WAPATO PROJECT Mr. O'NEAL. The next item is the "Wapato project, "for which you are requesting $35,000. Mr. DODD. We offer the following justification in support of this item: The Wapato project includes 145,445 acres of irrigable land of which 120 xai acres are under completed canals. The cost of construction to June 30, 14 was $5,976,297.18 The estimated cost to complete the project as of J 1935, was $1,400,000. A Public Works Administration aliotment of 83700000 a made available for the fiscal years 1936 and 1937, which on June 30, 167 leave an estimated cost of $1,100,000 to complete. The following tabi shows the items which make up the estimated cost of $1,400,000, the exter for 1936 and 1937, the estimate for 1938 and the balance to complete terea Main-drain enlargement, $7,500.- It is estimated that the main-frain enlarge ment will be done by contract and will not be completed until June 30, 1Twelve highway bridges are to be built across this drain. These bridges w. be included in the contract for the excavation of the drain but wi, bet force account. It is estimated that the contractor will have competed enga of the drain by the end of the fiscal year 1937 and that six of the trige have been built, leaving six bridges to be built later. The cost of these i ziiges is estimated at $1,250 each. I Subdrains, $52,500, The original estimate for this item was $125.000, has been increased $24,000, due principally to the recessity for 1 stalling arge culverts than were originally planned and to the diffesity of digge ge during the summertime. The completion of the drainage works is in jartar t the construction of drainage canais has lagged i et ind ti ́e construction of aru facilities The result is a large area of project land within whies, the water plane is so close to the surface as seriously to red see the productivity land. This condition is further complicated by Pie fact that the lac water plane causes a concentration of aikah on the ground surface centration increases yearly so that the longer the land is with out adeplate the more difheilt it will be to reclaim it when dran age is provi red Metal tanod gater with me isa ang de ices, &alijan), Itse gates are to me timber gates which are expensive to ma.l'an and which include to tea measur..g the flow of water. The metal gates proposed are esp¡-1 measuring devices which make it possible to meas ire Die flow of water th them as accurately as it can be measured over a wor It most of Ved ponts on the project tre is not wall ant head to peritte.** measuring the flow. At those ponts te carated gates offerte meas of the as irement, 153 of these Kates, installed in Mar 14 found to be very off cent The onginai est mate for t'e cost of insta ཟླ་ teKin! she$1?U, སྔོt སྨིན } Tela or t und was found to he estinat d and in more of t'e ena lord to is a sorter outlet i Ilagan, estimated saving of 829,00r the total cost of giste Project office building, $15,000.-The present office building is an unplastered frame building. It is poorly lighted, difficult to heat, and is in a poor state of repair. It is inadequate as to size, part of the office being housed in the warehouse. It is proposed to construct a modern building of adequate size to house the project office force. There is ample space on the 13.3-acre tract which the Government owns in Wapato for the location of the proposed building. Located on this tract there are a large garage, machine and carpenter shops, warehouse, lumber yard with side track from the Northern Pacific Railroad and a number of cottages that are used as quarters for employees. Mr. O'NEAL. Is that for extensions? Mr. WATHEN. Yes, sir; extension of the canal system. Mr. O'NEAL. It is not particularly an improvement of what they have now? Mr. WATHEN. No. Mr. O'NEAL. It brings more land into cultivation? Mr. WATHEN. Yes, sir; it brings more land into cultivation. Mr. LEAVY. Are there not some white people living on a part of this land? Mr. WATHEN. The Wapato project is approximately 40 percent in white ownership. Mr. O'NEAL. That part is reimbursable? Mr. WATHEN. Yes, sir; to that extent it will be reimbursable. ADMINISTRATION Mr. O'NEAL. I notice the next item is "Administration", for which you are asking $60,000. Mr. DODD. This item is proposed to cover the salaries of engineers and clerical help, office equipment, rents, the purchase of stationery, telephone and telegraph service, and miscellaneous administrative expense required in connection with the prosecution of the construction program contemplated by the Indian Irrigation Service during the fiscal year 1938. This program embraces projects of major and minor magnitude, varying in size from small subsistence tracts of a few acres to major developments such as the Flathead project with an area of some 130,000 acres. Each and every project regardless of size represents a vital part of the land-use program which in turn forms a part of the plan having as its objective the conservation and orderly development of all resources of the reservation so that the Indians thereon may support themselves with self-respect on a basis comparable with their white neighbor. The recent drought has emphasized the importance of the small irrigation systems in connection with subsistence farming. The success of these developments and the benefits derived therefrom will depend first of all upon the care and skill with which they are planned and developed. The development of plans and the supervision of construction is relatively much higher on small projects than it is on the larger projects. It is expected that the surveys, plans, designs, and advertisements for materials, as well as the