Mr. PICKETT. In other words, as the result of a request that came from some other branch of the executive Government than the Department of Agriculture, and the work which you are engaged in, which is endorsed by the Bureau of the Budget, the Appropriations Committees of the two Houses wrote into their report certain language that you had to abide by?

Mr. DYKES. That is right.

Mr. PICKETT. And funds for the project are not even authorized and we do not get even minor treatment to some of the minor projects that have been authorized; that is the effect, is it not?

Mr. DYKES. No, sir; the Missouri was authorized in the act of 1937. It had the status that we could have gone to work on it since 1937.

Mr. PICKETT. Perhaps that was not the technically correct interpretation of the effect of it, but say at least it gave the project strict priority over anything else?

Mr. DYKES. Yes, sir. The funds were appropriated in such a way that we used them there or not at all.

Mr. PICKETT. What would it take to get the situation straightened out so that a reasonable amount of money allocated in total in the appropriation could be apportioned to the rest of the watersheds? The CHAIRMAN. Why do you not include the smaller watersheds in your answer, Mr. Dykes?

Mr. DYKES. Mr. Pickett, I am not sure whether I could tell you what it would cost to complete the surveys in the rest of the watersheds in the country.

Mr. PICKETT. I mean, whether language or action taken on the part of the Congress would be required to utilize a reasonable proportion of the funds that are appropriated for the soil conservation surveys on other watersheds than the Missouri Basin.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you answer the question, if you can, Mr. Dykes?

Mr. DYKES. Yes, sir. It would not require any action on the part of the Congress. In my statement before you we have these watersheds that are under survey at the present time.

The CHAIRMAN. We have that in the record now, do we not?

Mr. DYKES. Yes, sir. You have that in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Do not repeat what we have in the record, if you do not mind.

Mr. DYKES. What I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is that it is not necessary for the Congress to tell us to go to work on these smaller watersheds; and I am putting in the record a statement that shows where we are working, and there are many outside of the Missouri. There are none as large as the Missouri, it is true, but there are a considerable number of them and widely scattered throughout the country?

Mr. PICKETT. What I am specifically interested in is the resolution to survey the lower Trinity River, and I am sure that there are others in the same position in the country that have not been able to be accorded any treatment and any survey work done on them because there was not enough money to go around.

Mr. DYKES. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon the interruption, but I want to say that I think Mr. Pickett is exactly right because we do not have a single report in this committee, and the last one we authorized was in 1944.

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Mr. PICKETT. Part of the reason for these smaller watersheds not being able to be given any treatment and additional further surveys under the resolution authorized is accounted for by the situation you described; that is, where the language in the appropriation bill and report restricted the use of the funds, and directed the funds to be used to the extent of several hundred thousand dollars on the Missouri River Basin.

Now, what can the Congress do to rectify the situation, if I may use that word, and be sure that the Little Sioux and the Trinity and other rivers in this country can get a reasonable part of the money to go to work on those surveys?

Mr. DYKES. I am sorry, sir; I cannot tell you. I think we are proceeding with the survey program in an orderly manner, and if you will turn to page 3 of the statement which I have just filed with you gentlemen, I have pointed that out.

The CHAIRMAN. Read that sentence, please.

Mr. DYKES. It is to the effect that the survey program was suspended during the war period and we really got back to work in May 1946 on the survey program, and since the period of 1946 we have pushed up six surveys including the Missouri River. In addition to that, the field work is completed on a dozen or more other watersheds, which you will find under item 6 on page 4 of my statement, and that field work is under way in others.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any field work on the lower Trinity?

Mr. DYKES. No, sir; there is none on the lower Trinity. That was an action of the Congress last year. We have it budgeted to begin in 1950 fiscal year.

The CHAIRMAN. You see what you are up against?

Mr. DYKES. I understand, Mr. Chairman. Of course, I am extremely interested in that because I was born and raised there.

Mr. DONDERO. Suppose the Congress removed the restriction now in the appropriations bill so that there is no direction to you to use certain money in certain places; then whose judgment would be used in allocating the moneys allotted to you in a lump sum?

