The CHAIRMAN. In this connection I pass to the reporter this statement, on that Port Oliver project, of Mr. B. R. Edmunds.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

Hon. WILL M. WHITTINGTON,

Chairman, Committee on Flood Control,

TULSA, OKLA., April 4, 1946.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

Re $17,100,000 Port Oliver (Ky.) Dam, House Document No. 765, Seventy-eighth Congress.

DEAR MR. WHITTINGTON: At the time I received your esteemed letter of January 18, 1946, I planned to go to Glasgow, Ky., gather data against this dam, and I hoped to address the outraged farmers in Barren and Allen Counties, Ky., to the end that a monster petition of protest be signed and sent to our Congressman, Hon. Frank L. Chelf. Naturally, we would appeal to Senators Barkley and Stanfill to help us.

During the first 60 days the good people opposing this dam have energetically gone to work, and this much has been done, to my knowledge, out here.

(1) Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Barren County Board of Education have passed resolutions of protest.

(2) Several protest meetings have been held, and a United States engineer came down from Louisville to confirm the worst fears of the angry people as to how many acres would be forever flooded. A few dam apologists (would-be gravy-train riders) had circulated the canard that only a few acres would be flooded, etc. We nailed such lies in public.

(3) Petitions were sent out for affected landowners and other citizens to sign, protesting the dam. Congressman Chelf should have these petitions ere this. I hope you ask him about them.

(4) Our Barren County people have been conducting a quiz that constitutes a fair economic survey. Reading House Document No. 765 shows that no such survey was made in spite of the recommendation of a district engineer to that effect. I hope the summarized result of this survey, which was conducted by Barren County Planning Council, I believe, reaches your committee by April 10, which date, I understand, is the one Ohio River flood-control matters will be begun on.

(5) Hon. E. Ross Settle, chairman of the antidam committee, and Superintendent Wilson Burks, Barren County schools, chairman of Barren County Planning Council, will appear before your committee April 10, working closely with our Congressman Chelf. These patriots deserve every consideration at the hands of Congress, for this is democracy at its best. Messrs. Settle and Burks have the horse-sense approach to these silly dams, and I am sure they can convince you that the dam is neither wanted by local people nor necessary for either flood control or power. We have more power than we know what to do with in the great coal State of Kentucky.

So, having a hard job for a man of my age out here, and noting that my people were taking active steps to fight the dam, I joined them from here. They are fighting a great fight, but why they should have to God only knows, for no individual or agency have yet brought forward any reason for this dam except that if 36,000 acres were inundated above the dam 18,340 would be protected against annual losses of $26,000 below the dam, maybe. This to cost $17,100,000.

I have spent several hundred hours of research on this dam. I have consulted engineers galore. In spite of what others have done, and I hope helping the cause, am going to again review the proposed Port Oliver Dam in a personal sense. I loathe the idea of the dam; want my own protest on record with you for posterity.

My name is Bryant R. Edmunds. I am a supervisor of statistics in the office of a corporation at Tulsa, Okla. Many of my associates in a big machine are looking forward to the day when they can become individual operators, owning some small business of their own. A surprising number plan to retire sometime to a farm.

I have always dreamed of retiring on part of my grandfather's 1,000 acres he acquired about 1800. He had left New Glasgow, Va., to help build Glasgow, Ky. I own about 220 acres of this original tract, other cousins own most of the rest, but only my part is on the creek that will all become a lake.

It has always been my intention to go to this farm at the appropriate time. I wanted to hold my job in order to provide certain things on the farm that

could only be acquired by years of labor and sacrifice. So my surplus earnings have either gone into improvements or have been laid aside for the time when I could personally supervise these improvements.

That farm has been in my family for over 140 years. Other families owning land to be destroyed by this man-made flood are similar to mine. We are almost the original Americans, and now it is proposed to dispossess us and break up this traditional relationship in a most arbitrary and cruel manner.