supervision of construction, will be handled largely through the offices of the supervising engineers. Regular employees in these offices now paid from Public Works funds will be paid from this administration fund and in addition it will probably be necessary to increase the forces somewhat. This overhead expense of $60,000 represents less than 3 percent of the total cost of the construction program here presented. Mr. O'NEAL. I notice that there is new language in that item, and a greatly increased amount for printing and binding. I would like to have you explain that, and also the personal services item in the District of Columbia. Mr. DODD. The appropriation for the present year provides $50,000 for administration expenses in connection with a program involving a gross outlay of $730,900. That is, $730,900, exclusive of the $50,000 for administrative purposes. Mr. O'NEAL. Yes. Mr. DODD. We are requesting an increase of only $10,000 in the administrative costs. We are asking authority to use this appropriation for necessary printing and binding expenses, chargeable to the work undertaken for the various construction items in this program, because the printing and binding appropriation for the Department is insufficient to cover that. We probably would use nothing like $5,000, but we set that up as the maximum limit. There are numerous forms, documents, and other papers that we find it necessary to print, most of that work being done in the Government Printing Office. Mr. O'NEAL. What amount was spent for printing during the past year? Mr. DODD. We estimated approximately $500. This will be largely for charts, blue prints, and photographic work. We cannot spend any part of this appropriation actually for printing in the Government Printing Office, because we have no authority. We have to have that specific authority in this item. Mr. O'NEAL. How do you explain the increase from $500 to $5,000? Mr. DODD. Simply because we have a number of forms and a number of reports that must be printed, and the Department printing fund is insufficient to meet those costs. Mr. O'NEAL. Why is the increase this year greater than in the past? Mr. DODD. I may say that this $5,000 was set up for a program of more than $4,000,000. The Budget has allowed us only $2,090,000, and there would be no objection to reducing the printing limitation there, because of the lower amount of the appropriation, to $3,000. NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mr. O'NEAL. How much more of a force do you expect to have in the District of Columbia this year than you had during the past year? Mr. DODD. We do not expect to increase the force in the District of Columbia. We will carry one engineer at $3,800, one clerk at $1,800, and one clerk-stenographer at $1,620. It may be necessary at some time in the year to detail one or more people from the field to the Washington office to handle temporary assignments, but most of the work will be done in the field. Mr. O'NEAL. How many new employees do you contemplate it will be necessary to employ? Mr. DoDD. We actually show a fewer number of employees for 1938 than we had for 1937. We had 133 employees for the present fiscal year; that is, on a permanent personnel basis. This year we will have 127, or 6 fewer employees in 1938 than we have in 1937. Mr. O'NEAL. You mean there was an unexpended balance for 1937? Mr. Dopp. No; but we were starting this program somewhat new, and it required some extra people at the beginning of it, and some of them will be dropped. If you will notice the tabulation on page 151, of the bill, there are a great many fractional employees throughout. Those fractional people represent some temporary employment on an annual-salary basis rather than on a per-diem basis. SUMMARY OF PROJECTS Mr. O'NEAL. I would like to ask you to supply, if you do not have it with you, a priority list of these irrigation items, indicating which items will be completed, with the amounts in the bill. In other words, you have given them in general, but I would like to have a succinct statement, showing those that will be completed with the items in the bill and those continuing over the next few years. Mr. WATHEN. The information requested is as follows: Summary, Indian irrigation construction items approved by Budget, showing classification and priorities of projects 1 New projects where additional funds will be required to make this expenditure useful. Projects that will be complete within themselves, or where no further funds will be necessary to make this expenditure useful. Projects now under construction but where additional funds will be required to make this expenditure useful. NEW PROJECTS IN IRRIGATION Mr. LAMBERTSON. How many of these projects are new projects? Have you counted them? Mr. WATHEN. In irrigation? Mr. LAMBERTSON. Yes. Mr. WATHEN. There are no strictly new projects. They are all working projects, or they have been started. These are merely requests for funds for completion. There will be new land brought in on some of it. I have here a tabulation which I will be glad to offer for the record, if you care to have it inserted, showing each one of our projects in each State, and the amount proposed for expenditure for the fiscal year 1938, which is the amount you have been considering in your Budget, and then the amount that has been spent on each of those projects to date, and then the amount required to complete them. Mr. LAMBERTSON. I personally would like to have it. I do not care whether it is in the record or not. Mr. LEAVY. I think that is part of the data you asked to have put in the record. Mr. WATHEN. Yes; that is practically the statement. |