Senator OVERTON. Do you know anything about the use of ladders? Mr. CARTER. I am quite familiar with them. We have that problem all the time in the development of dams, and it is not satisfactory in this case.

Senator OVERTON. Why not?

Mr. CARTER. The dam is too high.

Senator OVERTON. It would be interesting to me if you would describe the ladders and the use of them to get the salmon upstream.

Mr. CARTER. The ladders in our country, and there aren't very many of them because we have our-oh, they have several kinds. On the smaller dams they are just merely stages of construction where the water is falling down, and they do not have them over the higher dams. They are just over the dams on lower elevations so that the salmon can bypass the dam by going up this ladder, and the waters always keep in the fish. There is a small fish ladder in the Anderson and Cottonwood diversion dam right at Redding. That is just a diversion dam, and it is only about 10 or 15 feet high, but it has a ladder on the right side or on the north side of the river which has about 6 stages of elevation, and you can see those big salmon jumping from one elevation to another. As a matter of fact, sometimes they can jump the dam completely. I have seen big salmon which were cut off from the upper river jump clear over a 15-foot dam. Senator BURTON. The ladder is more like a ramp than a ladder, isn't it?

Mr. CARTER. Well, except that it has definite

Senator BURTON. Steps in it?

Mr. CARTER. Steps in it. It is not a continual flow of water, and they go from one pool to another. That is the purpose.

Now, I understand that in Bonneville and other places they have elevators and all that sort of thing, and that is out of my scope; it is a little too big a venture. But I am informed that if you could get the salmon over Table Mountain Dam, which is possible although very expensive, you never would get the fry back because the change in pressure when you released them would destroy them; and that the possibility of a success of the salvage program for Table Mountain Dam, without the spawning beds that are covered by the lake behind Table Mountain Dam, is very questionable (No. 1); and it will be much more expensive than the salvage program that was established under the supervision of the Fish and Wildlife Service for the Shasta Dam.

Now, we don't even know whether that salvage program is going to work, because the 4- or the 5-year cycle has not passed, but we have every hope that it will. And the salmon industry in California is a growing industry and very important both from the sporting and commercial point of view; and, as I say, while the Army says, "We will try to devise some program," they have none devised, and I am informed they cannot satisfactorily supply the necessary program, whereas they could get the flood control by going onto the tributaries and handling the problem in that manner.

I think that covers in sum and substance what I have to say. I would be glad to answer any questions.

Senator OVERTON. I think you have covered them very well, Mr. Carter, and we thank you very much, Senator.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you for the courtesy.
Senator OVERTON. You are welcome.

(Mr. Carter withdrew from the committee table.)
Senator OVERTON. Now, Congressman Elliott.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALFRED J. ELLIOTT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE TENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Senator OVERTON. You had better give your name, Congressman. Representative ELLIOTT. Congressman Elliott, Tenth District, Cali

fornia.

Senator OVERTON. I wish you would mention, before we start, just what features of the bill you want to discuss.

Representative ELLIOTT. I am going to discuss just for a few minutes, Mr. Chairman, Table Mountain, and then I will devote the rest of my statements to Kings, Kern, Tule, and Kaweah, covering those four dam sites in that area.

Senator OVERTON. All right.

Representative ELLIOTT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, Mr.-
Senator OVERTON. Are they all in your district?

Representative ELLIOTT. Those three dams are in my district, and the flood damages in connection with the Kings River Pine Flat Dam are all in my district although the dam construction will be over the line of my district.

Before I proceed on those streams I would like for the benefit of Mr. Carter-I mean Mr. Carr who just testified here.

Mr. CARTER. No; it is Carter.

Representative ELLIOTT. Carter? Is it Carr?

I am a member of the Flood Control Committee of the House, and this Table Mountain Dam site came before the committee. Now, the gentleman made the statement that they were not permitteed to testify or make a statement regarding the Table Mountain Dam site. This is the amendment provision on page 20 in the bill, and I read:

That this modification of the project shall not be construed to authorize the construction of a high dam at the Table Mountain site but shall authorize only the low-level project to approximately the elevation of 400 feet above mean sea level, said low-level dam to be built on a foundation sufficient for such dam and not on a foundation for future construction of a higher dam.

