Mr. DILLON. I am Mr. Dillon and I am pinch hitting for Congressman Vorys.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is Mr. Pretzman?

Mr. PRETZMAN. I am here, sir.

Mr. Dillon and I are partners and I happen to be secretary of the district.

Mr. DILLON. I would like to introduce, if I may, Mr. David C. Warner who is the water conservation consultant of the Department of Public Works of the State of Ohio, who has been wholeheartedly and selfishly interested in this project for many, many years, and is well acquainted with it.

The CHAIRMAN. If Mr. Warner will please approach the table, we will be glad to have his statement at this time.

STATEMENT OF DAVID C. WARNER, WATER CONSERVATION CONSULTANT IN THE OHIO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS

Mr. WARNER. Mr. Dillon has spoken of my experience. In Ohio, they call me "The dam crank"-a crank on dams. With reference to my experience, I do not want to go back over 40 years, although it goes back over 40 years, of the promotion of the idea of flood control by headwater reservoirs.

In 1912, it was my privilege to write the amendment to the Constitution of the State of Ohio on the morning of March 20, 1912, that makes possible and makes constitutional in the State of Ohio the making of laws for the conservation of our natural resources, the conservation of water and the organization of conservation districts. That proposal for the amendment to the Constitution of the State of Ohio was introduced by Fred Leath, of Ironton, Ohio, the delegate from Lawrence County, on the morning of March 21, 1912. That was just 1 year and 2 days before the 1913 flood that took 300 lives in Dayton, and 100 lives in the city of Columbus. Since then, in company with many other men in the State of Ohio, I have been helping to work out the laws of the State of Ohio that make possible the work that we are now doing for water conservation in Ohio that has been copied by many other States.

Mr. Chairman, it was my privilege to go down to St. Louis in 1932 and 1933 to visit the Mississippi Valley Association. I tried to get them to talk about flood control and water conditions or water conservation. They very plainly told me "We are not interested. We are interested in navigation." I went down there 2 weeks ago last Saturday night and spent 3 days. This time, Mr. Whittington, they were talking about nothing else but flood control and water conservation, and even soil conservation.

In our work in Ohio, that work has been progressing to a point that we now have conservancy districts all through the State. As Mr. Whittington said, the first conservancy district was organized in the Miami Valley where five reservoirs-simply detaining reservoirs— were built.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would explain, if I might interrupt you there, and I would like the committee to keep that in mind, because they are a little different than these reservoirs we are building now. What is the construction of the detaining reservoir? The detaining

reservoir provided for just a normal low water flow to go right through the dam, did it not?

Mr. WARNER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And still it would retain the floods above the normal flow, is that right?

Mr. WARNER. The dam is built across the valley with a hole in the bottom of it or a flume that permits the flood to pass the dam banked full through the city of Dayton.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any gates?

Mr. WARNER. There is no gate in the bottom. It is simply a hole in the bottom of the dam that permits a certain amount of water to pass through. The balance of the flood piles up behind the dam.

The CHAIRMAN. The series of reservoirs of any consequence following the Miami conservancy reservoirs built following the flood of 1913 were built in the Muskingum Watershed conservancy district. Do those reservoirs cover the same pattern or did the engineers insert in those natural openings or holes, as you call them, gates, so they could cut off the water?

Mr. WARNER. When we started to build the Muskingum Conservancy District, we got the appropriation from the Public Works Committee on December 4, 1933.

The Army engineers started to work on the 1st of January 1934. I was executive secretary of the Water Conservancy Board of the State of Ohio. I insisted that there be control gates at the bottoms. of the dams so that we would be able to control any reservoirs at any time that the intensity of the storm on any part of the water

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). You were in agreement with the Corps of Engineers on the installation of gates and you feel that is an improvement on your original reservoir?

