TRAFFIC While the rest of the intracoastal canal gained about 20 percent in traffic, roughly 7 million tons, in 1952, the alternate route remaining virtually at a standstill at slightly more than 2 million tons. In view of the increase in tonnage of the rest of the route, this amounts in effect to a denial of use of the alternate route. If it is not improved soon, this traffic will gradually dwindle away and the Nation will lose a variable navigable route which had been in use for almost 50 years. The defense system will lose an alternative entrance into the Mississippi of potential immense strategic value in case of war; the people of the Nation will have to write off a capital investment, and the Port Allen-Baton Rouge area will lose an integral part of a port program on which the State of Louisiana is currently spending some $15 million. Of course, the savings which should be available to waterways operators through the shortening of a route by 158 miles will be totally gone, too. As you will realize, they are already losing many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year because the alternate route is not available to many of today's modern tows because of the inadequate loss at Plaquemine, and because of the project depth and width. For instance, based upon the corps' figures of 1946 which estimated that tows using the alternate route saved 32 cents per ton by avoiding the 168-mile longer trip via New Orleans, a saving of $698,800 was realized for the 2,183,000 tons which actually passed over the alternate route in 1952. It is conceivable that at least another million tons and possibly 2 million more would have used the route if the present project had been completed with consequent additional transportation savings. COMMERCE I would like to call your attention to the fact that the city of Baton Rouge, La., just opposite the Port Allen town on the east bank of the Mississippi River, is the fartherest inland deep sea port on the Mississippi River and one of the fastest growing in the Nation. In 1942 its traffic was 7,744.000 tons, and in 1951 the tonnage was 13,159,000 tons, almost double. In 1952, the last year for which the corps' figures are available, it is a figure of 14,473,000. This was a rise of 1,314,000 tons over the previous year. Most of this tonnage was provided by Baton Rouge oil and chemical industries using their own private industrial bulk-handling docks and facilities. One public wharf is now available, the old Baton Rouge Municipal Dock, which our State commission is operating under lease. However, we are in the act of creating $15 million in new public port facilities. PORT FACILITIES I would like to ask you to look at map B, which shows the location. of our authorized new port facilities. It shows the location and you will note the shaded area on the west bank of Port Allen has been selected immediately adjacent to the new section of the alternate route, and that our east bank port site is only slightly southerly of the proposed new lock. One of the prime reasons for selecting these deepwater-port sites was their adjacency to the cutoff canal so that we could fulfill all of the Federal Government's requirements that local interests shall provide public-port facilities open to all on equal terms in connection with navigation projects. The location of an inland deepwater port at the head of ship navigation on the Mississippi, and at the northern terminus of the improved alternate route, a leg of the intracoastal canal, offers industrial and shipping advantages which are self-evident. We are taking a step which will certainly increase the efficiency of the inland waterway system. In amassing the traffic in engineering figures necessary for the sale of our $15 million in revenue bonds, we have had extensive dealings and understandings with present users of Baton Rouge port facilitiesand many more who want to base future plans upon a joint use of the port and the alternate route. They are all vitally concerned that it be built at the earliest possible moment. These waterway users are not local but represent business interests from the Twin Cities down to the mouth of the river from Brownsville, Tex. to Pittsburgh, Pa. The fiscal agents handling our State port financing consider our program interlocking with the alternate route project of the Federal Government. Both General Feringa, now retired as president of the Mississippi River Commission, and his successor, General Hardin, have assured us that the corps is ready to go ahead with the work when the construction funds are made available. Our own good faith and that of a good many movers of waterways tonnages, have been placed in the Federal Government's intent to carry out Congress' mandate to construct this improvement project. Our port is thus a new and vital factor in the justification for immediate construction of this project for which the basic justification was established at least 10 years ago and for which the need has become more and more pressing in the interim. I was very much interested in the preceding hearings in listening to the statements made by Texas representatives in regard to the intense industrial development on the gulf coast. INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENT May I tell the committee that in the town of Baton Rouge, La., we have three-quarters of a billion dollars of industrial investment; that we produced during the last war 90 percent of the tetraethel lead used in this country; that we produced over 85 percent of the highoctane gasoline used by our Armed Forces; that we are now on the verge of an expanded chemical program in the same area and are in direct contact not only with our present industries but with new chemical concerns who recognize Baton Rouge, with the completion of this alternate route, will stand at the crossroads of deepwater inland navigation, highway navigation, and rail navigation. It is a point 130 miles from the city of New Orleans with deep water. It is 260 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The instant saving to users of transportation will be so immense that the best judgment dictates that their future plans be based on Louisiana. The type of security which we issue for the construction of this port is a good faith security, the good faith of the State of Louisiana. Since this has been an authorized project for so many years and since all fiscal people interested in purchasing these bonds know this authorization, we, in effect, are insisting the Congress recognize the importance of our development, their prior commitment, and grant us an appropriation to begin this work. I have been advised