I want to bring that to the attention of the committee, as a member of the committee, and to defend the rights of our full committee. The hearings opened on the 1st day of February and closed on the 23d. Notices were sent out, appearing in many of the papers in the State of California, as to hearings on flood-control projects in all California.

And to correct the gentleman, on the hearings, flood-control hearings, plans, and projects on page 11033 you will find a statement in the record of Francis Carr in opposition to this.

Senator OVERTON. Is that Mr. Carter?

Representative ELLIOTT. The gentleman is in error when he said no one had an opportunity.

Senator OVERTON. He said he was permitted to file a statement.

Representative ELLIOTT. Yes.

Senator OVERTON. But he was not permitted to make a personal appearance, I think, though.

Representative ELLIOTT: There was no objection by anybody.
Senator OVERTON. Yes.

Representative ELLIOTT. Because I brought this to the attention of the chairman after Congressman Engle of California

Senator OVERTON. Well, that is neither here nor there.

Representative ELLIOTT. I just want to bring that out, that as far as our committee was concerned, the doors were wide open to anybody to testify who wanted to come in.

Senator OVERTON. I can appreciate your desire to defend the committee of which you are a member.

Representative ELLIOTT. Yes.

Senator OVERTON. And I am sure they did the best they could under all the circumstances.

Representative ELLIOTT. Now, Mr. Chairman, on Kings River, Kaweah, Tule, and Kern River, as I mentioned awhile ago, three of those streams are in my congressional district, the damages from Kings River-the majority of those damages also fall in my congressional district.

I am going back a little further, and I am going to be very plain, honest, to you Senators here, to try to bring out what is behind this whole program. I was very much surprised to sit here this morning. and hear statements made, as I have heard over in the House Flood Control Committee, regarding these streams, trying to drag in at the last minute that this is a general over-all program for the Central Valley water project. Senators, that is about the worst falsified statement I have ever heard presented since I have been a Member of the House.

In the early stages of the Central Valley project, where that red line is around the map [indicating], these streams at no time were ever intended to be made a part of the Central Valley water project. It was said here this morning that this is a project, and pointed out on the map, to serve the great area of land, the largest piece of agricultural land in California, to give them an additional water supply. Today $150,000,000 has been spent on the Central Valley features, and in this area we speak about what it was built for in the first place. At the inception the plan, through the efforts of the people in Tulare and Kern Counties, was to construct their great irrigation project. Today after 8 long years not 1 acre of land has been irrigated. Not one bucketful, if you please. And this line that was drafted [indicating], drawn there from Friant down to Kern, shows that less than 50 percent of the survey has been completed.

All of these years, 8 long years, it could not have been that labor was not available. W. P. A. people and everybody else were falling all over themselves. But I want to impress on the minds of you Senators, here is the background of this thing: A plan to definitely starve the people in the San Joaquin Valley to the point of permitting, if you please, the drying of their lands until they become desert lands, until they could force them into a socialistic program that the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Ickes, has in the back of his mind. That is very apparent. The bill as introduced by Mr. Hatch for the

Department of the Interior in the last few days practically states that condition.

Mr. Chairman, this legislation passed the House without one opposing vote. This legislation was voted out of the House committee without one opposing vote. But all this time the Secretary of the Interior would not give up. He has refused to permit the construction of the canals from Friant south. Money has been provided by the House and Senate year after year, a carry-over of funds of as much as $10,000,000. Has he made any effort to ask for bids? Gentlemen, no, he has made no efforts. We have waited 8 long years. No one talked about constructing dams and reservoirs to care for these flood areas; not, Mr. Chairman, until this year when the House committee reported out all these streams in the flood-control bill. The Secretary of the Interior has done everything in his power, even having the President write letters to the chairman of the committee asking that these provisions be kept out of the bill. Then they had the gall to go over to the Committee on Appropriations and ask for a lousy million dollars to apply on the $19,700,000 cost of Pine Flat Dam. They asked for a lousy million dollars. What for? To get their foot in the doorway. There was no intention to construct anything.

