Alaska. We are going to have drilling there for sure. The seismic work is pretty well done.

It might interest you that we have had altogether 16 seismic surveys of the area. That includes the buoy, running across the Copper River flats and going down as far as the northwest end of Mondu Island.

You are 150 miles, if I remember correctly, from Kroler Bay to Seward. You are 50 miles into Hensbrook Pass. But where the majority of the cargo is going to be handled because of the fact you have got a road, you have got a railroad, you don't have much of an airfield in Seward, but nevertheless the majority of the cargo into that area is going to be handled out of Seward. So it is reasonable to say that a 1,000-ton repair facility there would be what is needed.

Alaska seems to operate very much on some of the Federal agencies, but while you are getting along fine now, but this country here is going to develop quickly. When the development hits-which we expect will be next year, the start of it-you are going to be supplying the traffic you are going to get in.

On the Kenai you are going to see drilling in the Chilik Island area, from Anka Point to Kenai. Some of these holes are already proved, I understand. But there is a great deal more to be done. You have got 14 platforms now in the inlet. I heard a man that should know, the other day, say that it is not unreasonable to expect 30 altogether in upper and lower Cook Inlet. That is the full combine.

Another point I want to bring out concerning the harbor here, and the safety of vessels in Cook Inlet, upper and lower, is that we have in the last year-I won't go further than the year of 1973-three occurrences that could have been very serious accidents. The first I will take up is the Davey D. Day. This was a tanker, a jumbo-sized T-2 tanker that lost her main engine in the area of Anka Point. Lucky she was light at the time. The other piece of luck was that it was just at the end of the ebbtide. So she was able to go to Anka and sack water and she sent for a tug. For some unknown reason-we found out later why the captain didn't want to go after the Coast Guard-but they sent out the only tug that they had in Homer and I believe she was about a total of 600 horses, less than that, and she is 54 feet long.

This little vessel, because of slack tide and because of the turn of the flood, the flood was coming in, was able with the help of, I think, an LCN to bring this tanker which is 150,000-barrel tanker into Homer and bring her to anchor.

This sort of thing doesn't happen very often. This could have been a real disaster because if it had been an ebbtide and you had 6 and 7 knots out there the chances of holding it at anchor was very poor in that part of the country. He could have been in any of those cliffs and rocks from Fort Grande down to the Baronne Islands.

The other two occurrences were the boat carrier Cheshire. She was a foreign vessel. She broke loose from the dock and drifted parallel to the other two docks north of her which was the L. & G. dock and the Santanoga. There was a tanker loading at the Standard Oil dock. The estimate of distance is-but the heaviest or largest distance we were given was 150 feet and the least was 100 feet. This vessel was partially loaded at the time. I may stand corrected in this, but I think she had some ammonia aboard her and she also had some urea. I don't 22-326 0-73-9

know what the mixtures are if you mixed gasoline, diesel oil, and so forth, with urea, which is a nitrate, nitrogen and ammonia, but there might have been some fireworks.

The problem was that the vessel was a diesel-driven vessel, and the main engine was diesel. The engineers allowed the engine to get cold. When she broke loose they couldn't get her started. In fact, they tried to get her started before she broke loose, but she went through 14 mooring lines. This was because of ice pressure.

The other thing is she went to anchor. Mind you, I am not blaming the ship, the pilots, or blaming anybody, because this is an occurrence that can happen here. You can watch for it, but now and again you are going to get it no matter what precautions you take.

As I said, she was a single-engine diesel. The engine was cold and they tried to get the engine started before the lines indicated they were going to let go. They didn't get the engine started until she was well past the rig tender's dock. The pilot dropped his anchors. He did the wise thing.

But let's go a little further than that. For the 6-knot incoming tide with the amount of ice that comes in on certain occasions on the incoming tide, because you have a flare of ice-falling snow, with the ice going out on the ebbtide and it goes down around your part of the country, Kenai here, and on the flood tide it comes back and follows the beach. It puts terrific pressure on the lines on these various vessels. If his anchors had not held and had kept dragging, and they were dragging, but lucky they got the main engine started, he only had to go around the corner and we would have picked up platform D's lines, the oil lines coming in from the platform D. Another 12 or 2 miles further we would have picked up the gathering lines for the middle ground shoals platforms. You can imagine what a pile of spaghetti that would have been.

This is not unreasonable to expect this kind of thing to happen. One of these days it will. When you tear up oil lines in the winter you shut the platform down, you cause pollution. The State loses money, the Federal Government loses money on the taxes of the oil, and nothing is done.

