27,310 kilowatts for 15 percent of the time, and then produce 3,910 kilowatts the balance of the day. I use 15 percent of the time because that is the load factor. The CHAIRMAN. That is very interesting from an engineering and scientific point of view, and that is covered by the report. Mr. REID. I am speaking about the economics of it, too. The CHAIRMAN. We shall be glad to have that for the committee. Mr. REID. In spite of this the Army engineers estimate income on a capacity charge of $17 per kilowatt on 50,690 kilowatts. During the period of June 1, 1930 to December 1, 1932, a period of 30 months, the primary energy was all that could have been produced. The net results of their estimated income from this primary power would be that they would have to collect 15.03 mills for a primary energy and then to meet their estimate they would have to sell all of the secondary energy but 2.2 mills and find a customer who could use this energy when and as there was water to generate it, no matter what day or hour. The CHAIRMAN. You oppose the reservoir because it is not economically justified? Mr. REID. That is part of it. The CHAIRMAN. What other points do you have? Mr. REID. The farmers will be ruined. The CHAIRMAN. I think that we have pretty well covered that, unless you have some additional facts. Mr. REID. I have located the homes that will be ruined; 20 that will be flooded and 40 that will be ruined. The CHAIRMAN. Actual places? Mr. REID. Actually flooded out, and would have to move. There are 40 others that would have to move out of the territory. The CHAIRMAN. They would be compensated as far as money can do it. Mr. REID. Money cannot compensate a man for his home and the breaking up of his community. The CHAIRMAN. Do you know how to build any dam or reservoir for the generation of power without doing that? Mr. REID. Not to the extent this is done. The CHAIRMAN. Take, for instance, TVA. They actually converted the entire Tennessee Basin, home after home, into reservoirs to generate power. Mr. REID. Certainly. The CHAIRMAN. That is all. Go ahead. Mr. REID. To read the engineers' report it would appear that in the floods of 1937 and 1942 seven persons were drowned and that the proposed dam, if it had been in place, would have prevented those deaths. This, of course, is not true, for four of the deaths occurred above the proposed pond and the other three occurred not in the river, but by streams which did the damage before entering the river, and the deaths could not have been prevented had the dam been in operation prior to those floods. The estimate of damages incurred at Fredericksburg during the flood of 1942 covered damages which were in no wise caused by the height of the water in the river. Many of these claimed damages were incurred by surface water for which the city of Fredericksburg failed to provide adequate disposal. These damages occurred before the river reached its hegiht. I attempted to secure from the city manager a copy of the listings of damages which he furnished to the Army engineers, but was advised that he could not locate the same; but he stated that the list set forth all damages regardless of whether they were caused by the river or just surface water. This method of estimating damages, which could be alleviated by flood control, is certainly unjust to all concerned, if it is not dishonest. It is likewise not fair to estimate annual damages by estimating the period from a time just before one flood to the end of another. This gives a distorted value to the average annual damage. I do not think they should take the flood of '89, of which we know very little, and these other damages, actual and supposed, and arrive at some formula of probability to estimate the average annual damages. I think that they have padded to beat the band. Mr. JACKSON. You state that this a 90-percent power project and 10 percent flood control? Mr. REID. Yes, sir. Mr. JACKSON. Are you against the Government building any dams which would generate power? Mr. REID. No, sir. Mr. JACKSON. Well Mr. REID. I am when it is primarily for power. Mr. JACKSON. You are when it is primarily for power? Mr. REID. Yes. I am against Government in any business. Mr. JACKSON. Could a private power company build Grand Coulee Dam? Mr. REID. No, sir. Mr. JACKSON. Would you be against that dam? Mr. JACKSON. You say that these figures that have been submitted to the Army engineers regarding the situation in Fredericksburg have been somewhat exaggerated or padded. Mr. REID. Yes. Mr. JACKSON. Is that the opinion generally held in Fredericksburg? Mr. REID. I do not think the people generally know much about it. Mr. Houston told me to ask everybody damaged by the flood to turn in estimates. The river did not damage them down in my section of the town. Mr. JACKSON. Is there anyone else in Fredericksburg that could corroborate your position on this? Mr. REID. I think that Mr. Houston, the city