Is Mr. Hale here?

Mr. HALE. I would like to introduced Mr. Hallet, the director of the Maine Port Authority. I think he can answer quite a few of the questions in which the committee is interested.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD M. HALLET, DIRECTOR, MAINE PORT AUTHORITY, PORTLAND, MAINE

Mr. HALLET. I can say that the attitude of the Maine Port Authority is unchanged; it is the same as it was when we testified before the United States engineers in Portland, in December 1944. I have no doubt that you have a transcript of that testimony; but in general it has not been changed. It was all favorable, and we certainly were and are in favor of the development.

I thought that I had a few figures which might clear up something about this part of the channel, the inner harbor [indicating on map], which it is proposed to develop from a 30-foot depth to a 35-foot channel and increase to 400 feet the bottom width. It is already 380, but it shelves in. That is not a very great widening, but it is a good deepening.

The reason is that we have 11 oil companies and a pipe line, and that business is growing, and it is growing in heavier ships all the time. The CHAIRMAN. What territory does it serve?

Mr. HALLETT. It goes to Montreal, sir.

Mr. COLE. What contribution is the pipe-line company making toward this improvement, or what contribution is being made by any other local interest or local owners?

Mr. HALLET. I think, none. I think the engineers have stated that there are no local contributions.

Mr. COLE. They said you could tell us about that.

Mr. HALLET. Then I can say that none is contemplated. I think that is fair to say.

The port authority is extending the capacity of the State pier, and that is a contribution to the general development of the harbor. But you refer, Congressman, to a contribution to the actual work of dredging, the actual operation?

Mr. COLE. Yes.

Mr. HALLET. No. I think that there is no contribution contemplated.

Mr. COLE. That being the case, then, this project is constructed solely from Federal funds?

Mr. HALLET. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not think that they ever required local contribution on the dredging of harbors.

Mr. AUCHINCLOSS. Does the city provide areas for the disposal of the waste material?

Mr. HALLET. I should say that it does. I think I would want to know, if I were an engineer, which way the material went, whether it was dumped at sea.

Mr. PETERSON of Georgia. This recommendation is subject to the condition that they provide such areas. That is in all of the projects. Mr. HALLET. With regard to the tanker situation, we had before the war tankers which averaged a 26-to-27-foot depth loaded. They came up through the Portland Bridge and through the Vaughan

Bridge when necessary, and they found it very hard to do. The biggest ones can come out on high tide, but they could not get in. Even with the 27-foot depth they felt they had too little under their keel. Now they have gone to a much bigger type of ship. I know at the December 1944 meeting in Portland Mr. Knappen, who spoke for the American Merchant Marine Institute, said that the bulk of the oil business after the war would be carried in the bigger T-2 tankers; and that is what is taking place. We have bigger tankers of 525 feet, and they run up to 30- or 31-foot draft, and they are now coming in. We have a record from December of last year to March of this year, a period of 4 months, in which 103 tankers have come through the Portland Bridge and gone up to Vaughan Bridge and over to these oil companies. Seventeen out of the one hundred and three drew over 28 feet, which is a little too much for the 30-foot channel at mean low water, and would mean that they would have to wait tide. Eighteen drew 27 to 28 feet. That is still too large.

Twenty-two percent drew 28 feet or more. We had 13 ships that drew over 29 feet, and about a half dozen of the actual T-2 type, a very large tanker, which obviously could not come into a 30-foot channel when it drew 31 or 32 feet.

Those are the figures at that end of the transaction. That is the reason why we need the 35 feet.

This draw [indicating on map], I believe, is going to be widened. The ships that come in here past the draw have to come out stern first, and a turning basin of 600 feet is essential to getting them turned around comfortably and headed out.

The CHAIRMAN. This improvement when carried out will be ample for all the tankers that will be engaged in that trade?

Mr. HALLET. I think, Mr. Chairman, that that can be said. The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Vickery told me, just a short while before his death, that one tanker had been constructed with a draft of 34 feet, but it was the only tanker that had that depth.