Mr. WARNER. We got together on that anyhow, and the fact is today that our reservoirs are controlled reservoirs. I wanted water in the bottoms of the reservoirs. I was interested in my ground water restoration. I felt that we should be able to control a very small percentage of the floodwaters in the bottom of each one of our reservoirs. There is no water conservation in the Miami Conservancy District. It is all drainage, pure and simple. However, in the Muskingum Conservancy District we are trying to put a complete water-conservation program on, and because of that the Army engineers have put in the basins of 11 of the reservoirs in the Muskingum Conservancy District, 11 of what we call conservation pools.

The CHAIRMAN. That is different from the dry situation that obtains where you just have a hole, as in the Miami?

Mr. WARNER. It is altogether different.

The CHAIRMAN. You believe that that is an improvement?

Mr. WARNER. The improvement is this: Out of those 11 reservoirs, in the Muskingum Conservancy District, just from one item of income, the item of income from recreation alone, is paying the running expenses of the Muskingum Conservancy District today, from those lakes that were established by the Army engineers.

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask you this: Is it not true that these reservoirs have reduced the floods at Portsmouth, Ironton, and other places; that the policy of flood control adopted first in 1936 and the authorized projects at Ironton as well as authorized projects in Ports

mouth, have demonstrated their worth and have protected that valley there?

Mr. WARNER. I do not know just what the effect of the Muskingum Conservancy District has had in the records of the Army engineers, but there has been a lowering of the crest of the flood on the Ohio River that is under the control of the Army engineers so that they can hold back the floodwaters at the crest time and release it afterward when the crest has passed. Now just how much that is, Mr. Whittington, I do not know. There are records of some kind that they are able to show, but as yet they are not very large. They may be a few feet off of the top of the crest. At Portsmouth, Portsmouth had to pile 5 feet of sandbags on their 61-foot wall last year. The CHAIRMAN. The wall has not been completed?

Mr. WARNER. No.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the status with respect to that project? Colonel WEST. We have sufficient funds, as I recall, to complete one more section. That will leave one section and we still have to await an appropriation for it.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McCowen, is there some question you would like to ask?

Mr. McCOWEN. There was $1,000,000 in the last bill to take care of this section. Therefore, there will only be an appropriation for the last section. It is just a little over a million dollars. The State of Ohio contemplates building a number of those artificial lakes. With reference to the ones down in Highland County and the one in Clearmont County, now, what is the connection, if any, between the building of those and this regular flood-control program you have been discussing? Is that particularly an Ohio problem?

Mr. WARNER. .We have with us here in the audience, Mr. Owens, who is the engineer for the conservation division that has charge of those conservation division reservoirs. There is one in connection with the Rocky Fork Reservoir, for which $400,000 has been appropriated by the legislature for the conservation division to build the Rocky Fork Reservoir.

Mr. McCowEN. Is that in Highland County?

Mr. WARNER. That is in Highland County. They are hoping to cooperate with the Army engineers in the development of that proposition. I want Mr. Owens to explain that after I get through.

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me. In that connection, Mr. Owens, if you are here, what do you know about the Licking Reservoir out there?

Mr. WARNER. You are speaking about the Dillon Reservoir in the Licking River.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there a Licking Reservoir about which there is some controversy?

Mr. WARNER. That is the Dillon Reservoir. It is on the Licking River.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Owens, I am sure you know what I am talking about.

Mr. WARNER. I beg your pardon for interfering with your presentation, but I just thought of something that should be developed while you have your engineer here. Mr. Owens.

Mr. OWENS. I have nothing to do with that particular project.

Mr. WARNER. That is not in his department.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is that Dillon Reservoir?

Colonel WEST. It is on the Licking River, that flows into the Muskingum River at Zanesville.

The CHAIRMAN. That project is a reservoir on the Muskingum that has been authorized and is under way in addition to the Muskingum Conservancy District, that was originally a public-works proposition.

Colonel WEST. That is right, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the only reservoir authorized for construction since then in the Muskingum Basin?

Colonel WEST. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Owens, what did you say your position is with the State of Ohio?

Mr. OWENS. I am with the conservation division of the State of Ohio.

