FLOOD-CONTROL PLANS AND NEW PROJECTS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1944 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Will M. Whittington (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be in order. These hearings are a continuation of the hearings we began last summer. The committee will recall that following those hearings we reported a bill for emergency repairs where there had been damages as a result of recent floods and an appropriation was made for the full amount of the authorization of $10,000,000. Since the hearings last June it was determined that we would not report a bill, inasmuch as we were reasonably sure that the projects would be reported to the committee so we might embrace them in any bill reported. We did not publish those hearings. They will be published in connection with the bill to be considered and reported by the committee at this session, and these hearings will be confined to projects on which reports have been submitted since the hearings last summer. We have with us this morning General Reybold, the Chief of Engineers; General Robins, the Deputy Chief of Engineers; and Colonel Goethals, Chief, Civil Works Division, Office of Chief of Engineers. We are glad to have you with us, General Reybold, and we will be glad to have a general statement from you at this time covering the flood-control situation, particularly the developments since the previous hearings. You may proceed, General. STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. EUGENE REYBOLD, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS General REYBOLD. Mr. Chairman, you will recall that in my presentation before this committee last May 31 I went into considerable detail to review the floods of the year. My statement this year will not be quite so specific, but more general in nature. Last year when the Flood Control Committee held hearings floods were still raging on the lower Missouri and upper Mississippi Rivers and had only recently subsided on the Arkansas, Wabash, Illinois, and other streams in the central United States. I am happy to be able to report to you today that since your June 1943 hearings there have been no major floods anywhere in the country. Intense but localized floods have occurred at a few localities and some of the major rivers have threatened to cause serious flooding, but on the whole the flood situation has been favorable. This absence of serious trouble must, however, not be allowed to lull us into a feeling of false security, because it is a certainty that floods will come again and perhaps in greater magnitude and with greater destruction than ever before. These periods of quiet are actually temporary respites during which we must make preparations for the inevitable onslaughts yet to come. These last 9 months have emphasized more clearly than ever before the wisdom of Congress and of this committee in providing legislation applicable throughout the entire country for rescue work and emergency repairs of flood-control structures. When the great floods came last year, the Department was able to undertake immediately large-scale flood fights and rescue activities under the $1,000,000 of authority contained in the Flood Control Act of 1941 and also to initiate at once the most urgent repairs to damaged structures. The availability of large numbers of troops also contributed in a very major way to the success of the flood fights. It was immediately evident, however, that the available authority for the use of $1,000,000 per year would not cover the large amount of repair work needed to restore protective structures against early recurrence of high water. Congress promptly acted in this threatening situation, and on July 12, 1943, the President approved legislation which authorized and appropriated $10,000,000 for the repair, restoration, and strengthening of flood-control works threatened or destroyed by the recent floods. The Department had already made preparations for a large-scale repair program, and with the enactment of this legislation we immediately undertook extensive repairs wherever needed. It is a pleasure to report to you that at the present time practically all of these repair projects have been completed so that the flood protective works are again fully effective if the coming spring should bring with it a recurrence of serious flood conditions. Altogether about 450 projects have been carried out under this emergency repair program. Where it has been feasible, the Department has accepted contributions from the local people who are benefited by these repair projects, and in this way the Federal funds have been stretched to accomplish the greatest possible results. Lands and rights-of-way for these repair projects have been provided by the local interests as is required for authorized Federal projects. At present there remains available to us about $300,000 as a reserve to be used in the event of sudden need for rescue or flood fights during the remainder of the current fiscal year. During the calendar year 1943, the Federal policy of curtailing public works construction to the minimum, except for war essential works, has been continued, and in line with this policy, only a few floodcontrol projects have been under construction. Three authorized flood-control projects have been undertaken during the year and are now being rushed to completion because of their direct importance to the war effort. The local protection project on the Illinois River at East Peoria, Ill., will give greater protection to the Caterpillar Tractor plant which was saved from devastation during the 1943 floods only by closing the plant and turning several thousands of the factory workers into the flood fight. Even though the plant was saved from flooding, the flood fight itself cost close to $1,000,000 out-of-pocket expenses, and what is more serious, several days' output of the plant was lost to the war effort. The Mosquito Creek Reservoir on a tributary of the Mahoning River, Ohio, was started last summer and is now in operation. This project will supplement the Berlin Reservoir in providing flood protection and industrial water supply for the steel industries in the Mahoning Valley. Although projects to protect industrial centers often appear more spectacular, the protection from flooding of our rich agricultural