Senator CASE. You are contemplating building the dike to protect certain areas under your proposal?

General POTTER. Yes, sir. There will be a dike around Williston to take care of those higher peaks that might happen. While they will happen very infrequently, it would be wrong not to have a dike. Senator CASE. With the dike in, you have permission to operate at 1850?

General POTTER. Yes, sir.

Senator CASE. The idea that was worked on some years ago, was not to build the dikes but to fix the operating level at elevation 1842?

ANNUAL LOSS

General POTTER. Yes, sir. One other fact, the annual money loss operating at 1840 would be in the neighborhood of $1.6 million a year, of which $865,000 represents loss in power.

Senator CASE. Why do you say that when there are many years when you are not anywhere near 1840?

General POTTER. Because the elevation at which we would keep the top of the power pool would similarly be lower because we would have to retain this 3.6 million acre-feet as inviolate storage for floods. The whole operating system would have to be lowered by the 8 feet that they propose.

Senator THYE. Senator Case, there will be four of us members who will have to go to the full Appropriations Committee at 11 o'clock. If you would care to pursue this question after 11, that would enable us to go back and pick up the 2 other projects the general has not touched on. It is a full committee meeting at 11, and I know we are going to have to be there.

You may proceed, General.

General POTTER. Oahe Reservoir is next, sir. The appropriation request this year is for $9 million, which will bring the project up to 11 percent complete. The fund picture, June 30, 1953, unobligated balance, $567,463; unexpended balance, $971,598. On December 31, 1953, unobligated, $2,355,280; unexpended, $7,027,337. On June 30, 1954, unobligated, nothing; unexpended, $4,814,559.

There has been a cost increase of this project which we have put on straight across the board following the construction cost index as published by the Engineering News Record. We feel this is necessary because the project is in its initial stages. Several years of construction are still to come, and we cannot predict what the index might do. Senator THYE. General, we note that the costs have gone up about $12 million on this project.

General POTTER. Straight across the board following the cost index, sir.

Senator THYE. What is the reason that this would go up and the other would go down?

General POTTER. On the Garrison project the work is practically all under contract, so we have intimate knowledge as to what the costs will be.

On this project, less than 10 percent of it has been built. There is a great deal of it still to go and we will not know what will happen to the construction index in years to come. So we have just applied the cost index increase across the board.

Senator MUNDT. It is also possible that later developments will show the cost will be less?

General POTTER. That is my hope.

Senator MUNDT. It depends on where the index moves?
General POTTER. Yes, sir.

BUDGET REQUEST

Senator MUNDT. I notice that $9 million is recommended by the budget. What was your request to the budget?

General POTTER. The request to the budget was $9 million within and $6 million over the ceiling. That is $15 million total.

Senator MUNDT. What will be the impact of this smaller figure which the budget suggested as a proper amount?

General POTTER. Three main jobs are coming up or could come up this year. If I could go back just a little, we have already let the upstream tunnels now being pointed out. I might add that those upstream tunnels are about 1,700 feet long to the middle of the dam. They are under contract. We had thought of letting the downstream tunnels, the control shaft, and the stilling basin if the $15 million figure applied. Under a $9 million figure we would propose to let the stilling basin only, advertising it later this fall and allocating a half million dollars to that particular project.

Senator MUNDT. What will be the effect on the little community of Pollock?

General POTTER. The community of Pollock is taken care of by our allocation for land acquisition which will be about $1 million in this next budget.

Senator MUNDT. In this $9 million proposal, the whole problem involving Pollock will be completed?

General POTTER. It will be funded as sufficiently as the local people can come up with their plan and do the job they must do in construction.

Senator MUNDT. The difference between the $15 million that the Army Corps requested and the $9 million that the budget suggested has no effect on the situation at Pollack; it is completely taken care of either way.

General POTTER. That is right.

Senator YOUNG. Would you yield?

With respect to both Sanish and Van Hook, N. Dak., you were not authorized to purchase any property on leased land. That included elevators and homes situated on any leased land. You do not have authority to purchase that property in South Dakota, either, do you?

