I examined that document, and before I got through with it the Bureau of Reclamation over on the Senate side filed a report, No. 191; and, while the Army engineers were proposing to build the Garrison Dam to develop the upper Missouri River, the Reclamation Bureau, in this Document 191, decided to take the water out of the Missouri River below the Fort Peck Dam so as not to interfere with the reservoir and take the water across the country down into the Devils Lake area, and on the way irrigate 1,300,000 acres, and build power, power enough to take care of North Dakota, eastern Montana, and western Minnesota. And no dam in the river at all on the main channel, not

a one.

Well, I was a Member of Congress at that time, and so were most of you gentlemen. And here we were confronted with two different plans. Neither one was like the other. So we sent them out, 475, and 191. We sent the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army engineers out to see if they could not come together on a common plan. And they did; and that is House Document 234.

They went out and came to an agreement on just what this great Pick-Sloan plan was. That is the origin of what is now known as the Pick-Sloan plan. One side of it has been developed, but not the other.

Appropriations have already been made for the Garrison Dam, but you do not have any appropriations outside of investigation for the other program, which carries water to North Dakota, which builds all the power we want without any dam.

So these 4 engineers agreed that on the Garrison Dam the Army engineers should have control of navigation and flood control, and the Bureau of Reclamation would keep out of that; and at the same time the Army engineers gave up irrigation and the development of power. That was to be under their jurisdiction, except power enough to build the dam. Those were the divisions that brought together these two reports.

And when this report, House Document 234, was filled, Congress then passed a law. And the reason why we are here today is because Congress did not go far enough. All we did was to accept the agreement of those two organizations. When the law was passed, it was just as recommended by the Army engineers; they said they wanted 17,000,000 acre-feet of impounded water.

Mr. DONDERO. Mr. Burdick, was that agreement of the two agencies of the Government reduced to writing?

Mr. BURDICK. Yes, sir. That is in report 247. It is in writing, signed by the Army engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.

The CHAIRMAN. What is it you are quoting from there? What are you quoting from, from that report, now? That is the law authorizing the adoption of the project.

Now, in what part of that is the agreement that you refer to, limiting this approval?

Mr. BURDICK. That is in a little document known as Senate Document 247.

The CHAIRMAN. Under the language in that document, approval is limited?

Mr. BURDICK. It says 17,000,000 acre-feet.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, I beg your pardon.

Mr. BURDICK. Mr. Lemke has explained to you that 17,000,000 acrefeet means 1,830 above sea level and 23,000,000 acre-feet would mean 1,850 above sea level. But in the document itself that the Army engi neers first filed, and in the document on which they agreed, you will find 17,000,000 acre-feet. You will find it in both. It has never been changed. There is no law authorizing a dam to hold more than 17,000,000 acre-feet, to this minute, in this Government.

Now, then, our plan is to hold the Army engineers by legislative action if we can. But we will hold them anyhow. Because it is a violation of law to build it higher.

Now, then, the chairman says, "They have acquired 43,000 acres of this extra amount of land." If they have, they have acquired every acre of it unlawfully, because they have never been authorized to acquire any land higher than the 1,830-foot level.

When we put the provision in the law limiting the pool behind the dam to 1.830, we also put a limitation in prohibiting the building of dikes. We thought that would take care of it. We did not surmise that these Army engineers would go out and buy land for a higher level. But they did. And, according to your chairman-and I do not know whether it is true or not-they have acquired 43,000 acres.

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me. I asked Mr. Lemke if that was not a fact, and I will undertake to give you the source of that information when you have concluded.

Mr. BURDICK. I know you would not say that unless you had the information. I think it can be concluded that they have done that. But that does not say it is right.

Now, do you suppose the taxpayers of North Dakota are going to stand idly by, when we have courts, and see these Army engineers buy 43,000 acres of land that they have not any authority to buy? Do you think we are going to stand for that? But, if we have to go there, that is where we will go.

But as long as Congress made this mistake, by simply blanketing over an agreement, instead of writing a law, we have the right to come in here and ask you to correct it.

Now, then, let me tell you this. There is another angle to this case. If that dam was unsafe at 10,000,000 acre-feet, do you think it is any safer at 17,000,000 acre-feet? Do you thing that 85 feet of mud in the bottom of the Missouri River has disappeared and that granite has suddenly come up to take its place?

