WARRIOR LOCK AND DAM, ALABAMA

Colonel DIXON. The next project to be discussed this morning is Warrior lock and dam. Warrior lock and dam, as was the Demopolis project just discussed, is a replacement project. It replaces obsolete locks and dams 8 and 9 presently in existence, and in operation on the Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway system. This is to be undertaken under the authority of the 1909 River and Harbor Act. It will be a modern replacement lock 110 feet by 600 feet. The cost estimate is $19,629,000. To date there has been allocated $133,000, which has gone to planning. The request is for $2 million. The benefit-cost ratio is 1.55 to 1.0.

PLANNING STATUS

In that this is a new start, it might be well for me to discuss a little of the planning status. We expect to be in position to advertise, with our plans and specifications all ready by the end of June 1954. As of today, the general design memorandum is complete. The specifications for the lock are 55 percent complete. Two million dollars would be applied for acquisition of lands at the lock, for a lump sum contract for excavation at the lock site, for driving piling for the lock and for a continuing contract for the operating equipment.

Minor items would include an access road and one building. Local cooperation required on this project is zero.

Senator KNOWLAND. Going back to this Warrior lock and dam, how does your estimate now compare with the original estimate for doing that work? Have the estimates gone up or down?

Colonel DIXON. There is an increase in the estimated cost of this project compared to that presented to the Congress last year, which is accounted for by the general price level increase, and a minor item involving the recent law requiring us to pay certain resettlement costs in addition to the appraised value of the land.

ESTIMATED COST

Senator KNOWLAND. What was the estimated cost?

Colonel DIXON. Last year, $19,100,000. As of today we are discussing $19,629,000, making a difference of $529,000. The price-level change accounted for $487,000.

The estimated cost of the resettlement provisions of Public Law 534 of the 82d Congress increased the project $42,000.

Senator KNOWLAND. Are your cost-benefit ratios based on the present-day costs or the original costs?

Colonel DIXON. On present-day costs, sir.

General CHORPENING. Going back to the first project, we had a slight decrease in cost on the Demopolis lock and dam.

Senator KNOWLAND. What has been the experience of the engineers by and large throughout the country on the contracts they have been getting? Are you getting any better cost figures?

General CHORPENING. Our experience in the past year generally has been that we are getting very excellent competition and excellent bids. Of course, as the chairman realizes, the bulk of our program is now on our multiple-purpose projects. Two-thirds of the construction funds that we are asking for in this budget cover those projects. An

EMERGENCY WORK

General CHORPENING. As the chairman will recall, this work on the Arkansas River has always been defended as emergency work. It is not proceeding with the overall proposition of the navigation project on the Arkansas River. The work we are doing, we are doing so that it will tie into a navigation project if and when that should be directed by the Congress to proceed.

Senator KNOWLAND. A perpetual emergency.

General CHORPENING. With emergency conditions existing on this stream, we had hoped that last year all of those that should be handled at this time would be taken care of. However, a more complete and more thorough survey and reconnaissance of the entire river has convinced us that there are more places that should be handled under this emergency procedure.

You can never be as certain of an estimate under the type of thing that we are doing here as we can be on a job where you are going to build a specific project, and you know the size of the structure and the other physical factors involved in the cost. I do feel, however, that we are submitting here today an estimate that is as realistic as an estimate ever could be under the type of situation that we have existing on that river.

Senator KNOWLAND. When you go from an estimate of $18 million to $25 million, that is a right substantial increase percentagewise.

General CHORPENING. It is, and it consists of new additional locations that we feel are emergent. I would like to point out that this is not an increase in the estimated cost of work at specific locations that we started in previous years. Actually, we are building those for slightly less cost than was estimated at the time we submitted those locations to the Congress. So this increase is not on work that we previously justified and secured funds for, but on new locations we now must consider adding to the emergency project.

I would feel we were negligent in our duty if we did not include these new locations under the emergency program.

AREA IN QUESTION

Senator KNOWLAND. Could you give the committee any rough estimate as to the percentage of the river that has been covered?

General CHORPENING. The percentage of the river in miles is not great. We do have a map here which shows the general areas where we have worked and where we propose to do work. We could figure that out in miles to give a percentage of that section of the river from just above Fort Smith to the confluence of the Mississippi, which is the area in question.

Senator KNOWLAND. All I am trying to get at is—for instance, last year it was not realized there were other areas where it might require emergency treatment, was it?

General CHORPENING. At that time we did not consider they were sufficiently emergent that we should include them in the estimate.

Senator KNOWLAND. What has happened between last year and this year that has brought this so vividly to our attention?

General CHORPENING. The Arkansas River is the type of a river, and there are some others-which has an alluvial bed, the banks are

unstable, and the river wanders considerably from its normal course. Colonel DIXON. As General Chorpening has indicated, we have all the details here pertaining to locations that have been constructed, that are being continued, and which we foresee in the future. I do not know how much detail the chairman does want to go into.

Senator KNOWLAND. I would suggest that if you could leave a copy of the details with the clerk, you do so, so we might have it. I do not know that we necessarily have to have them go into the record at this point.

PROGRESS OF WORK AT FORT SMITH

In regard to the work at Fort Smith, how has that work held up? Colonel DIXON. Very well, sir. The Fort Smith-Wilson Rock area is a hard point to hard point proposition. That is a location where we are going into what should be a very good continuous revetment system. By continuous I mean that the entire section should become stabilized, not that the revetment itself is to be continuous. With the money being expended there-and there is some money in this year's appropriation for that also-we hope that the reach will be stabilized completely. In a sense, it also is a test section to establish that by going from hard point to hard point the river can be stabilized. Because of its location near Fort Smith and other populated areas, we feel it is necessary that we do a complete job in that area.