The only practical way to meet a condition like this-I want to add there was another vessel exactly like here that did the same thing. Luckily there were no ships below her-is to have a tug in here. There are two good reasons for it. In the wintertime where you have a very heavy ice condition it takes the supply boats and we have got them up there with 4,500 horses in them, ice-strengthened isles, considerable length of time to get out to that platform.

If an accident occurred on the platform in the ice/fog period-which we do have here in the winter time-you are not going to have a helicopter flying either because the pilot cannot stand ice on those blades. So the fellow is out there, they are well-protected, the oil companies have taken every precaution to provide them with safety means to get off the platform, even in ice, still it is a little embarrassing to have a group of men floating out on the ice there and not being able to met hold of them with the helicopters, the supply boats wandering around out there trying to get to them, besides the possibility of getting to that platform and doing whatever has to be done to prevent the damage occurring, fire, explosion or whatever it would happen to be.

We have talked to the Coast Guard for a number of years about having a Coast Guard vessel in the inlet that is capable of bucking ice and getting to the platforms or getting to any other disaster or getting to a drifting ship in a reasonable length of time.

The Coast Guard informed us again and again they have not got the money. Three years ago the tin mining got very interested in this problem and so they went to Spalding with the marine architects and the fellows that do most of the designing in the ice-breaking supply boats we got here, and they came up with a design of a tug, ice-breaking tug with a normal speed of 14 knots. We talked to the Coast Guard about this.

Then the other question came up where are we going to lay that tug? Where can that tug be put so that it can get to the endangered areas quickly? You can't lay alongside the L. & G. dock, you can't lay aside the rig tender's dock, on the draft there, the Standard Oil dock, tankers are coming in and the same thing with the urea dock. So the logical place for this tug is Kenai.

These tugs will draw between 14 and 16 feet.

I referred a short time ago about having the harbor mouth dredged 8 feet below zero tide. They are not going to be held up too much on that. The normal rise of your tide here is a little better than 3 feet per hour.

One of these days we are going to hear people say, "I wish to God we had a piece of equipment like this, something to get out there and get those fellows or get that ship before more damage is done."

I get what is known in the trade as a butcher sheet every day, and it is 3 days old when I get it. But I can't help observing how many vessels have rudder troubles and have propeller troubles in the South Seas and on the way to Honolulu and places that we sitting up here are looking at with the ice in the wintertime. A ship comes in, loses a big chunk of ice, she loses a wheel or knocked a blade off, or she breaks up her rudder, cracks her rudder and anything can happen. She is out of control. She is coming down the inlet at 6 knots or better. They then go to anchor in the area of the pipelines because they are going to have them right with them. So that master and that pilot is going to be in a tough spot. But if he knew in an hour's time or 2 hour's time, a reasonable time, that he is going to have a tug up there with 8,000 to 10,000 horsepower and get hold of him and get him out of it.

So this is one of the principal reasons I see, aside from the fact that you can bring your own cargo in here, and there is going to be a lot of supply coming in when they start the drilling in the lower limits, with those platforms, you are going to possibly have another L. & G. dock here.

There could be some-I have heard it spoken about-plastic manufacturing plant set in here. A plastic manufacturing plant today is not-they call them petrochemical, is actually the proper name for them they make the basic plastic which is taken out and treated chemically and they make 1,000 products out of it. But the basic chemical is made here, the basic plastic is made here, cheap gas, cheap fuel. So this is another place you are going to have to have outgoing transportation. This is going to come for sure, because in the lower 48 they just don't have the fuel and gas to go ahead and keep these plants

going. Some day you are going to see a hydroelectric plant up here on the lake. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see that come about. You will have basic manufacturing here. I won't say you are going to have the big plants, no, but you will have the basic plants to make material that can be shipped to the States, Japan or anywhere else, to create other products.

That is all I have. If there are any questions, I would like to answer them.

Senator GRAVEL. I don't have any. I think it is very good testimony and adds, certainly, a fine dimension not only to evidence of the need for this boat harbor, but for further development of the Cook Inlet. Are there any other questions?

Thank you very much, Bob.

Senator Palmer?

Mr. FISIER. Before Senator Palmer testifies, Senator, I would like to file with the committee a statement that has been prepared by James V. Arness who has, in my understanding, been on the inlet for well over 20 years. This statement is in writing. Mr. Arness could not stay; therefore he has left the statement.

Senator GRAVEL. We will accept it for the record. [The statement follows:]

STATEMENT OF JAMES V. ARNESS, KENAI BOROUGH ASSEMBLYMAN

It is very difficult for me to appear here.