In the Flood Control Act of 1938, Congress authorized a flood-control dam on Barren River, Ky., to cost $7,400,000. This would flood 14,900 acres. Now in House Document No. 765, Seventy-eighth Congress, second session, E. Reybold, Chief of Engineers, recommended that this project be extended to include power, at an additional cost of $9,700,000, making a total cost of $17,100,000. This enlarged dam will put water to an elevation of 625 feet, will be 174 feet high, an enormous thing in our peaceful valley. The lake will inundate 36,000 and give flood protection to 18,340 acres below the dam.

It is proposed to install 50,000 kilowatts of generating power. The flowage is such that a minimum continuous load of only 7,300 kilowatts is possible, but the installation of 50,000 kilowatte in two units will make it possible to generate 105,000,000 kilowatt-hours per year. This is not much for such a large installation. So the plant only operates at a miserable 15 percent load factor, and is only useful therefore to serve as a peaking load for some large customer that needs a peaking load. No such customer exists except a utility company. Such a company may have its own peaking capacity in a water-power plant of its own. There is nothing in the report to indicate if or when a sale might be made for this 15 percent load factor power. In fact, the Chief of Engineers in his letter (p. 2), says the district engineer "assumed that all power would be salable" (p. 27) but (p. 27) it is specifically stated that "a power market survey of this. area * * * has not been made."

For this extra expenditure of $9,700,000 for 15 percent power, the engineer estimated an annual benefit of $957,400, with an additional cost of $638,900 (p. 2) or a ratio of benefits to cost, of $1.50 to $1. This estimated benefit, of course, depends upon the salability of the power and the price received. Of this 105,000,000 kilowatt-hours, the engineer estimates 64,000,000 would be primary (or dependable) power and 41,500,000 secondary power (p. 2) nevertheless, in computing benefits, he figures all this power at the same value (p. 31), whereas it is well known that the secondary, or dump power, as it is sometimes called, has a lower value on a sale price much less than primary power. Furthermore, while the average capacity of the river plant at 100 percent load factor is only 7,300 kilowatts, the engineers in computing the sale price of the power generated, figured the entire 50,000 kilowatts at a value of $12.50 annually, whereas this capacity could only operate when there is a flood condition on the river or in those brief intervals when the flow is high and/or the storage full. These intervals might be far apart, or of such duration as to be worthless even to a large utility. Hence, the value of this power is greatly overestimated.

This dam is almost without flood-control value to any part of Kentucky. Actually it is proposed to destroy by forever flooding 36,000 acres above the dam to offer $25,650 possible annual protection to 18,310 acres between Port Oliver and Woodbury, Ky. No figures are presented in House Document No. 765 showing any other flood-control benefits for the $7,400,000 expenditure. I presume there must be some downstream benefits, but I am without data. Certainly there would be more flood-control benefits if such dams were kept empty, to function honestly, and not by subterfuge.

We know that in 1944 Barren County, Ky., the chief sufferer among the 11 counties in the Barren River Basin, had $9,440,000 farm income from its 3,200 farms containing (1940 census) 281,842 acres, or $33.50 per acre. Rich bottom land produces double this, so we may be certain that the 36,000 fertile acres produce $2,500,000 today. No accurate county farm operating cost data are available during these war years, but the average United States cost was 43 percent in 1934. Using this percent, the cost would be $1,075,000, the net (57 percent, $1,425,000), which means those bottoms when farmed produce nearly four and one-half times the puny $318,500 when flooded to provide a few fat jobs for politicos. The actual profit from these 36,000 is much greater, too, for the cashout-of-pocket expense is not running over $300,000 annually. Farm operating costs are not nearly as high in Kentucky as in the United States as a whole. Roads and dams mainly call for labor and cement. Here in Oklahoma Governor Kerr has recently gone to Washington to explain why the postwar road-contruction program will cost from one and a half to three times the prewar estimate.

I mean that $17,100,000 Port Oliver Dam may cost $30,000,000. Kentucky land was up 107 percent over 1940 at beginning of this year, so that bottom land is sure to be worth $300 per acre when confiscated. Maybe $15-per-acre land can economically be flooded for hydroelectric power, but not Kentucky bottoms.

