published reports, or that is not available elsewhere. The segregation of costs under this heading is shown in the following table: Surface-water investigations.—Under this heading are grouped the costs incurred in noncooperative work such as investigations and the preparations of reports regarding droughts, floods, rainfall run-off relationships; development of stream gaging and related equipment; and development of standard plans and specifications and salaries and other costs involved in the preparation for printing of the surface-water data collected by the 35 field offices." Ground-water investigations.—Under this heading are grouped the costs for the completion of projects previously started and for current investigational projects on a small scale which are not included in the cooperative ground-water program. These projects include studies in methods of performing ground-water work, in the origin, discharge, and quantity of ground water in thermal springs in the United States, in ebbing and flowing springs, in quantitative studies of artesian basins, in well-drilling methods, in effects of droughts on wells and springs, and similar general phases of ground-water problems. Underground water supplies have always been recognized by specialists as of major importance and are now recognized as vital by the millions who use ground water and especially those who reside in the areas which have recently been, and still are, drought-stricken. The ground-water division maintains a small hydrologic laboratory for making tests of permeability, porosity, and other physical properties of water-bearing materials. Quality of water investigations.-Under this heading are grouped the costs for three principal items: Miscellaneous noncooperative office and laboratory work, a study of methods of water analysis, and reports on the availability of water for industry. Work on these noncooperative projects is a necessary adjunct to the cooperative work in all phases of water resources investigation. It is continuing in character and varies only in detail from year to year. Power resources investigations.-These investigations were materially reduced at the end of the fiscal year 1936 by the transfer of the Federal Power Commission of the statistical work related to the power developed by public utility plants and the fuel consumed in the generation of this power. The estimates for 1937 and 1935 are correspondingly reduced below the amount for 1936. An annual report of water power development has been issued in mimeographed form with a companion report of the total water power resources of the country assembled by States, to and including the 1936 fiscal year. Water utilization investigations.—Under this heading are grouped in large part the costs of the Geological Survey of the salaries involved in the performance of field work and the preparation of reports thereon for the Federal Power Comm'ssion as provided by law and the costs for those studies relating to water utilization which are becoming of more and more importance each year. Investigations are now well under way of the disastrous floods which have occurred during the 1936 calendar year and for which comprehensive reports will be published. OTHER WORK BY WATER RESOURCES BRANCH In addition to the work thus far described, which is financed by the direct stream-gag ng appropriation and by State cooperative funds, much other waterresources work is performed annually by the Geological Survey for other Federal Agencies, This work is described briefly as follows Coperation with Federal Poser Common The Geological Survey is called upon by the Federal Power Commission to supervise the stream gaging requited by the Commission in connection with its permits and licenses, to the end that Many the records collected shall be reliable and acceptable to the Commission. of the permittees and licensees call upon the Survey to do the stream gaging required by the Federal Power Commission and advance the necessary funds therefor. Other permittees and licensees do the required stream gaging with their own forces of engineers under the supervision of the district engineers of the Geological Survey. The funds indicated in table no. 11 under the item "Permittees and licensees of Federal Power Commission" are those which are actually turned over to the Geological Survey for expenditure. In addition it is estimated that at least an equal sum is expended directly by the permittees and licensees under the supervision of the Survey's district engineers. Investigations for other Federal bureaus.—The Geological Survey also conducts specific investigations for other Federal bureaus, for which funds are furnished by those bureaus. The totals of such funds for the years 1935, 1936, and 1937 (estimated) are shown in the following table: TABLE 8.