lands is equally important in the national economy and in the war effort, especially since it will be necessary for this country to take a leading part in feeding the liberated countries. Many authorized flood-control projects protect excellent farming lands and the local interests have made a number of attempts to secure approval from the War Production Board for wartime construction of these works in the interest of increased food production. To date only one such project has been approved, this being the improvement of the Teche and Vermilion Rivers, La., as authorized in the 1941 Flood Control Act. The Teche-Vermilion project not only is important from the standpoint of flood protection, but it will also benefit the water supply in this important rice-producing area. The Denison and Norfork Dam and Reservoir projects are practically completed and will be producing hydroelectric power in commercial quantities within the next few weeks. The distribution of power from these projects has been placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior by the provisions of Executive orders issued in 1943. The operation of the projects remains with the War Department, and the Executive orders specifically provide that operation for power shall be consistent with the primary purposes of the projects for flood control. As you know, the technique of flood control, particularly the operation of flood-control reservoirs, is a highly complex matter and is rapidly becoming a science. Improper operation of reservoirs during the stress of a major flood can lose all of the expected benefits and may even increase, rather than decrease, flood damages. The Corps of Engineers has been charged by Congress with the construction and operation of Federal flood-control projects. There are, in addition, many Federal reservoirs whose primary function is for some other purpose but which can also be operated to provide flood protection, and credit for flood protection is taken in the financing of the works. The experience of the floods of last year demonstrates the necessity for unified operation of flood-control projects. This need will become more acute as additional reservoirs are constructed. We are now building, with prisoner-of-war labor, a scale model of the Mississippi River Basin to help perfect the technique of operating many reservoirs as a unified system. I recommend that it be established as Federal policy that all flood-control storage in Federal reservoirs shall be operated in accordance with rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of War. The construction of flood-control reservoirs has in many instances. made excellent opportunities for permanent bodies of water which the residents of the localities desire to utilize for recreational purposes. I believe that such use is highly desirable and should be encouraged, as it makes available an incidental benefit of widespread value at little or no increase in cost of the projects. The Depart ment is cooperating with the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior in development of park areas at flood-control projects, where that Service desires to participate. In other areas arrangements have been made with State park organizations and with local agencies for the use of Federal lands for recreational development. It would facilitate this type of development if authority were granted to the Department which would enable it to participate in the necessary improvements, to permit construction, maintenance, and operation of such facilities at authorized dam and reservoir projects, and to grant leases in those areas for extended periods. In my previous statement before your committee and in the statements by my precedessors, we have stressed the importance of full cooperation among the various Federal agencies charged by Congress with responsibility for the development of the water resources of the Nation, and we have outlined to the committee the arrangements and machinery which the existing agencies have set up to assure complete cooperation among themselves. I am pleased to state this morning that the agreement signed in 1939 for cooperation among the Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Agriculture, and the Chief of Engineers has recently been expanded to include the Federal Power Commission. A committee consisting of the Commissioner of Reclamation, the Chairman of the Federal Power Commission, the Land Use Coordinator of the Department of Agriculture, and the Chief of Engineers meets once a month for a frank and open discussion of all problems dealing with the development and beneficial use of the streams of the United States. The committee has high hopes that it will be able to demonstrate that the existing Federal agencies can, through mutual and voluntary effort, solve all problems bearing on their individual and joint activities for the best interests of the entire Nation. Many of the reports now before the committee have been prepared through the action of this cooperative procedure. I would like to pause long enough to urge upon the committee the necessary authorizations for the appropriation of funds to continue this class of work, especially with the Federal Power Commission and the other agencies involved. While I do not know the status of those authorizations at the present moment, I would recommend personally that the committee give consideration to them. The CHAIRMAN. I assume you have in mind that under the National Flood Control Act of June 22, 1936, and the amendments to that act, the committee requests reports from the Department of Agriculture, where there are soil-conservation and reforestation problems, and that under the acts of 1938 particularly, the Federal Power Commission is always consulted with respect to the installation of power or penstocks, and an authorization is made for the works of both of those Departments. Those are the improvements you have in mind in connection with your statement in reference to an additional authorization? General REYBOLD. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. I assume both of those Departments, as we make provision to hear them, will make statements as to the status of their funds at present. General REYBOLD. That is the point I wish to make. The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement, General. |