General POTTER. No, sir, but at Fort Randall, for example, the railroad has done what I think is a very fine thing. They have extended those leases for 30 years.

Before, the practice with the railroads used to be to give a 30-day lease which was revocable at will of both parties. So, in effect, it was not a firm property right. With a 30-year lease, a property right exists, and it will not be necessary to come to the Congress for legislation as was required at Sanish and Van Hook. I assume that the same procedure will be followed at Pollock.

Senator YOUNG. Why was not I advised of this procedure?

INDIAN TREATIES

Senator MUNDT. How about the situation at the Cheyenne Agency Reservation?

Gneral POTTER. On the Indian treaty with the Cheyenne, our report has been sent to Congress. We could arrive at no agreement even for the cost of the land. For the Standing Rock Tribe we have at least arrived at a basic cost for the land and we are currently reviewing that under the new land policy.

As I reported last year, I believe the judgment as to the intangible benefits and damages is a matter better taken care of by other than the engineers.

Senator MUNDT. Assuming that is adjudicated satisfactorily, is there any money in the budget to pay these Indian claims?

General POTTER. Absolutely not.

Senator MUNDT. Was there any in the $15 million?

General POTTER. No, sir.

Senator MUNDT. I have a letter from Bob Hipple, with whom you have a slight speaking acquaintance, I am sure, and who has been one of the patron saints of the whole Missouri River development program. He is especially a guardian angel of Oahe. It was suggested, I find out from you, whether it is contemplated to make a start on the work on the opposite side of the river from that shown on the map before us now.

General POTTER. Earthwork, stage IV, which extends beyond the limit of this picture, will be funded to the extent of $1,600,000 under the $9 million request although it may be let rather late in the fiscal year depending upon our more detailed studies.

Senator MUNDT. What would have been the situation under the $15 million?

General POTTER. Over $2 million, sir.

Senator MUNDT. He raises this, and I would like to read a short sentence from the letter.

It is also time to start thinking about the spillway which is on the Fort Pierre side of the river, but remote from the job. This spillway will require moving an immense amount of dirt. The figure in my mind, without looking, is 52 million yards of excavation. They succeeded in moving dirt at the rate of 40,000 cubic yards per day when Western had the contract. If this figure should prevail on the spillway, we would require around 1,300 days or nearly 4 years simply to move the dirt let alone the other work required. I do not know just when it is proposed to get this work started, but I do know it is a job which cannot be done overnight.

Will you comment on that?

General POTTER. His figures are right. As to the extent and enormity of the job, we would not propose to start the spillway for 1 or 2 years under a much greater expedited appropriation schedule than seems indicated at the present time.

Senator MUNDT. I mean even if the appropriation were $15 million or $20 million, you would still not start the spillway now? General POTTER. You are right.

Senator MUNDT. So in your completion schedule you will have that taken care of with adequate appropriations later, apparently to move the dirt more rapidly than they were doing it when Western had the contract?

General POTTER. That is right. At Garrison, for example, they were able to move over 100,000 cubic yards per day.

Senator MUNDT. In a paper which reached my desk this morning, Bob Lusk, editor of the Daily Plainsman, a paper which has been a great advocate of this river-development program, and from a community very much interested in Oahe because of the power development and because of its potential irrigation features, writes an interesting editorial which I would like to put in the record at this point if I may.

Senator THYE. Most certainly.

(The editorial referred to follows):

WHY OAHE NEEDS MORE MONEY

Oahe Dam has been marked for a $9 million appropriation in the 1954 budget, but it is not enough. That is not enough money to build Oahe fast enough to protect Fort Randall Dam.

The engineering reasons are simple and obvious to anyone who has followed the river program who takes just a minute to regard it.

Fort Randall Dam, now virtually complete and ready to start generating power in March, has a certain size silt pool. This means that a certain space is allotted for the accumulation of silt. That present allotment will give Fort Randall an estimated 100 year span-with Oahe Dam completed. If Oahe Dam is not done, Fort Randall would fill up its silt pool in 20 years.