-Investigations for other Federal bureaus 1 1 Funds made available on repay or transfer of funds basis. (Funds allocated to the Survey by the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration are not included, as these are shown in tables 9 and 10.) This expenditure was made for the Soil Erosion Service, Department of Interior, later transferred to the Department of Agriculture and renamed Soil Conservation Service. Of this amount $17,913.12 was expended for the former Mississippi Valley Committee under the Public Works Administration. This amount was expended for Subsistence Homesteads before transfer to the Resettlement Adminis tration. Investigations similar to those indicated in the above table will be continued in 1938 in general as indicated by the estimate for 1937. In accordance with previous iudications of the committee's wish. (See Hearings on Interior Departinent Appropriation bill, 1933, pp. 751-755), the Geological Survey has accepted the transfer of funds from the Army Engineers for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of gaging stations that are directly related to their authorized projects for navigation and flood control. Stream gaging and the maintenance and operation of gaging stations needed by the Tenneessee Valley Authority are being continued on essentially the same basis through the years shown in the table. The work done for the national committee in the fiscal years 1936 and 1937 relates to the Rio Grande Joint Investigation that is being made with special reference to interstate aspects. ALLOCATION OF FUNDS FROM THE PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION The Public Works Administration has recognized the need for expenditures in excess of funds possible under regular appropriations for the purpose of insuring the conduct of a more adequate and efficient national program of river-measurement work and water supply investigations, particularly regarding recent floods, by allocating (up to Dec. 9, 1936) $1,294,100 to the Geological Survey for specified activities in this field, divided into the 9 items shown in table no. 9. The first 5 items were described at the hearings before this committee for the 1936 appropriation and the first 7 items were described at the hearings before this committee for the 1937 appropriation. These descriptions are repeated below together with the description of the last 2 items in order that full information relative to these Public Works funds may be before you. The Public Works funds thus made available for the various uses shown in the following table are for specific purposes which only in minor and exceptional instances come within the field of the routine water-resources work of the Geoological Survey for which provision is made by regular appropriation. The item of $500,000 for "Rehabilitation of river measurement stations" was used exclusively for repairs, replacement of equipment, and improvement of records at existing stations, and none was available for the regular operation of those stations to which the "Gaging streams" appropriation has been limited in very large part. This rehabilitation program will largely obviate the necessity for future expenditures (covering a period of perhaps 10 years) for certain necessary replacement of equipment, but it does not materially relieve the burden of present or future annual operating costs for which the regular appropriations are fully required. The Public Works program has been most beneficial in providing for installation of complete and efficient which will enahnce the future accuracy and value of the work and greatly strengthen the stream-measurement program. The item of $70,000 for the establishment and operation of new stations on the Colorado, Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers was allocated exclusively for work in addition to that previously carried on by the Geological Survey. The item of $106,300 for underground-water surveys was allotted to five major Federal projects for the purpose of studying general principles and features of ground-water occurrence and recovery. The projects covered the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain, the high plains, the high plateau region, Oregon, and Warm Springs, Ga. The allocation was not used to supplement the regular appropria tion, which, so far as it related to ground-water studies, was practically all allotted to specific projects that were conducted in financial cooperation with States and municipalities. The item of $280,000 was allotted primarily at the request of the Mississippi Valley Committee and to satisfy in part the needs of that committee with respect to records in the Mississippi Basin. It provided not only for the rehabilitation of existing gaging stations within the basin but for the construction of certais additional stations requested by the committee. As a result of this allocation. about 40 new stations were added, and have been included in the description of other Federal river-measurement stations described on preceding pages. item contained also the funds needed for the completion of new stations in the Colorado River Basin for which the $70,000 item described above was not su cient. The The item of $150,000 was allotted by the Public Works Administration at the request of the Director of the Soil Erosion Service "for establishment and operstion of stream-flow measurement stations and for obtaining records of silt movement at eight erosion-control projects of the Soil Erosion Service." The locations of the eight projects selected by the Director of the Soil Erosion Service for this work are as follows: Deep River project, High Point, N. C.; Tiger River projec Spartanburg, S. C.; Coon Creek project, La Crosse, Wis.; Tarkio project. Tarkie. Mo.; Limestone Creek project, Mankato, Kans.; Stillwater project, Stillwater. Okla.; Flm Creek project, Temple, Tex.; Pacific Northwest project. Pullman Wash. Thirty-three stations for the measurement of stream flow and silt move ment were established on these 8 projects, and 26 stations are now being maintained by