It is with a feeling of frustration and helplessness that I approach harbor improvements for the Kenai area.

Seward had a harbor dating back to pre-World War II, exclusive of that harbor, Kenai was the first to pursue harbor improvements on the Kenai Peninsula. Since then Seward has a new enlarged facility that is now filled to overflowing. This facility was not built because it had to be shown there was a definite tonnage moving in or out. That facility generated business that now justifies its existence. Besides Sewards new improvements we have small boat harbors in Homer, Ninilchik, Seldovia, Whittler and even a limited facility on Ship Creek in Anchorage. I do not begrudge those areas their improvements. If the facility at Ninilchik gives shelter to even ten boats each summer the cost is justified in savings to equipment and human lives. Perhaps our original request was over ambitious. Perhaps some of us could see further into the future than others. But when you are the center of a tremendous gas field and have crude oil potential that was known at that time, we needed more than just a small boat harbor.

We needed room for support vessels that would be engaged in moving this crude and natural gas. We needed a harbor of refuge for this equipment just as badly as did these other areas.

We needed a first class harbor that could be expanded to handle larger vessels. Time has proven we were right. Much equipment has been damaged in the last 12 years because we were denied that harbor of refuge.

I feel frustration because I could pursue the facts and report these damage figures to add to an already voluminous file on record at the Corps of Engineers. What is the use of all that effort when other areas get their improvements when in the first place, their justification is nil in comparison to Kenai?

Billions are being spent along the coasts of the lower 48 states.

Those improvements are based on value to the community and the betterment of the nation.

I feel helplessness when the record shows this area moves more tonnage than any other area in Alaska. The irony of it is that while in the rest of America a portion of revenues received is put back to improve facilities. While in our State, this area produces the major income to operate government but we have not received a nickel for improvements.

This portion of Cook Inlet needs facilities. Some will say there is no need for these improvements because the rush is over. We have an acknowledged 100 year supply of natural gas. Crude oil will be moved for a long time yet. The Japanese

have announced a 1 billion dollar coal mine, dock and related facilities for Beluga. Their plans extend over 20 years. All of this will require support vessels that need a harbor and particularly a harbor of refuge. Kenai is the natural location for this harbor. All areas of Alaska will press you people for improvements. When you look at the record you will realize the economic value of this area. You've got to put the Kenai harbor at the top of your list for consideration for improvements.

STATEMENT OF STATE SENATOR BOB PALMER

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all I would like to express my appreciation for your being here and bringing these people with you and learning firsthand about the problems we have.

I think the problems have been delineated already. I will try to be brief.

I do have to agree with Mayor Thompson in saying that we are way overdue, Kenai is way overdue for this type of development in the Kenai River. I think Captain Logan has illustrated very vividly the needs, both for a deeper water access to the city of Kenai so that freight can come in without additional expense of the back haul down from Anchorage.

Clem has pointed up the need for a boat basin for the commercial fishing fleet.

I have paid in the past few years for bulk commodities coming down from Anchorage for my farm, fertilizer and seed and this type of thing. I know other farmers in the southern part of the peninsula for grains are paying the same thing, paying as much freight on trucks coming from Anchorage as the water freight from the Seattlewest coast area to Anchorage. The freight doubled just because it was back hauled down from Anchorage. I have not done that this year, so I don't know what the situation is this year, but I don't suspect it has changed very much.

This only illustrates what the people in Kenai and all over the area are paying in extra freight. Some of the savings could be made with barge freight coming into Kenai.

As a commercial fisherman I had my boat anchored in the Kenai River. I know the hazardous condition that is brought about by the large number of boats anchored in that river and the other freight that has to come in and out, even what freight can come in and out now, and there is some of it. We are fishing at the present time three periods a week during much of the period. We fish only two 12-hour periods, on Monday and on Friday. All of the rest of that time those boats are tied up out here in the river.

From a fisherman's standpoint it is bad enough to fight the elements that he has to fight in Cook Inlet during the fishing period when it is blowing, when it is rough and so on, coming in late in the evening, tving up behind a cannery tinder and maybe being there for 6 hours before he can unload his fish. Even at that time he has to go anchor. He has to do something with that boat. The only thing he can do is make sure it is in enough water so it doesn't go dry when the tide goes out.

So he is going to be finding the channel to tie up in. If he is not a cannery boat. he don't have a cannery buov to tie to. He is continually then on the alert, has to be. to make sure that that anchor is not dragged, that somebody else is not drifting to him. He can't get a de