You had an experience like that out in California, when the dam went out, which was built on mud. You have had several experiences, and my files contain five or six of them, where they have built a huge earthen work based upon a foundation of mud and quickstand, and they have all been failures.

But the Fort Peck Dam was built on much better ground than this. There were some stone outcroppings from the foothills of the Bearpaw Mountain that they could hang to. Yet, twice now that dam has had difficulty. One time it went out with a loss, I think, of four human lives, a section of it. But here you are basing a dam on 85 feet of mud with no rock anywhere, unless you carry it in yourself.

Now, I say to you: Do not put any more pressure on that dam, unless you have to, until you find out it is safe. What a position we would be in here, as Congressmen, to authorize the building af a huge

earth dam to hold 23,000,000 acre-feet of water, that might flood the entire valley. Just let time demonstrate whether it is safe and let time demonstrate whether it is necessary.

Mr. DONDERO. Mr. Chairman, is it contemplated to build an earthen dam or a concrete dam?

Mr. BURDICK. An earthen dam. And I have lived along the Missouri all my life, and I can take a lath and punch in on the side of that river, and punch in a little rivulet, and the next day the Missouri River is there. Two years ago I acquired half a section of land that was washed in by the river.

Mr. DONDERO. What was that?

Mr. BURDICK. That was washed in. I did not have it the year before, but at the end of that year I had a half section of new land. And I thought I was doing well.

The CHAIRMAN. That is characteristic of the Missouri?

Mr. BURDICK. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.

Mr. BURDICK. And last year, it came along and took those two quarters and two more that I had the year before.

The CHAIRMAN. So you ran for Congress.

Mr. BURDICK. I had to. I had no other place to go.

Now, then, I will tell you what happens. God pity those fellows who live below a dam. We live below one now, the Fort Peck Dam. In the early days, way back in the early eighties, when we inhabited that country, we had one damaging June flood. That was when the waters came down from the hills, from the mountains, and washed away some of our land. But now we have a June flood every time they open the gates at Fort Peck. Last year we had nine of them. And it will cut the land all to pieces, below that dam. Because of the many freshets that are coming down there from turning loose this water.

As for this extra 20 feet that the Army engineers want, I know what they want it for. I can tell you now what they want it for. There is a demand in North Dakota that Devil's Lake be filled. And if they can run this up 20 feet higher, they can pump water out of that dam and get it into the Devil's Lake area, and do some irrigation in the meantime. But they cannot do it if the dam does not go up 20 feet more. That is, they say they cannot do it economically. But what business have the Army engineers to be tinkering with the filling of Devil's Lake with water? That was left to the Bureau of Reclamation. And if you will follow the Sloan plan, that is a part of this plan, you will see that the water comes into Devil's Lake from a dam in the Missouri River below Fort Peck. Have we not flood control enough with 1830? Yes, sir. There has not been an engineer that ever testified that 1830 would not do as much for flood control as 1850. As a matter of fact, our waters have very little effect on the spring floods in the South.

Mr. McGREGOR. If I could interrupt, there: If it was only 1830, you would have a larger potential basin, and you would have more actual potential flood control at 1830 than at a higher elevation?

Mr. BURDICK. I will say to you that 80 percent of all the floods in the South occurred when that river fills up. You do not have many floods in the South in July and August.

The CHAIRMAN. No one ever contended that this helped us out down. there.

Mr. DONDERO. I understand that this was built primarily as a reservoir dam to stop floods. Your statement now is that every time they open the faucets, it floods your land.

Mr. BURDICK. Yes; it floods everybody's land along the river.
Mr. MCGREGOR. It floods the lands below the dam?

Mr. BURDICK. I do not want you to get the impression that we are not concerned with Louisiana and their floods, or Mississippi, and we will do our part. But do not do any more damage than is necessary; so that we will not have to take it all in North Dakota.

Now, it is a pretty bad scheme. I do not have so very much land of my own, personally, under this water, and I could sell it, I presume. I could sell it to almost anybody for $100 an acre. If there is any poor land there, I never saw it. There is some land that is not considered valuable because there is timber on it, but none of that land is unfit for cultivation. When you can raise 30 busheds of flax to the acre, and sell it for $5 a bushel, or $5.60, it must be some kind of land. But around my neighborhood, there is just neighbor after neighbor with his house and his family and a little bunch of cattle, raising alfalfa · and a garden and grain, and they are just thriving down there.