Mr. HALLET. Of course they may go to larger tankers, but they do not contemplate it. The 26 and 27 footers, a great many of them, were knocked out in the war. They were sunk and are out of the way and they are not building those small tankers any more. They will more and more build the T-2 type, and that is what we have to reckon with. The CHAIRMAN. The Government has 400 tankers for sale, if someone will buy them and put them into operation. Sixty-two of them are of the Liberty type.

Mr. HALLET. The bigger the better for modern oil carriage.

I might say that the Navy-one of the Congressmen asked about the Navy-still retains a couple of piers over here [indicating on map] which do not really come into intensified operation; and Admiral Jonas Ingraham told me that the harbor would be a main anchorage for the Navy. Destroyers are coming in there that go on around into the Sound and do not use this place [indicating]. The Navy has a reservation on our State pier which will be a small one and hardly more than a boat landing, as far as that goes.

This, of course, is the main development [indicating]. The projected breakwater, which is a part of the plan, is of course to break the force of the sea which comes in against these piers and makes the

ships uneasy and shift around there. It will help in producing quieter

water.

That, I think, is about all I have to say and to add to what has been testified at the previous meeting.

Mr. PETERSON of Georgia. What is the tide at Portland?

Mr. HALLET. It averages 8 to 9 feet between the high and low.
The CHAIRMAN. These depths are based on low tide?

Mr. HALLET. Mean low water. In other words, you do not have to await tides. A ship is able to come in and out right around the clock. The CHAIRMAN. All our port depths are based on mean low water. Foreign countries base them on their high tides, which is a very uncertain thing.

Mr. HALLET. I think that, technically, that is what I had in mind

to say.

I think I might say a word, if I may, about the maritime attitude of the State of Maine, which, after all, is asking the Federal Government for these developments; and I think that is good.

In the Pacific last summer I got the bone of the wreck of a ship on which my uncle had sailed. He landed on the atoll of Ujae west of Kwajalein and found the wreck, which has been there since 1883, and collected a few parts of the iron. I have presented those to the Governor and counsel of Maine, and they at once said, "Well, there is the bone of the American merchant marine, and we will go ahead and put some flesh on it as far as Maine is concerned." For which we were grateful. Their attitude is very cooperative with the port authority in its pier development.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. HALE. Mr. Kimball is here. He is secretary of the Main Port Authority and also represents our local Propeller Club, which is a very influential and useful organization.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to hear you, Mr. Kimball.

STATEMENT OF HAROLD E. KIMBALL, SECRETARY OF THE MAINE PORT AUTHORITY AND OF THE PORTLAND PROPELLER CLUB

Mr. KIMBALL. My name is Harold E. Kimball. I am secretary of the Maine Port Authority and of the local Propeller Club, which, as you gentlemen realize, is a national organization primarily interested in an adequate merchant marine. We have the secretaryship of the local organization in the port authority office, and the board of governors of that organization is the most representative group of waterfront interests that it is possible to assemble in the area. That is because the railroads as well as the terminal operators, stevedores, steamship agents, and so forth, serve on the board of governors, and that group has been in complete accord with the port authority from the inception.

The CHAIRMAN. The railroads are really interested in this improvement?

Mr. KIMBALL. They definitely are. Representatives of every railroad serving the port appeared at the public hearing held by the board of engineers in Portland in December a year ago. In fact, the railroads are proposing with the State to make an indirect contribu

tion to the improvement of the port by eliminating the second bridge through which the proposed channel is to extend. That bridge has only a 75-foot opening in the draw. The railroads and the State propose to eliminate that and to construct a dual-purpose double-deck bridge about 150 feet north of that point, and that will remove one hazard to navigation in that area.

The CHAIRMAN. What type of bridge is that? Is it a high bridge? Mr. KIMBALL. It is a low bridge now; but by moving it 150 feet upstream they come to very shallow water, and there is now pending an application to the War Department to permit the building of a bridge there without a draw, and that will definitely be at least an indirect contribution to improve that end of the inner harbor.

It was estimated at the hearing that at least 80 percent of all the petroleum products, shortly after we return to normal, will be handled in these T-2 type tankers. Although ships are coming in now in increasing numbers, they have to be handled on the tide.