Oahe Dam is a much larger dam. It will have greater flood-control storage, a larger silt pool, and more power production, than Randall.

Furthermore, as regards siltation, as the dams come into being the Missouri River becomes a series of lakes without fierce currents and bank-eroding action, rather than a turbulent river. Garrison Dam is ready to do that in North Dakota. Randall is doing it in South Dakota. Oahe would do it still more. That means less siltation through bank erosion.

Furthermore, the longer it takes to build Oahe Dam the more space in its reservoir Fort Randall Dam will have to allocate to flood control and that means less water could be kept on hand for more regular power generation.

All those reasons point up the basic fact that the Missouri River dams were each designed as part of an overall plan for river development.

Fort Randall can function at its optimum efficiency only as soon as Oahe Dam is completed. The same goes for Gavins Point Dam.

Those are some of the most cogent reasons why Oahe Dam should have about $17 million this year instead of $9 million. The additional money can be used on earthwork stages and on upstream tunnels.

The State should work as hard toward this end this year as it did last year in achieving the reinstallation of $8,250,000 in the budget for Oahe.

SILT PROBLEM

Senator MUNDT. The heading is "Why Oahe Needs More Money." I will read two paragraphs. It says:

Fort Randall Dam, now virtually complete and ready to start generating power in March, has a certain size silt pool. This means that a certain space is al

lotted for the accumulation of silt. That present allotment will give Fort Randall an estimated 100 year span-with Oahe Dam completed. If Oahe Dam is not done, Fort Randall would fill up its silt pool in 20 years.

Will you comment on that portion of it before I read the next part of it? Are those figures substantially correct?

General POTTER. They are substantially correct. Without Oahe closed and with Randall closed, Randall is gathering 48,000 acre-feet of silt each year, that should have been trapped in Oahe. The 20 years for the life of the silt pool is approximately correct, with Oahe not built.

Senator MUNDT. With it built, that 20 years expands to a century? General POTTER. Yes, sir.

Senator MUNDT. So in the concept of this valleywide and river long program, in order to meet the hazards of silt you envision having these short stretches of river between the dams, a couple of hundred miles, instead of having the silt come rushing down a great stretch of river, if you can have a reservoir which is serving other purposes every 200 miles, to meet the silt, it would help?

General POTTER. Yes, sir.

Senator MUNDT. He says in this editorial:

Furthermore, the longer it takes to build Oahe Dam, the more space in its reservoir Fort Randall Dam will have to allocate to flood control, and that means less water could be kept on hand for more regular power generation.

Is that correct?

General POTTER. Absolutely correct. The seasonal flood-control pool at Fort Randall is about a million and a half acre-feet. Until Oahe is finished, we are allocating about 3 million acre-feet, or about one-half of the total storage at Randall, to take care of that shortage at Oahe.

Senator MUNDT. It occurs to me as a not altogether disinterested Member of Congress on this project-so my judgment may be partial, and I would like to have you check it—but it occurs to me that economywise you could build a pretty good case for moving the construction of Oahe just as rapidly as the engineering program would permit you to move efficiently, because by spending a little extra now you protect a vast investment farther down the river and enable that investment to produce more revenue-producing power at an earlier date than would be possible if we slowed down Oahe because of appropriations rather than slowing it down because of the natural evolution of the engineering process.

General POTTER. Randall will produce about half as much power as it should until Oahe is completed.

Senator MUNDT. You find no great indication of partiality, then, in the argument which I have tried to develop economically? General POTTER. Absolutely none, Senator.

BUILDINGS, GROUNDS, AND UTILITIES

Senator THYE. I notice that for "Buildings, grounds, and utilities" there is an item of $636,500. What is that item going to construct? What kind of ground improvements and what utilities and what buildings?

General POTTER. Over the years we have built no Government facilities at that job to speak of, sir. Going ahead on major contracts