manager, will. Mr. JACKSON. I mean the fact that you say these figures that were submitted to the engineers were inaccurate. Mr. REID. Mr. Houston is the city manager, and he is the one who turned them in, and they are not accurate. Mr. JACKSON. He will say that they are not accurate; that they do not speak the truth? Mr. REID. I think that he will tell you Mr. JACKSON. Your contention is that a lot of this business in Fredericksburg about the floods has been exaggerated? Mr. REID. A part of it; yes. The CHAIRMAN. We understand, Mr. Smith, you did not present this witness. Mr. SMITH. That is right. Mr. REID. I have a resolution here that I would like to read to you gentlemen. [Reading:] We, the undersigned landowners and residents of Spotsylvania County, Va., living on or near the Rappahannock River and within the basin proposed to be flooded by the proposed dam at the Salem Church site, appeal to the Congress to deny the building of this dam to the height proposed as the same will flood our homes or so surround us with water that our places will be untenable and untillable and not accessible, and we will be forced to find new homes, if this be possible. Many of us have furnished sons for the armed forces and we do not think it just for the Government to drive us from our homes in order that there may be a certain amount of flood control below the dam site when we are advised that the same control can be obtained by other methods. The CHAIRMAN. We will now hear from General Opie. STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. E. W. OPIE, NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER, STAUNTON, VA. General OPIE. My name is E. W. Opie. I am a newspaper publisher at Staunton, Va., and represent the Staunton and Augusta County Chambers of Commerce. The CHAIRMAN. You understand we have under consideration here this Salem Reservoir and also for subsequent consideration the dam' on the Jackson River. The other Virginia dams are not under consideration. General OPIE. I understand that. The CHAIRMAN. We are considering these because they have been submitted to us by the Chief of Engineers with the letters from the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. General OPIE. From the viewpoint of the people in our section of the country for whom I speak, these dams are inseparable from the general question of public policy involved, and it is on this question of public policy that I desire to be heard and to which this resolution relates. This resolution is in opposition to Government multipurpose dams in general, and to the Jackson River and Rappahannock Dams in particular, because they are integrated with the general question of public policy. The resolution that I am requested to submit to the committee is as follows: Whereas the Federal Government proposes the development of multipurpose dams including power generation in connection with certain Virginia rivers in competition with private industry; and Whereas the multipurpose dams contemplated and proposed involve permanent inundation of whole towns and large areas of productive farm lands, highways, schools, churches, graveyards, railroads, all of which will have a major effect on the entire State economy; and Whereas it seems unwise for the Federal Government to spend large sums of money for power generation and transmission facilities when it is operating on a deficit budget, and at a time when all available labor and material are urgently needed for veterans' housing and reconversion; and Whereas we are unalterably opposed to any form of Government competition with the business and the industry of its citizens under any guise whatsoever; and Whereas flood-control dams can be built for a fraction of the cost of the multipurpose dams and would involve only periodic flooding of small land areas: Now, therefore We respectfully request the United States Government to defer approval of any flood-control dams involving power generation in Virginia until the facts concerning the individual projects, including the various flood-control methods and the effects on the State economy, are widely publicized so that the citizens may be informed and given ample opportunity to express their views. I would like to invite attention to the statement of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War in connection with the James River project in which he states: Studies of the district engineer show that construction of the reservoirs in the basin for flood control alone would not be economically justified at this time. He presents a comprehensive reservoir plan to serve multipurposes which include developments at 14 sites. However, economic justification for these improvements depends upon the sale of power and it is not anticipated that the market for power will increase sufficiently to justify many of the improvements in the near future. The CHAIRMAN. You understand that we do not have that James River proposal