the old McCook Lake oxbow it could readily, either by erosion or avulsions, cut across to the Big Sioux River in the vicinity of Riverside, a suburb of Sioux City. This would destroy the area as a residential and industrial area which includes a powerplant, railroads, highways, bridges, and business establishments as well as residential facilities. The property is valued at about $20 million.

Senator CASE. If that happened what would become of the bridge? General POTTER. It would become a dryland bridge.

Senator CASE. The bridge between Sioux City and South Sioux City would be like the bridge farther down the river?

General POTTER. Yes.

Senator ELLENDER. Such a situation is not peculiar to that area, is it?

General POTTER. We have another dryland bridge in our area;

yes.

Senator ELLENDER. I have heard of a few of them.

Senator YOUNG. General Potter, would you discuss in greater detail your program of navigation improvements from Omaha to Kansas City, from Sioux City to Omaha, and from Kansas City to the mouth, separately.

General POTTER, Yes. The navigation project from Sioux City to the mouth has three general reaches. Number one is the reach from Kansas City to the mouth; then from Omaha to Kansas City, and Sioux City to Omaha. From Kansas City to the mouth the unexpended balance on June 30, 1953, was minus $289,000, which meant that we had barrowed money for it.

Senator YOUNG. That is from Kansas City to the mouth.

General POTTER. Yes. On December 31, 1953, it was $871,788. On June 30, 1954, it will be zero.

This stretch of the river has had total appropriations to date of $96 million. The budget includes $2 million for this stretch, and it includes 386 miles of river. The precent complete as of the present time is 81.6 and it will be 83.3 with the appropriation requested. The changes in price levels since the last hearings: Due to index, $910,000; due to additional land requirement, $179,000, or a total of $1,089,200 increase.

Senator YOUNG. Have construction costs increased in the last year? General POTTER. Yes.

Senator YOUNG. Has dirt moving become more expensive?

General POTTER. Not generally, but the mechanical trades and special labor and that sort of thing.

MCCOOK LAKE

Senator MUNDT. General, I would like to ask you another question on the McCook Lake area before we leave that if you are through with that section. We were discussing Miners' Bend and Kenslers' Bend. There is another problem that has come up for discussion and that is the great degree of damage and the adverse effects of this whole river program on the McCook Lake community with consequences of serious floods. It has pushed in a lot of silt in a beautiful lake which is a recreational area and around which they have been building some very fine residential areas. They have relied down through the ages on the supply of water from flood tides. Going back quite a few years ago when I was on the Game and Fish Commission, they relied on the fact that the river, which had its flood tides in the old days before we started the harnessing, washed in and built up the lake and they had a nice lake and evaporation in the summer and fall would bring it to comparatively low levels, but it would maintain fish life and go on through the years.

Now, the channelization of the river and the regulation of the flow has shut off that source of supply, so it seems to me that those people have a very definite consequential claim against the Government. We are obligated to the people there to do something about a way of life, an investment in an area which we have come along and completely disrupted as part of the river program. I think they have every right to have something done to restore their area and to protect it, little towns flooded out or farmers whose property is taken and paid for. I do not see anything here in your figures, General Potter, to indicate that you have a request at this time to meet that particular problem and I wish you would comment on that a little bit and let me know what you think could be done to help the people. I know you are familiar with it because you have been there and the engineers have surveyed it.

General POTTER. Yes. I have personally visited this project and you have well described the development and the dependence of that development on the existence of that lake. The damage you describe, the siltation of the lake, is consequential to the repair and fixing up of the river, and also due to the construction of the large reservoirs upstream.

LAKE SILTATION

The fluctuation of the river was what kept the lake full. We are now going to control that river to a much finer degree and we will not get those large fluctuations which tended to keep the lake full. The flood of 1952 which covered these entire bottoms put an enormous silt load into that lake. In fact, I would say that roughly one-half of it was filled up and the people are having a terrible time keeping a facility that will support the housing that has been developed.

Senator MUNDT. I spent quite a part of the day down there this summer, one time in a boat poling down with a steel rod and we found anywhere from 3 to 5 feet of this slimy silt. It not only made it that much shallower, but had the result of shutting off some of the streams that normally fed the lake from below and were sealed off.

It seems to me something in the nature of dredging must be involved some place to restore it to the status that it was before the flood of 1952.

General POTTER. That is the only solution to the matter. It would be necessary to put a small dredge in there and dredge that silt out and put it on the part of the lands where the people are willing to have it placed.

Senator MUNDT. Will you prepare an estimate for our committee as to what you think might well be included in this year's appropriation bill to get started with that work, or if it can be completed and when construction could be completed? Because with the fish and agricultural fields dead, the place dries up and you get weeds and you have a swamp.

It is something that is there with us now and has been getting worse. If you could prepare such an estimate that we would have before us when we come to marking up the bill I would appreciate it very much.

ESTIMATED DREDGING COST

General POTTER. I will have an estimate prepared that would indicate the cost of dredging, not to complete the lake as it used to be 3 or 4 years ago, but a lake such as the people down there feel they can get along with.

(The information referred to follows:)

It is estimated that the cost of dredging out McCook Lake to an approximate depth of 8 feet and to widths varying from 650 to 1,200 feet is around $1 million. A more limited amount of work which would still provide a substantial degree of improvement could be performed for about $500.000.

