, river mile 117.5. The Eastern Kentucky division of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, comprising about 440 miles of single-track main line, branches, and auxiliary spurs and sidings, extends south and east from points near Louisville to Frankfort, Lexington, Winchester, and Beattyville in the main stem of the basin, thence upstream along the North Fork Tributary to McRoberts in the extreme headwaters. It divides near Winchester, the main line following the Kentucky River through Irvine while the branch traverses, principally, the Red River Valley through Clay City and Stanton to Maloney in the Middle Fork Basin where it rejoins the main line. Some 350 miles of this trackage is within the Kentucky Basin and is devoted chiefly to the transportation of coal. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway has 17 miles of single-track line extending into the basin from Winchester westward to Lexington. The location of the rail lines herein described are shown on plate 1. With the exception of the Eastern Kentucky division of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, all of the above lines are important passenger lines as well as freight lines. 20. Waterway. The existing navigation project for the Kentucky River provides for slack water to a depth of 6 feet from the mouth of the river to its main-stem head, mile 258.6. The project was adopted by the Federal Government through enactment of the River and |