before us, and I think, if I remember correctly, that regarding the Jackson River project it was stated to us that the companies interesed were favorable to that project. I am wondering what you have to say as to that. power General OPIE. I am not familiar with the position of the power industry. I have no connection with the power interests in any way, shape, or form. I do not own a share of stock in a public utility. Mr. MOOMAW. I made the statement that the power company was not opposing this proposition. I did not make the statement that they were favorable to it. I think, sir, that they are not favorable to it, but they are not actively opposing it. The CHAIRMAN. We will let it go that way. General OPIE. Mr. Chairman, my desire is to try to show this committee by the record that these are merely items in an over-all plan concerning the whole State of Virginia, and the whole Nation, and I would like to proceed with a few excerpts here of records to show that fact. I refer to addresses at the People's Lobby Conference, February 9, 1946, by Mr. Leland Olds, Chairman of the Federal Power Commission. On the published report of this address, on the title page, appears the program of the People's Lobby, and I will quote: Public ownership of natural resources and basic industries-to be operated by production technicians and engineers, so as to insure maximum employmentwith labor and consumer representation. Mr. Olds gave his tacit approval of that program in addressing this conference on the subject of power development in this country in which he showed all the rivers-practically all the rivers of the entire Nation-integrated in an over-all power plant by which he would develop, he says-with three or four exceptions-when our multiple-purpose river basin programs have been completed, kilowatthours of electricity energy metered annually in the billions. Mr. JACKSON. Did I understand from your testimony that Mr. Olds advocated the ownership of the basic industries of the country? General OPIE. He gave his tacit approval to a program here which sets forth that objective. Mr. JACKSON. Quote the part of the speech that he gives his tacit approval of that. General OPIE. The implication is Mr. JACKSON. Will you show the implication? General OPIE. The implication is that he is in favor of that kind of program. Mr. JACKSON. Because of the fact that he appeared before the body; is that your basis? General OPIE. That is right; and spoke on the question of the over-all power plans for the entire Nation. Mr. JACKSON. Because he spoke of power you deduced from that statement that he therefore favors the ownership of the basic industries of the country? General OPIE. I would assume so, because the power industry is the key industry, and the socialization of that would lead to the socialization of other industries. Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Roosevelt advocated ownership of certain public power, and you assume therefore that he also advocated Government ownership of the basic industries? General OPIE. Inasmuch as President Roosevelt cannot speak for himself, I would not attempt to develop his over-all basic picture and what he desired for the Nation. The CHAIRMAN. I think that we are all familiar with most of the views of the late President Roosevelt and those of Mr. Olds. General OPIE. I would like to present an excerpt or two from an address made by Representative A. Robertson, of the Seventh District, in which he discussed this entire question not from the standpoint merely of several local dams but from the over-all picture of the entire country. You referred a few minutes ago to the TVA. Mr. Robertson presented some very interesting facts in regard to the TVA. He invited attention to the fact that the TVA was created as a yardstick of the cost of power in this country and that subsequently that TVA had departed entirely from the initial purpose for which it was authorized by the Congress. Furthermore, up to this time there has been no attempt to present to the country the actual cost of power developed by the TVA and with its subsidy in the form of exempted taxes, and so forth. The CHAIRMAN. I recall Representative Robertson's views. General OPIE. Representative Robertson presented very effectively the relative values and costs of production of power by coal and the production of power by water, and he quoted Mr. Gano Dunn, president of the J. G. White Engineering Corp., an authority on this matter, in which Mr. Dunn said: * it took 8 pounds of coal to make a kilowatt-hour (of In 1892 electricity) by steam. Then he develops the reduction of that cost to 1940 when he says: * And today, 1940, a new plant can develop a kilowatt-hour for 0.9 pound of coal. Mr. Robertson also showed that the engineers are in agreement that a steam power plant involves an investment of $100 for one electric unit per hour, but a water plant an investment of $300 for the same unit. |