the Geological Survey on 7 of the projects at the expense of the Soil Conservation Service. The item of $42,800 was allotted in November 1935 at the request of the Office of Indian Affairs "for construction of 58 measurement stations on ears's and tributaries of the Rio Grande in New Mexico" to obtain information regarding surface-water resources of the Rio Grande Basin which is of value to the Office of Indian Affairs in the establishment of water rights of the Indians. The item of $125,000 was allotted in March 1936 "for surveys of stages and discharges of recent disastrous floods and for the preparation and printing of reports thereon." The floods to be surveyed and for which reports are to be prepared and printed under this allocation were those floods in the spring of 1936 in the northeastern section of the United States extending as far south as Virginia. The field work for the surveys and considerable of the office work has already been completed and excellent progress is being made on the preparation of the information obtained as a result of the surveys for the report. The first item of $10,000 was made available in November 1936 "for investigating the stages and discharges of the central Texas floods of the autumn of 1936 and preparing and publishing a report thereon". The second item also in the amount of $10,000 was made available at the same time "for replacing and rehabilitating river-measurement stations damaged or destroyed by the central Texas floods of the autumn of 1936." The wide scope of the interests of the Public Works Administration in guiding and promoting the development of a national program of public works is well known. Many of the Public Works projects are dependent to an important degree on reliable information with respect to the flow characteristics of rivers and water supply generally. The allotment of Public Works funds for the waterresources investigations of the Geological Survey reflect the practical operation of the policy of the Public Works Administration as signified in the following statement from page 4 of its Bulletin No. 2: "The facilities of the Geological Survey, including the district offices, are available to the Public Works Administration. They should be used in all cases where such services or information are required." The services supported by the funds supplied by the Public Works Administration were recognized and approved as being designed primarily to meet prospective Federal needs beyond the capabilities of available funds. Such support served only to an insignificant degree to relieve the urgency of the demands upon the funds derived from regular appropriations. Table 9 shows that most of the funds made available for the first five items was practically exhausted by July 1, 1935. TABLE 9.-Funds from Public Works Administration of Rehabilitation of river measurement sta- Underground water surveys. For construction and operation of 58 For surveys of stages and discharges of re- on. For investigating the stages and discharges of central Texas floods of the autumn of 1936 and preparing and publishing a report thereon. For replacement and rehabilitating river measurement stations damaged or destroyed by the central Texas floods of the autumn of 1936.. ALLOCATION OF FUNDS FROM THE WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION When the Public Works allocation in the amount of $125,000 was made in March 1936, for surveys of stages and discharges of recent disastrous floods and for the preparation and printing of the reports thereon, there were also made available to the Survey two allocations of Works Progress Administration funds, one in the amount of $100,000 of which $5,000 was later rescinded and the other in the amount of $8,000 of which $400 was later rescinded. The larger amount is for repair and replacement of stream-gaging stations which had been damaged or destroyed by floods of 1936 and the smaller amount is for administrative expenses involved in the prosecution of the work under the larger allocation. These funds have assisted largely in replacing and repairing the damaged equipment and gaging stations. Table 10 shows that this work was fairly well under way by the end of the 1936 fiscal year. TABLE 10.-Funds from Works Progress Administration 1 1 Expenditures are made through State treasury offices, not through the Geological Survey. SUMMARY OF FUNDS AVAILABLE FROM ALL SOURCES The following table shows the total funds expended for water resources investigations during the fiscal years 1935 and 1936 and an estimate of the funds that will be available from all sources for these investigations and related work for the fiscal year 1937. TABLE 11.-Summary of funds available from all sources 1 Includes $6,439.21 of noncooperative funds furnished by States and municipalities. LIMITATION ON PERSONAL SERVICES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Services in the District of Columbia relating to the water-resources program in 1938 are limited to $133,000 as compared to $130,000 for the 1937 fiscal year. This amount provides with narrow margin for the central-office administration of the program of water-resources investigations, a large part of the preparation of reports for printing by the Public Printer, much of the laboratory work, espe cially in relation to investigations of the quality of water, and other incidental technical work essential to the conduct of the water-resources investigations. |