by the other representatives of the Corps of Engineers that perhaps $2 million could be used; that dredging could start at Indian Village and proceed in the direction toward the Mississippi River while the corps is completing their plans and specifications for the design of the lock itself. We appreciate your courtesy and giving us this time and I have a prepared statement here, parts of which I have read, that I would like supplied for the record. (The statement referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF ERNEST D. WILSON, PRESIDENT, GREATER BATON ROUGE PORT COMMISSION, IN SUPPORT OF ADEQUATE APPROPRIATIONS FOR CORPS OF ENGINEERS, UNITED STATES ARMY, TO BEGIN CONSTRUCTION ON THE LOUISIANA-TEXAS INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY PLAQUEMINE-MORGAN CITY ALTERNATE ROUTE Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am Ernest D. Wilson of Baton Rouge, president of the Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission. We are a Louisiana State agency now engaged in the creation of $15 million in new public port facilities in the Baton Rouge area. I am also chairman of the Louisiana State Board of Commerce and Industry, an agency for coordinating industrial activity. In private life, I am in the steel fabricating and distribution business. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the project known as modification of the existing project for the Plaquemine-Morgan City route of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway as approved by the 79th Congress in 1946. I appeared here last year to urge immediate construction of the improvements needed for this alternate route of the Intracoastal Waterway, and I can only say that every reason for its early construction which was pertinent a year ago is much more urgent now. I believe I am correct in stating that the Bureau of the Budget has allowed $80,000 for further planning on this project for the fiscal year of 1955, and while we are not unmindful of the Federal Government's good wishes in the matter. I believe that the real need of the project is construction funds. In other words. the little bit of planning which remains to be done can well be merged with active work on the alternate route. I feel you gentlemen are sufficiently acquainted with the project that a brief summary will bring it back to you clearly even though I know you are confronted with the problem of digesting the details of a great many worthwhile Federal projects within a very brief time during these committee hearings. Let me invite your attention to this sketch of the Intracoastal Canal in our area which gives the navigation picture at a glance. I will leave a copy of this sketch (map A) with a brief of this testimony. As the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway crosses south Louisiana from west to east, you will recall that the alternate route leaves the main channel at Morgan City and goes northward, using various waterways to enter the Mississippi at Plaquemine, La., about 12 miles below Baton Rouge. In size, it is 9 by 100 feet compared with project dimensions 12 by 125 feet for the main channel of the waterway. The locks at Plaquemine are only 260 feet long by 55 feet wide, with a 10-foot sill. The project for which I urge construction funds, would improve the channel to 12 by 125 feet, the same as the rest of the Gulf Waterway. Also, it would depart from the present route at Indian Village, 8 miles west of Plaquemine, and by means of a new land cut of about 20 miles in length, enter the Mississippi River at Port Allen, opposite Baton Rouge, with new and adequate modern locks. The Corps of Engineers informs us these locks are now contemplated as 84 by 1,200 feet. If you would direct your attention to the top of the sketch, you will note that inland waterways commence moving down the Mississippi from north to west. or from Texas up the Mississippi River west to north, saves 168.9 miles by using the alternate route instead of having to go all the way to New Orleans before entering the river, or the Intracoastal Canal, as the case may be. I am not going to go into details of the inadequacies of the alternate route, since other witnesses have made a detailed study of that matter. I merely would like to point out that the alternate route was planned as early as 1898 and completed in 1909-and that it is the one remaining "horse and buggy" section on an otherwise modern marine superhighway. While the rest of the Intracoastal Canal gained about 20 percent in traffic, or roughly 7 million tons, in 1952, the alternate route remained virtually at a standstill at slightly more than 2 million tons. In view of the increase in tonnage over the rest of the route, this amounts in effect to a denial of use of the alternate route. If it is not improved soon, its traffic will gradually dwindle away and the Nation will lose a valuable navigable route which has been in use almost 50 years; the defense system will lose an alternative entrance into the Mississippi of potential immense strategic value in case of war; the people of the Nation will have to write off a capital investment--and the Port Allen-Baton Rouge area will lose an integral part of a port program on which the State of Louisiana is currently spending some $15 million. Of course, the savings which should be available to waterways operators through the shortening of a route by 168 miles will be totally gone, too. As you will realize, they are already losing many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year because the alternate route is not available to many of today's modern tows because of the inadequate locks at Plaquemine, and because of the project depth and width. For instance, based on the corps' figures of 1946 which estimated that tows using the alternate route saved 32 cents per ton by avoiding the 168-mile longer trip via New Orleans, a savings of $698,800 was realized for the 2,183,000 tons which actually passed over the alternate route in 1952. It is conceivable that at least another million tons and possibly two million more would have used the route if the present project had been completed with consequent additional transportation savings. The port of Baton Rouge is the farthest inland deepwater port on the Mississippi, and one of the fastest growing in the Nation. In 1942 its traffic was 7,744,000 tons. In 1951 its tonnage was 13,159,000-almost doubled. In 1952, the last year for which I have the corps' figures, the tonnage was 14,473,000. This was a rise of 1,314,000 tons over the previous year. Most of this tonnage was provided by Baton Rouge's oil and chemical industries using their own private