Senator MUNDT. That is right, one that will continue to maintain the resort area and not make a holocaust area out of it, because it is a beautiful place.

I have felt all along that the best way to appropriate for this particular area and from Miners Bend down to Sioux City Bend, would be to take one stretch of the river and to give you a sum of money with some flexibility to spend in that area where you need it, instead of trying to pinpoint it too specifically, because the river is pretty fickle in that area and changes around. I think it would be a very fine constructive investment if you had authority this year to spend a little money down around that Italian farming area and save these hundreds of acres of land that have been washed away.

I would like to ask you whether you think we could put language in the appropriation bill for that area which would include the whole stretch and then give you discretion to spend the money where it needs to be spent?

APPROPRIATION FOR MINERS BEND

General POTTER. If I could advise the committee on that particular aspect that you bring out, I could not state strongly enough that I think I would be unwise to appropriate funds for the Miners Bend reach which would be too small to permit us to go into the planned

works.

If too small an amount is appropriated I think it would be unwise to try to do a small local protection job of the now existing bank, Senator Mundt, because ot would not fit into the final works as planned, so that any appropriation in Miners Bend should be big enough to enable us to get going on the planned channel and then that work

would fall into the final result that we all desire, this is the same sort of reasoning that I used last year in approaching the problem of the Decatur Bend reach, where the appropriation then, as now, was suggested at $2 million. I advised both the House and the Senate committee then, and I reiterate, that I do not think the appropriation should be made unless the Congress accepts the plan to finish the complete reach at a cost of $11 million, because we would lose that $2 million eventually.

Senator MUNDT. In other words, also, if we are going to appropriate any money for this Miners Bend problem it is apparently also going to take the $2.8 million. You cannot just take $500 thousand and do any particular job; is that what you are saying?

General POTTER. Yes.

Senator MUNDT. You will bring in an estimate then for McCook Lake?

General POTTER. That is right, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. Does this project that Senator Mundt is talking about need to be authorized, or is it already authorized?

General POTTER. The damage that he is talking about, the siltation of that lake, is consequential damage of the construction of the dams.

Senator ELLENDER. And you have the right under the law, as I remember it, to repair this work or do something about it without further authorization?

General POTTER. It would take specific language by the Congress to enable me to go in there.

Senator ELLENDER. Would it be in the nature of a new project? General POTTER. Yes, in that it was consequential, though it is directly related to the upstream project.

Senator ELLENDER. Why is that necessary? When the Corps of Engineers performs work and in the process of performing that work they do damage, why is that not thought about in advance? You knew that this was going to happen, did you not?

General POTTER. We did not know that the 1952 flood was going to happen. That is what we are talking about. The 1952 flood went over and filled the lake full of silt. Since we have closed Randall the ability of the lake to fill from fluctuating river levels is entirely

gone.

Senator ELLENDER. Then the damage that has occurred in that lake has not been due to the works that you put up there?

Senator MUNDT. In part, partly by the flood and partly by the fact that the other source of water was deprived by these river programs. Senator ELLENDER. But the siltation was caused by the 1952 flood, something you could not control?

General POTTER. That is right.

Senator ELLENDER. Except for that you would not be confronted with the situation?

General POTTER. That is right.

Senator ELLENDER. Wasn't anything done before this flood that caused this siltation?

General POTTER. No.

Senator ELLENDER. It would be in the nature of a new project, then.

Senator CASE. I do not think the record is entirely clear. The fact is, if the engineers were not building the Fort Randall Dam and Gavins Point Dam, the river would still be able to replenish the water in McCook Lake?

General POTTER. That is right.

Senator CASE. The fact that you are building the dam and controlling the outflow is the reason that McCook Lake is short of water?

General POTTER. Yes. Perhaps I have not made myself too clear. Due to the fact that the river will not fluctuate as it used to the lake will not have that annual resupply of water that has been put in it. Senator MUNDT. That is the result of the river program?

General POTTER. So the lake now is low and will continue low be-cause of that lack of resupply. The situation that was made by the 1952 flood then becomes of great importance.

Senator ELLENDER. The siltation is the thing that has aggravated the condition?

General POTTER. Yes.

Senator MUNDT. You can argue just as well on the other part. It depends on where you start.

General POTTER. Just one more thing. If the lake had that annual resupply that it used to have, then we would have 3 or 4 feet more water on top of this silt, and it would be of less importance?

The next stretch of the river, from Omaha to Kansas City, has had $82 million appropriated. The budget for this year is $3,300,000. The project through 1954 fiscal year will be 74.7 percent complete and through 1955 with that appropriation will be 77.7 complete. The stretch of river is 245.8 miles. The cost increase is entirely due to the fact that the index has increased in this stretch by $1.2 million. The annual benefits accruing to the project are the same as for the lower stretch; the navigation benefits, 26 percent; the protection of municipal and industrial improvements, 35 percent; and the protection of agricultural lands from erosion, 39 percent.

give those percentages to indicate that navigation is about onefourth of the benefit that accrues to this project. The rest of it is the protection of features in the valley, industrial, municipal, and agricultural, against erosion.