I have the highest regard for Harry Bashore, and if Harry Bashore would be permitted to sit down here and tell the truth without fear of being discharged by the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, gentlemen, he would tell you a different story than he told you this morning. I am confident of that.

There is too much behind this thing, and I can say to you, Mr. Chairman, that our people will never surrender their water rights to permit the Bureau of Reclamation to construct a dam or reservoir in my congressional district. Neither will the people join in a set-up of water districts to purchase the water from the Department of the Interior under the present regimentation of programs that they have down in that Department.

You gentlemen heard the discussion on the 160-acre limitation, and know why I introduced the amendment to lift the 160-acre limitation, to make this a free country like we thought it was, instead of being strangled as the bill that has been introduced by Senator Hatch of New Mexico would permit.

I want to show you gentlemen what I am driving at here. Back in May 5, 1941, this issue was before the House Flood Control Committee. Mr. Ickes couldn't have his way with our people and me, so he has President Roosevelt to intercede in his behalf, and I am going to quote a paragraph of the President's letter, which is the meat of the letter of that date, on May 5, 1941:

A good rule for the Congress to apply in considering these water projects, in my opinion, would be that the dominant interest should determine which agency should build and which should operate the project. Projects in which flood control or navigation clearly dominate are those in which the interest of the Corps of Engineers is superior and projects in which irrigation and related conservation uses dominate fall into the legitimate field of the Bureau of Reclamation.

That was on May 5, 1941. Where was the Kern River project? What was the Department of the Interior doing to bring that out to make it possible we could determine between the Corps of Army Engi

needs and the Bureau report? For over 3 years, gentlemen, that report was held up so that the legislation could not be considered by the Flood Control Committee. That is the kind of dealings we have been dealt with, unscrupulous tactics.

And I would bow my head in shame if I had been any of these men here this morning who testified when they know in their heart that is the truth and nothing but the truth, the way the people have been treated in the San Joaquin Valley, bringing them to the point where our water table is getting a little lower and a little lower, and when we have a rush of water in the mountain areas, and Lord knows we don't know when it is going to come, that we might be flooded out down below. All this obstruction to get us down to the point where they can dictate policies and rules and regulations, and we would have to adopt them, by some bureau here in Washington. We don't want that in America. I would like to know, when we are at war, while the boys of these families in the San Joaquin Valley are fighting today on the front, why we have men like Mr. Ickes and the ones he has employed around him who want to destroy the homes of those boys who are on the firing line, while the mothers and fathers are trying to hang on at home while they are gone. That is the kind of treatment our

people have been given.

And I read a quotation of February 7, 1944, again from the President of the United States, on this stream, right back to the same language again.

Senator OVERTON. To whom was that letter?

Representative ELLIOTT. TO Mr. Whittington, chairman of the Flood Control Committee:

In my letter of May 5

He refers back

1941, I suggested that a sound policy in connection with these water projects would consist of selecting the construction agency by determining the dominant interest. Projects in which navigation or flood control clearly dominate are those in which the interest of the Corps of Engineers is superior and should be so recognized. On the other hand, projects in which irrigation and related conservation dominate are those in which the interest of the Bureau of Reclamation in the Department

The same wording appears in those two letters, May 5, 1941, and February 7, 1944.

I read in the record at this point a letter from Mr. Whittington to the President of the United States, February 17, 1944:

I gladly read your letter of February 7, 1944, into the record of hearings now being conducted by the Flood Control Committee on February 9, 1944, when the multiple-purpose projects on the Kings and Kern Rivers, Calif., were under consideration. The committee had previously given most careful consideration to your letter of May 5, 1941.

The reports on these projects were submitted by the Chief of Engineers of the United States Army in response to the authorization in the Flood Control Act of June 22, 1936.

The Chief of Engineers and the Commissioner of Reclamation were heard by the Committee on Flood Control. I think it is a fair statement to say that aside from either the statements or reports of the Chief of Engineers or the Commissioner of Reclamation the testimony given at the hearings, including the testimony of consulting engineers of outstanding merit and reputation, shows conclusively that flood control is the dominant interest in the Kings and Kern River projects and that these projects have no direct relation to the Central Valley project, including the Mt. Shasta and Friant Dams and related works, under construction by the Bureau of Reclamation.