Perhaps, apart from any losses to the oil company operating the tanker, probably the greatest hazard, and the thing that we are most interested in, is that these ships may be up in the inner harbor, going up on the tide, and then having some sort of disaster occur in that section where there is a very dense concentration of petroleum products, without being able to move the ship out, being tide-bound. That is one reason why we are very anxious to get more water so that those ships can be moved promptly without having to wait for sufficient

water.

In addition to the tankers, there are also colliers which come up through the first bridge and dock over here [indicating] at the railroad terminal. They have been drawing in excess of 29 feet.

The CHAIRMAN. They come from Norfolk?

Mr. KIMBALL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. To what extent do you use coal there now?

Mr. KIMBALL. Well, if we had a graph you would see that the coal line was being depressed, while the petroleum line was climbing all the time. I do not know just how Portland now ranks, but it must be pretty well up on the list of petroleum distribution centers. That is why this deepening of the channel in the inner harbor is primarily for the operation of tankers.

Mr. AUCHINCLOSS. Has the Coast Guard an installation there?

Mr. KIMBALL. Yes; they have a base on the South Portland side. Mr. AUCHINCLOSS. Can you indicate it?

Mr. KIMBALL. Over in here [indicating on map]; and the cutters tie up at the State dock.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any drydocks for ship construction? Mr. KIMBALL. There are two shipyards on the South Portland side. One of them is an organization known as the Greater Portland Development Commission. It has acquired that from the Maritime Commission and is developing it for industrial sites. Then there is the so-called East Yard upon which iron interests have held an option, I believe, which is reverting to the Maritime Commission on the 19th of this month. That is merely a repetition of a newspaper statement. I would not want to state it as a positive fact. But there is an admirable shipbuilding plant on the South Portland side which is somewhat unique, inasmuch as the vessel is all constructed in basins

and floated out rather than being built on the conventional inclined ways. That is a very complete plan. It was originally built to construct ships for the British Government prior to our entry into the recent war, and then it later built Liberty ships.

Mr. PETERSON of Georgia. I understand that the Maine Port Authority has rather extensive facilities there?

Mr. KIMBALL. We are now operating the State pier and we have several development plans in prospect.

Mr. PETERSON of Georgia. How much investment do you have there in those facilities?

Mr. KIMBALL. In the State pier itself, exclusive of the site, $2,000,000. We are hoping to be in position shortly to double the capacity of that pier at a cost of something over half a million dollars. At the present time all of the facilities in Portland Harbor are being taxed. to their utmost with overseas relief cargoes, and of course there is a prediction that that business will have to be sustained for a year, probably. After that we look for a large increase in our former import tonnages which are handled through Portland, such as China clay, baled wood pulp-that used to be one of our chief commodities. It is impossible, I understand, to import that at the present time, owing to the price ceilings imposed in this country; but we have been assured by the interests who formerly used our facilities just as far as we were able to accommodate that traffic, that with any increase in available facilities there, there will be increased tonnage immeasurably.

That is all I have to offer at this time, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions, gentlemen? (No response.) If not, we thank you very much.

Mr. HALE. We have another witness here from Portland. I would like to say on my own behalf that this is a project which is of the deepest interest to all our people and which we regard as extremely important. If there is any information which the committee desires I will be glad to get it for the committee and be glad to appear before it at any time.

The CHAIRMAN. Portland is the largest port on the Maine coast, is it not?

Mr. HALE. Yes, by far.

Mr. PETERSON of Georgia. I suggest that Congressman Hale be permitted to insert in the record any statement which he or any of his constituents are interested in putting into the record.

Mr. HALE. I welcome that privilege.

The CHAIRMAN. We have received letters from the American Merchant Marine Institute and the Atlantic Refining Co., regarding this and other projects to be considered, which, without objection, will be placed in the record.

(The letters referred to read as follows:)

Hon. JOSEPH J. MANSFIELD,

AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE INSTITUTE, INC.,
New York 4, April 8, 1946.

Chairman, Committee on Rivers and Harbors,
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN: We have been advised that the Committee on Rivers and Harbors is holding a series of hearings, commencing April 9, on various harbor-improvement projects. The American Merchant Marine Institute, Inc., which represents a majority of the ocean shipping interests of the United States, would like to express to you their views in connection with some of these projects.

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