The CHAIRMAN. You have no direct connection with that Licking River project?

Mr. OWENS. We pay part of the bills up there. They run about $42,000 a year.

Any information I might give would be purely hearsay, sir. I wanted to talk a little on the Rocky Fork project, and that was all. The CHAIRMAN. That is different.

Mr. WARNER. That is in this Scioto-Sandusky Conservancy District. The CHAIRMAN. You gentlemen represent Ohio, and you are telling us the things you are interested in and favor. I was trying to find out some of the things that might pertain to certain matters which people out there oppose. It has to do with a complaint that has to do with the Dillon Reservoir which was made by Mr. I. R. Cunningham, secretary of the Licking Valley Protective Association.

Colonel West, what is the difficulty that those people out there like Mr. Cunningham are encountering? We might bring that up because they are coming down here later on.

Colonel WEST. The protest has been made because certain people must move out of the reservoir area and they are afraid they will not find places to which to move.

The CHAIRMAN. How much has been appropriated for this project? Colonel WEST. We have an appropriation now of $1,174,000, I believe.

The CHAIRMAN. At any rate, that project was authorized under what act?

Colonel WEST. It was a unit in the comprehensive plan authorized by the act of 1938.

The CHAIRMAN. When did you begin actual work?

Colonel WEST. We have not begun actual work as yet, sir, we have been acquiring some lands. The relocation of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is involved.

The CHAIRMAN. You have not begun actual construction, but have made your plans. That project has been approved since 1938. Colonel WEST. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And the people in that reservoir area must move, just as they did everywhere else in connection with those 14 dams in the conservancy districts.

Do you have any further statement?

Mr. WARNER. I would like to make a further statement with reference to the whole State. The Scioto-Sandusky project is now going along very nicely with the cooperation of the Army engineers and the Scioto-Sandusky district board of directors. The policy in Ohio is to work out our water problems as conservancy districts with the cooperation of the Army engineers. We have not only conservancy districts, but we have soil conservation districts in the State of Ohio that are cooperating with our conservancy districts. The result of it is that we have a very well-coordinated plan in Ohio for our flood control in Ohio waters here.

May I read this list here, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. You may.

Mr. WARNER. The following flood-control reservoirs have been authorized for construction in Ohio as part of the approved plan for the Ohio River watershed: The Delaware Dam on the Olentangy River. The Dillon Dam on the Licking River. The West Fork of the Mill Creek. The Rocky Fork on Paint Creek.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Owens, is that the one you wanted to say something about?

Mr. OWENS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not want us to repeal the authorization, do you?

Mr. OWENS. Not a bit of it; no, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. It has been authorized?

Colonel WEST. Yes, sir.

Mr. WARNER. I wish you would have him tell about the conservation division's participation in that, right at this point on Rocky Fork, and I will go on with the rest of it.

Mr. OWENS. The General Assembly of Ohio last year authorized the conservation department to build a reservoir in Rocky Fork some 5 miles upstream from a site which the Army engineers had tentatively approved. That money has been allocated to the conservation commission and we are now taking options on the land to create a 2,000-acre lake on Rocky Fork about 5 miles upstream from the tentative dam of the Army engineers. The Army engineers, Cincinnati office, through authorization from the Columbus office, are studying our site, with a possibility of making a combination with the floodcontrol dam, which would be satisfactory to us; and we would furnish the land necessary for the conservation pool and for some additional floodwater pool.

That is about the statement I want to make, other than the conservation commission is very much in favor of all of these proposed reservoirs of the Scioto-Sandusky Conservancy District.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have that statement. That is a wonderful State out there, but the very thing you advocate in the Muskingum Conservancy for these pools is apparently being opposed by those folks at the Dillon Reservoir. They come along and say they do not want any pool. If you eliminate that pool you will not have as much land.

Mr. OWENS. You have that same opposition on any reservoir. The people who are dispossessed are against it, naturally, but in the Rocky Fork Reservoir we are fortunate to find some 45 farms with only