Mr. DYKES. The Department of Agriculture, Mr. Dondero, and actually, the restrictive language has been removed. It is not in either the House or Senate bill for the 1950 fiscal year.

Mr. LARCADE. From your statement, Mr. Dykes, I do not see where you have any projects under consideration for the State of Louisiana. Mr. DONDERO. Or Michigan.

Mr. LARCADE. I want to know why we have not been able to get any of this work done in my State?

Mr. DYKES. I would say to you, sir, that there has been started a survey on the Red River.

Mr. LARCADE. I notice that.

Mr. DYKES. That does get into quite a considerable area of the State of Louisiana.

Mr. LARCADE. Yes; but you have in that Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico. I am just wondering how much consideration the State of Louisiana would get in an over-all program of that type, and I have particular reference to the southwest area of Louisiana; that is, the Calcasieu River Basin, the Mermentau, and the Atchafalaya. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Dykes.

Mr. DYKES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Representative Jensen, we understand that you would like to make a statement, and I would like to say before you begin, for the benefit of the committee, that Mr. Jensen, before the hearings began on flood control, and during the hearings, has been most diligent in an effort to ascertain when the over-all report on the Missouri River Basin would be made. As you are aware, Mr. Jensen, it was brought out yesterday that this report had been transmitted to the budget, at the time publicity was given to the report, and at the time you and other Members of the Congress from the Missouri Basin were furnished with a copy of the report. Yesterday the chairman of the committee was furnished with a copy of the report for the first time. That matter is not before us because the report has not been transmitted to the Congress, and will not be considered by the committee.

We will be glad to have your statement at this time, Mr. Jensen.

STATEMENT OF BEN F. JENSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

Mr. JENSEN. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief.

I want to thank the chairman and the members of the committee for giving me this privilege.

Of course, as you know, I am greatly interested in the Missouri Valley program. I have five counties bordering on the main stem of the Missouri River covering a distance of approximately 115 miles, and we have a flood problem there which is second to none in this Nation. Right at this time, a lot of land is now under water. The June floods are soon to come.

Now, my people are anxious that Congress act quickly to authorize the report in question which is necessary before construction can begin on valley-wide projects, such as Congressman Pickett speaks of.

I want to assure you, Congressman Pickett, that the people of the Missouri Valley would not want to take priority over your project. All they expect is a fair share of the money that will be expended for this purpose.

you

I hope that the report of the Agriculture Department, of which speak, Mr. Chairman, will be submitted to this committee very soon from the Bureau of the Budget. Of course, it is possible that the report covers a little more territory than some of the members of the committee may feel is justified. As you know, of course, the Congress last year directed the Agriculture Department to have the Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service make a survey and a report on the Missouri River Basin, which was done. As I understand, that report has been completed. Then the Agriculture Department went a little further; they thought it was necessary to get a more comprehensive report. That is the report they have now submitted to the Bureau of the Budget.

Of course, my fear and the fear of the people in the flood area of the Missouri River Valley is that we will not get a report to Congress in time to have it authorized by this session of Congress. If we do not, it will be at least another year in the future before we can begin to solve the flood problem now damaging so many valleys all over America. Down in my section of the country, the farmers are getting together in the tributary watersheds and are organizing; that is, trying to get

every farmer to practice soil conservation. They set up what they call flood control and soil conservation associations. The businessmen and the farmers and everybody are interested in it, because it is everybody's problem.

Of course, the best and cheapest way to prevent floods is to hold the water where it falls. Soil conservation is flood prevention, not flood control, because you help prevent the flood from happening when you stop the water up on the hills where it belongs so it does not take the mud and muck along into the streams which creates floods and the siltation of your streams. So this is a very important program; there is nothing more important to the future of this country than soil conservation for flood prevention, which is going to be of great help to the Army engineers in the job they have to do also, since a big part of their job is to control floods.

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask you, Mr. Jensen, is any of this area. out in your district, particularly in the Little Sioux?

Mr. JENSEN. Yes; the Little Sioux is in my district.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought so.

Mr. JENSEN. I want to compliment the Soil Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture for the wonderful job they are doing on the soil conservation program.