General CHORPENING. That work was originally scheduled to proceed over a number of years. We have been making good progress in connection with it. It was started upstream and is proceeding downstream. It involves the use of permeable dikes, some river straightening, and revetment.

Senator KNOWLAND. You may proceed.

Colonel DIXON. If I may add the unexpended balance information, sir. On June 30, 1953, the unexpended balance for the emergency bank stabilization project was $917,115; the unexpended balance on December 31, 1953, was $3,066,192. We estimate that by June 30, 1954, there will remain unexpended only $414,800.

Senator KNOWLAND. Senator McClellan, we have been proceeding here in your absence. We have covered the projects for bank stabilization work on the Arkansas River. If there is anything further that you would care to bring out in the hearings, we will reopen the report at that point.

The questions we attempted to clear up was the increase in cost since last year on the Arkansas River and its tributaries, for emergency bank stabilization work, the estimate of the cost last year was $18,852,300. This year it is $25,302,000, which is about a $6 million increase. The engineers pointed out that that was not due to an increase in the cost of the particular projects they had underway but rather was brought about by the necessity of expanding the work; they testified that the actual cost of the projects already underway was running a little below their estimate.

That is page 51 of the justification book. This was an expansion of the program of an emergency nature rather than an increase in the cost of the projects already underway.

Senator MCCLELLAN. May I ask a few questions regarding that? Senator KNOWLAND. Yes.

indication that we are getting excellent bids and that we are reflecting those bids in our cost estimates before the Congress is that, for our multiple-purpose projects where the budget request is for $200 million, the percentage increase in cost has been negligible.

As we go through these projects, you will find there are some where there has been an increase, generally due to some change in conditions. In others, there has been a very decided decrease in cost.

Senator KNOWLAND. Where you are getting the decided decrease in cost, you are not taking up the slack by putting in new units or addi tional landscaping or something, are you?

DISCUSSION OF COST

General CHORPENING. No, sir. Our estimates are based on July of each year. So between July 1952 and July 1953, there was actually an increase countrywide in Engineering News Record cost index of nearly 6 percent, but overall, our own estimates, as shown in the justification sheets, have remained practically the same, just a few million dollars increase on over a billion dollars worth of work still to be placed.

Had we applied the countrywide cost index, there would have been a net increase of about $60 million. We did not do that, however, because of our own cost experience and the fact that we have been getting better bids. I believe that is responsive to the chairman's question on that point.

Senator KNOWLAND. I hope any saving that is made possible by getting better bids will be reflected to the credit of the Treasury and will not induce anyone to figure they can put in a couple of extra things that normally would be perhaps desirable but not absolutely essential.

General CHORPENING. Mr. Chairman, we are extremely alert to that and are scrutinizing extremely carefully any ideas along those lines. Furthermore, it is one of General Sturgis' particular interests that we eliminate any unnecessary refinements of design that may not be required to the proper operation of our projects.

On a number of our multiple-purpose projects, unless there are happenings not foreseeable now, I believe that we will be able to construct them for somewhat less than our present estimated costs. However, I am very reluctant to reduce those estimated costs too rapidly because, particularly in the early stages of construction, you can have troubles such as floods, cofferdam failures, or slides that would cause us to come back with an increased cost. I would rather, when we take a decrease, have it remain stable, and I am sure the Congress would desire the same thing.

Colonel DIXON. In that connection with Warrior and Demopolis, we now have under study the possibility of deleting some of the houses which have been shown in the justification. That study is not complete but we hope it will reduce the cost. We are eliminating what frills we can.

Senator KNOWLAND. The next item.

ARKANSAS RIVER AND TRIBUTARIES, ARKANSAS AND OKLAHOMA EMERGENCY BANK STABILIZATION, AND CHANNEL RECTIFICATION

Colonel DIXON. The next project to be discussed is the emergency bank stabilization on the Arkansas River. This project has been before the committee for a period of several years. It involves emergency bank-stabilization works to hold this wild, savage river within its banks and to prevent the erosion of valuable property and the destruction of protecting levees, pipelines, railroad bridges, and highway bridges. The total area to be protected involves over a million and a half acres.

We are requesting a total of $3 million to continue this emergency work. I might call the committee's attention to the increase in cost over what was testified to last year.

Senator KNOWLAND. I was just going to ask the witness about that. Perhaps you could give us a somewhat more complete breakdown as to the reasons for the increase in cost.

INCREASE IN REQUEST

Colonel DIXON. Yes, sir. As testified to last year, the cost of the emergency bank-stabilization project was $18,852,300. We are testifying today to a cost of $25,302,100, which represents an increase of $6,449,800.

I want to mention here that this increase is not a cost index increase nor is it the increase brought about by increased costs of work at specific locations. The increase is primarily due to the nature of the problem; that is, we cannot foresee many years in advance just what areas will become critical and where work will have to be done. So the majority of this cost increase pertains to new critical locations which we have found in the field and which should be protected.

Senator KNOWLAND. Of course, I realize the difficulty of the problem. We may want to reopen this again when Senator McClellan gets in here. But that is a pretty open-ended situation. If you go out on that kind of a basis, you might have the costs running into several hundreds of millions of dollars on the same theory.

Has there not been some preliminary type of an estimate as to what this might ultimately amount to, or is this just a completely openended affair where we are going to be presented with very substantial increases each year and no indication to the committee as to what we are getting involved in?

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