It is an established fact that the farmer's dollar gets spent to create more economy than any other dollar. Dump $17,100,000 in 1 year on Port Oliver Dam, and you have "shot" your spending wad, mainly, as there can be but a small dam pay roll. The farm income from those 36,000 fertile acres means a lot to Kentucky, not only farmers, but merchants, professional people, and others. What an ending to that beautiful valley if the dam vandals crucify the economy of that happy section. Please do not let this ghastly thing happen.

I attach copies of pertinent documents I think support my contention that this dam should not be built for power, if at all.

I had intended to come to Washington to appear before your honorable committee to lift my feeble voice in protest to try to save my country, town, neighborhood, and farm from this awful catastrophe. Please leave our valley as God made it, and we can get our power some other way-control floods by small dams, and scientific soil management.

May I heartily thank you for your courteous replies to my letters, and may I say that I regret that I am too busy to come to Washington at this time to attempt to save my farm.

Sincerely,

P. S.-Please see attached supporting data and index thereto.

B. R. EDMUNDS.

B. R. E.

The following data are submitted with the hope that it might help the honorable committee in its studies of Port Oliver Dam. I sincerely thank our Congressman Chelf, Mr. W. H. Jones, Jr., for his spirited editorials, and Messrs. E. Ross Settle and N. Wilson Burks for organizing the protest meetings, preparation of the protest blanks, and the Barren County Economic Survey, and the aroused citizenry-one and all for their efforts to prevent this catastrophe. Since this fight began I have not read of any local support for the dam. It is quite evident that local interests do not want any dam built which permanently floods the bottoms.

(1) My letter to Hon. Frank L. Chelf, June 20, 1945.

(2) My letter to Hon. Frank L. Chelf, January 10, 1946.

(3) Mr. Chelf's reply to me January 16, 1946.

(4) My letter to Senators Barkley and Thomas, January 5, 1946.

(5) My article in Kentucky Farmers Home Journal, December 1945, protesting dam and suggesting that 10,000 protest post cards be directed to Senator Barkley, who I felt could prevent the dam if he tried hard enough.

(6) Barren County (Ky.) resolution against dam as per Glasgow Times, September 6, 1945.

(7) Glasgow Times, March 28, 1946, glowing REA current expansion plans in Barren and adjoining counties, proving there is plenty cheap coal-made electricity for present needs.

(8) My article in Tulsa Tribune, October 1945, daring the members of a local group touring TVA empire to visit Port Oliver and Glasgow, Ky., to get the real truth.

(9) My letter to Mr. Luther S. H. Gable, atomic-bomb expert, electronic consultant for the Engineer's Board, Army War College, Washington, D. C., of February 19, 1946, frankly asking his help in debunking the dam project.

(10) Scientist Gable's timely reply under date of March 11, 1946. I believe I have made my point as to the probability of power dams soon becoming outmoded by atomic power. Private and Government power interests may as well accept the new source of atom power as having great industrial posibilities.

(11) With some family and regional pride I submit a reprint of an article of 1894 in the Glasgow (Ky.) Times of September 14, 1944, bearing upon the antiquity of Glasgow, Ky., and its pioneers, one of whom was my grandfather, Capt. William Edmunds. I love my land, my county, and State. Please make the dam vandals leave our people and nature the job of caring for Barren River Basin. The world is short of food, not electricity.

TULSA, OKLA., April 4, 1946.

B. R. EDMUNDS.

EAGLE CREEK RESERVOIR, OHIO

The CHAIRMAN. Now, we would like to have Senator Guffey hereand, Senator, we are having the general statement today from the division engineer and the Chief of Engineers, and if you desire to submit a statement you may do so.

Senator GUFFEY. I want Congressman Fulton to represent me first, and I would like to follow him.

Mr. FULTON. The question had been brought up on the Eagle Creek Reservoir as to authorization, where the authorization for that occurred. There was some inference here that the Eagle Creek Reservoir had been authorized as a matter of flood control, and the inference was that authorization had been in the act of 1938. I do not find that there was such authorization in the act of 1938, and the only place that I have been able to find any reference to it was the committee report on Document No. 1, which is just a committee report and, of course, is not legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, now, if that be your inquiry, I think we can

assist him.