The CHAIRMAN. Just describe for the committee what type of work they are doing in your district on the Little Sioux on the watershed problem, please.

Mr. JENSEN. We will say here [indicating] is the whole Little Sioux watershed. There are many smaller tributaries leading away from the Little Sioux River. There are from 500 to 3,000 acres on those subwatersheds and there are hundreds of them. The farmers contour terrace and fill their little gulleys to stop as much of the water as they can where it falls. Then the Soil Conservation Service comes along under the authority which they have and build dirt dams with concrete spillways in them to let the water through.

The CHAIRMAN. How high are those dams?

Mr. JENSEN. Some of them will be 40 or 50 feet high, some 20 feet high, some 10 feet high. To catch the water they put those dams across the valleys at certain intervals, from a few hundred feet to a quarter of a mile apart.

The CHAIRMAN. They dam the river on the Little Sioux. My recollection is that you were instrumental in securing a flood-control project on the river itself; were you not?

Mr. JENSEN. That is right. We stop as much of the water as we can on the tributaries-that is flood prevention and soil conservation-but we cannot stop all of it. When Missouri River main stream is high it holds back the water in the Little Sioux and, of course, that pushes the water back into the little subtributaries. The Army engineers then keep the silt out of the main stem of the Little Sioux, and also build levees which are high enough to keep the water from flooding the land.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to ask you, Mr. Jensen, purely as a matter of information on this point. We had a member yesterday tell us that levees were 60 feet in his community and it developed that they were 16 feet. He made a lapse in language. How about these 40foot reservoirs? Do you remember the size of any particular dam that you have in mind, because a 40-foot dam is a pretty good dam.

Mr. JENSEN. Yes; I traveled over them. As a matter of fact, I walked all over those areas where they are building those dams on the Little Sioux. There is one subwatershed there which has a large dam that goes across a valley that must be a quarter of a mile wide. The CHAIRMAN. How does the water go through the dam?

Mr. JENSEN. They have a concrete spillway underneath which will keep the dam from silting up. Of course, they have smaller dams downstream which hold the water and slows up the flow so it stops cutting.

Then, of course, the farmers will build ponds; that is, they build dams between their hills, which also stop gully cutting as well as to hold the water.

The CHAIRMAN. I am very much interested in your statement about these dams because for whatever my views are worth, I think, on the tributaries, if they are doing that on the Little Sioux, they might well do it on other projects in the country, for the reason that is where our trouble arises.

Mr. JENSEN. The Little Sioux got ahead of the 11 projects of that kind in the country. It is more or less a model project, hence it is costing more than we will need to spend hereafter, but they had to do as they did in order to test the value of these dams that they put in before the proper amount of work had been done on the tilled land.

The CHAIRMAN. We have the amount that has been spent up there. Mr. DONDERO. I want to ask Congressman Jensen one question, Mr. Chairman.

Is there any complaint on your part of the procedure by the Department of Agriculture or the Soil Conservation Service in regard to filing a report on a large comprehensive plan rather than on specific plans?

Mr. JENSEN. I am sure the committee is well able to take care of that situation themselves. However, the thing that disturbs me is that the Congress may be hesitant in authorizing this huge over-all program during this session of Congress. I think it is very vital and very necessary that we get construction under way on the watersheds because every year we let it go the greater is our problem, and the more it costs. The quicker we get started the more money we can save the taxpayers of America. The benefits that will accrue to the people in the entire Nation will be enormous in time to come.

Mr. DONDERO. That seems very reasonable.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pickett, do you have a question?

Mr. PICKETT. I want to say this, Mr. Jensen, that certainly your Missouri River Basin program will be treated as sympathetically by me as any other one.

Mr. JENSEN. I am sure of that. I have used the Missouri River in its. present status, because of its great size and cost to make the survey, as an illustration to compare with those on smaller watersheds, to show what I think is the proper differentiation to be made between small programs treated as a whole and to make a major program when finally developed. I do that because you have pointed out the difficulty when you referred to the fact that the Congress may be hesitant to adopt a comprehensive program that calls for such a sum of money as the Missouri River program that is contained in the report. I feel that the report has taken too long and required too much money for