When the winters come along, as has been true for the last 65 years, to my knowledge, all along that Missouri River there is a haven for the stockmen. Their cattle come in there. This winter, of all the cattle that came into the valley of the Missouri River you never heard of one of them dying. There is sweet clover as high as I am there, and the sweet clover is green in the wintertime down there. And there is a regular paradise for cattle all along that river.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to interrupt you. I am very sympathetic always with landowners. It strikes me from what you say about this dam that it ought never to have been authorized. And, secondly, if authorized, it ought never to have been constructed.

Now, then, in view of that statement, have you opposed the appropriation for this dam? Do you think it is fair now to undertake to strike one out? If you have spent $10,000,000 and it is going to cost $200,000,000? What do you think? I have high regard for your views about this matter of discontinuing the work up there, and letting that dam go.

Mr. BURDICK. I will answer you. I have never testified anywhere but what I called attention to the fact that there is a possibility of that dam being unsafe.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, there is a possibility of practically every dam in the country being unsafe. But above you there, you have Fort Peck. That holds back 19,000,000 acre-feet, as I understand.

Mr. BURDICK. I have never taken any part in any agreement to build that dam higher than enough to contain a reservoir of 17,000,000 acre-feet.

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me. I am not talking about this dam. I am talking about the Fort Peck Dam, above you, there. That Fort Peck Dam is an earthen dam, and my understanding is that it has a storage of 19,000,000 acre-feet. But if this will not contain 10,000,000 acrefeet, much less 17,000,000 acre-feet, it looks to be that it is dangerous for the people of North Dakota or South Dakota or the people along the Missouri River Basin to continue to urge that the dam be built to any height.

Mr. BURDICK. It absolutely is.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am trying to say is that there has been no motion at any time, as I recall, to strike this dam from any of the appropriations, either in the House or in the Senate.

Mr. BURDICK. No; we have been getting all that the could possibly get.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I thought; like everybody else. Mr. BURDICK. But we never got what we wanted. And we probably will not, here before this committee.

Mr. DONDERO. Is there any money to be saved if you keep it at 1830? Mr. BURDICK. Well, I will tell you what it will do. It will save you $5,400,000. Of course, that is not much, you know. Because I do not even go and vote over here unless there is a billion involved, and neither do you.

Here is what it will save. It will save $5,400,000 in the purchase of this extra 90,000 acres of land to accommodate this 20 feet. And it will flood three irrigation projects and the Government already has $5,000,000 in there; and anybody with any horse sense would not attempt to raise crops on irrigated land behind one of those earthen dams built on the mud of the Missouri River. Because it seeps. And we have tried that out for years. It seeps, an dthe land beyond the dam becomes sour and alkali. And I will assure you of another thing. Of all those then and women who are living there now on those projects and making a good living, and who do not owe this Government 1 cent, and who are ahead in their payments, not one of them will remain. Because they are not going to farm behind dikes.

The CHAIRMAN. Unfortunately, that is true with respect to many, many reservoirs and dams in the United States.

Mr. BURDICK. The Great Northern Railroad Co., the only railroad we have, has 6, 8, or 10 trains going out of Williston, and coming back at night, and they have already testified before the Appropriations Committee that they will not attempt to operate their railroads behind dikes, and will move the railroad system 9 miles north of Williston.

There is a program on there now at Williston of several million dollars this year in the building of buildings.

Mr. McGREGOR. How many miles of relocation will this increase from 1,830 to 1,850 mean?

Mr. BURDICK. At the present time, the 1,830 will come within about 15 miles of Williston; and if you put it up to 1,850, it will go that far beyond Williston.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. How big a city is Williston?

Mr. BURDICK. According to the Elks count, which usually is higher than the regular amount, there are over 12,000. I am a member, myself. But I think Mr. Lemke's statement is correct, that there are at least 10,000 people in the city of Williston.

And remember now, gentlemen. You have authorized another irrigation project around Williston that will be flooded. That will be four.

Mr. Lemke says Williston will be partially flooded. I say to you it will all be flooded. There will be a few buildings left on the pinnacles, there; and no railroads; with water to the west, the east, the north, and the Missouri on the south.

Where are you going to go for the city? There will not be any city. The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me. I do not want to interrupt the continuity of your thought.

Mr. BURDICK. You could not, because there is no continuity.

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