Colonel HERB. I would like Mr. Beard to explain that situation. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Beard, under what language was that Eagle Creek adopted in 1938?

Mr. BEARD. The Flood Control Act of June 28, 1938, approved the general comprehensive plan for Ohio River Basin, as contained in the Flood Control Committee Document No. 1, Seventy-fifth Congress, with such modifications thereof as in the discretion of the Secretary of War and the Chief of Engineers may be advisable. The report of this committee on the Flood Control Act of 1938-House Report No. 2353 of the Seventy-fifth Congress, third session-includes a list of the projects which the committee considered to be within the_comprehensive plan. Eagle Creek Reservoir is in that list. The Eagle Creek Reservoir project is also listed on page 149 of the hearings held, March 30 to April 19, 1938, before the Committee on Flood Control, House of Representatives, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session. The CHAIRMAN. Will you read that part of the report? Colonel HERB. It just gives a table.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there a separate published document covering

that reservoir?

Colonel HERB. No, sir. It is listed in the table starting on page 11 of House Report No. 2353, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session.

The CHAIRMAN. So that is the authorization that was contained in that committee document?

Mr. BEARD. Also under the wording in the law itself, which says, "modifications within the discretion of the Secretary of War and the Chief of Engineers," and the modifications which our Department has considered eligible for selection are this group of projects which are contained in Report No. 2353 of this Flood Control Committee. The CHAIRMAN. I see.

Were there any substantial changes in the Eagle Creek project embraced in that report and in your recommendation for funds to be allocated?

Mr. BEARD. The work that is now under way, which General Dunn mentioned a moment ago, will determine our present proposals as to the actual details of the project.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mr. Fulton, your question.

Mr. FULTON. I am looking at the map and I do not see Eagle Creek on it at all. I would like for the Army people here to show me that.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you answer that?

Mr. BEARD. Eagle Creek is not on this map, Representative Ful

ton.

Mr. FULTON. This is one they were acting on that you spoke of? Mr. BEARD. The report which does include Eagle Creek is the report of the Flood Control Committee, House Report No. 2353, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session.

Mr. FULTON. But not the comprehensive flood-control plan submitted by the Army engineers. It is just in the committee report. It was not that the engineers submitted such a plan, but the committee mentioned it as a possibility in the report they made.

The CHAIRMAN. Does this map locate all the reservoirs?

Mr. BEARD. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. It does not?

Mr. BEARD. It presents a large group of reservoirs, but not all of them.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the identifying part of this map attached to that committee report?

Colonel HERB. Reservoir plan, Ohio River Basin with flood walls and levees for flood control.

The CHAIRMAN. It does not include some of the reservoirs?
Colonel HERB. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. But those not located there are named in the report of the committee?

Colonel HERB. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And in the House document?

Colonel HERB. In the report of the committee, sir.

Mr. FULTON. I would like to say that previously there had been $75,000 allocated to the engineers to make a comprehensive survey to see what was necessary for flood control. They then come up with a comprehensive flood-control plan for the Ohio and lower Mississippi Rivers. There were people who wanted to get certain projects in addition to that approved by the engineers not necessary for flood control. The engineers came up with what they, from an engineering point of view, and not from a political point of view, thought was necessary for flood control, and they did not put Eagle Creek on as one of the projects thought necessary.

The reason I am here today, and will be here later on, is to show that this Eagle Creek Reservoir has only a few inches of flood control in it and many more inches for other purposes. It only has 5,000.000,000 gallons of water in it for the use of one city, Youngstown, and 95,000,000,000 in it for the use of one steel company for their water supply.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to hear from you further on that matter.

Mr. FULTON. I want to point out that the engineers when they first came up with this Eagle Creek Reservoir-they were not the first ones to come up with it-there were other people that came in here and wanted that put in in addition to what the engineers made as their