industrial bulk handling docks. One public wharf is now available, the old Baton Rouge municipal dock which our State commission is operating under lease. But we are in the act of creating $15 million in new public port facilities, as I mentioned a moment ago. I would like to ask you to look at this map (map B) which shows the location of our authorized new port facilities. You will note the shaded area on the west bank at Port Allen has been selected immediately adjacent to the new section of the alternate route and that our east bank port site is only slightly southerly of the proposed new lock. One of the prime reasons for selecting these deepwater port sites was their adjacency to the cutoff canal so that we could fulfill all of the Federal Government's requirements that local interests shall provide public port facilities open to all on equal terms in connection with navigation projects. The location of an inland deepwater port at the head of ship navigation on the Mississippi, and at the northern terminus of the improved alternate route, a leg of the Intracoastal Canal, offers industrial and shipping advantages which are self-evident. We are taking a step which will certainly increase the efficiency of the inland waterway system. In amassing the traffic and engineering figures necessary for the sale of our $15 million in revenue bonds,we have had extensive dealing and understandings with present users of Baton Rouge port facilities-and many more who want to base future plans upon a joint use of the port and the alternate route. They are all vitally concerned that it be built at the earliest possible moment. These waterways users are not local-but represent business interests from Twin Cities down to the mouth of the river, from Brownsville, Tex., to Pittsburgh, Pa. The fiscal agents handling our State port financing consider our program interlocking with the alternate route project of the Federal Government. Both General Feringa, now retired as president of the Mississippi River Commission, and his successor, General Hardin, have assured us that the corps is ready to go ahead with the work when the construction funds are made available. Our own good faith, and that of a good many movers of waterways ton The type of security which we issue for the construction of this port is a good faith security, the good faith of the State of Louisiana. Since this has been an authorized project for so many years and since all fiscal people interested in purchasing these bonds know this authorization, we, in effect, are insisting the Congress recognize the importance of our development, their prior commitment, and grant us an appropriation to begin this work. I have been advised by the other representatives of the Corps of Engineers that perhaps $2 million could be used; that dredging could start at Indian Village and proceed in the direction toward the Mississippi River while the corps is completing their plans and specifications for the design of the lock itself. We appreciate your courtesy and giving us this time and I have a prepared statement here, parts of which I have read, that I would like supplied for the record. (The statement referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF ERNEST D. WILSON, PRESIDENT, GREATER BATON ROUGE PORT COMMISSION, IN SUPPORT OF ADEQUATE APPROPRIATIONS FOR CORPS OF ENGINEERS, UNITED STATES ARMY, TO BEGIN CONSTRUCTION ON THE LOUISIANA-TEXAS INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY PLAQUEMINE-MORGAN CITY ALTERNATE ROUTE Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am Ernest D. Wilson of Baton Rouge, president of the Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission. We are a Louisiana State agency now engaged in the creation of $15 million in new public port facilities in the Baton Rouge area. I am also chairman of the Louisiana State Board of Commerce and Industry, an agency for coordinating industrial activity. In private life, I am in the steel fabricating and distribution business. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the project known as modification of the existing project for the Plaquemine-Morgan City route of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway as approved by the 79th Congress in 1946. I appeared here last year to urge immediate construction of the improvements needed for this alternate route of the Intracoastal Waterway, and I can only say that every reason for its early construction which was pertinent a year ago is much more urgent now. I believe I am correct in stating that the Bureau of the Budget has allowed $80,000 for further planning on this project for the fiscal year of 1955, and while we are not unmindful of the Federal Government's good wishes in the matter, I believe that the real need of the project is construction funds. In other words, the little bit of planning which remains to be done can well be merged with active work on the alternate route. I feel you gentlemen are sufficiently acquainted with the project that a brief summary will bring it back to you clearly even though I know you are confronted with the problem of digesting the details of a great many worthwhile Federal projects within a very brief time during these committee hearings. Let me invite your attention to this sketch of the Intracoastal Canal in our area which gives the navigation picture at a glance. I will leave a copy of this sketch (map A) with a brief of this testimony. As the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway crosses south Louisiana from west to east, you will recall that the alternate route leaves the main channel at Morgan City and goes northward, using various waterways to enter the Mississippi at Plaquemine, La., about 12 miles below Baton Rouge. In size, it is 9 by 100 feet compared with project dimensions 12 by 125 feet for the main channel of the waterway. The locks at Plaquemine are only 260 feet long by 55 feet wide, with a 10-foot sill. The project for which I urge construction funds, would improve the channel to 12 by 125 feet, the same as the rest of the Gulf Waterway. Also, it would depart from the present route at Indian Village, 8 miles west of Plaquemine, and by means of a new land cut of about 20 miles in length, enter the Mississippi River at Port Allen, opposite Baton Rouge, with new and adequate modern locks. The Corps of Engineers informs us these locks are now contemplated as 84 by 1,200 feet. If you would direct your attention to the top of the sketch, you will note that inland waterways commence moving down the Mississippi from north to west. or from Texas up the Mississippi River west to north, saves 168.9 miles by using |