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STATEMENT OF HON. J. FRANK WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. DAVIS. Congressman Wilson.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I have two gentlemen here with me who know more about this project than I do, Mr. Fritz Lanham, a former Representative, and Mr. Dale Miller, representing the Dallas District Chamber of Commerce.

This is a very important project of the Trinity River flood-control

matter.

As stated by the colonel, there are four or five lakes which are under active construction at this time.

This internal drainage proposition is a very serious matter as demonstrated by the very recent flood, and you may have noticed it in the newspapers, where Fort Worth was covered some 11 feet deep in some downtown places, and 13,000 people were made homeless, and where it knocked out their power system and their water filtration plants.

It was not as serious in the city of Dallas, but there was a 12-inch rain in Fort Worth and a 5-inch rain in Dallas, as it comes down the Trinity River.

The city of Dallas has spent, along with the property owners through bond issues, about $6,500,000 on this. They built 20 miles of levee, 60 feet high on each side of the South Trinity River Fork channel, and the city of Dallas itself has spent something like $6,000,000 in years gone by, not on this present project, but to try to handle and control these floodwaters that come down from the Trinity River from the North Fork to the South Fork through tributaries and creeks that run into it.

We think this is a very important project in connection with the Trinity River flood-control district to handle these waters and keep them off thousands of acres of fertile land south of Dallas, not just in the city of Dallas alone.

The city of Dallas in 1908 had a flood which put water in the downtown Dallas district some 12 to 15 feet deep.

If such a flood happened at this date and time it would cause millions of dollars' worth of damage, and, of course, many casualties; there is no doubt about that.

The present levees, so far as they go, are very fine, but even this last flood ran around the end of them and with the internal drainage that comes in from the city of Dallas and surrounding territory there is nearly as much water behind the levees as there is within the levees. So, this is very important to the flood-control district.

I would like to ask Mr. Dale Miller if he would come around and make a statement.

The CHAIRMAN. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions?

Mr. PICKETT. I would like to ask Mr. Wilson one question. Mr. Wilson, in view of the lack of ability to handle the interior drainage that comes into Dallas from heavy rains in that area, is it true or not that about once a year or more often when you have a heavy rain that affects the basements and sometimes the first floors of buildings in the city of Dallas by the water that accumulates?

Mr. WILSON. Oh, yes.

Mr. PICKETT. And it is frequently necessary for the business houses who use these basements and first floors to take their property out or suffer further damage as a result of this accumulation of water? Mr. WILSON. Oh, yes; that is very true.

The city of Dallas has contributed to two of these lakes, and will contribute about $5,000,000 to Grapevine and Garza-Little Dam. The city of Dallas is contributing $5,000,000, and has contributed already something over $1,000,000 now that they are actually working on and using, that is, on the two lakes.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wilson, I suggest that there is a desperate situation there, and if you would like to return later, you may. You were sitting here and you heard me ask Colonel Gee to give us the flood-control act under which this was authorized, and we wound up by finding out that it is a river-and-harbor act, not a flood-control act. Mr. WILSON. I will come back at whatever time the chairman says. The CHAIRMAN. Iwould suggest that Colonel Moore be here and give us an abstract on this and tell us where there is any possibility to giving consideration to an amendment of the act.

COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN

(Army engineers revised 308 report)

STATEMENT OF HON, WARREN G. MAGNUSON, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

Mr. DAVIS. Senator Magnuson, will you come around, please? The committee will be glad to hear you at this time.

Senator MAGNUSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I will be very brief because I appreciate that your time is very short this morning.

There are two matters to which I would like to call the attention of the committee and make some suggestions.

You have heard several witnesses, of course, including the Army engineers on the so-called 308 report, which is the comprehensive report of the Army engineers on the Great Columbia River Basin.

I have a statement which I respect fully request be put in the record without taking up the time of the committee.

I would merely like to suggest that we also have pending before the Congress two so-called Columbia Valley Administration bills. The Senate tomorrow will begin hearings on the bill introduced over there by myself and 18 other Senators as cosponsors.

I hope that there will be no conflict between this other bill and the comprehensive report of the Army engineers and the objectives sought in the so-called Columbia Valley Administration bill. The engineers' report, which is a very fine and able report on the potentialities of the Columbia Basin, should be carried out as far as we can carry it out pending the enactment by Congress of any administration of authority, which would intergrate all of the functions of the Government in the Columbia Basin.

Mr. ANGELL. May I interrupt, Mr. Chairman, to say at this point to Senator Magnuson that the committee in the hearings thus far has elicited information from the Army engineers indicating that this so

called 308 report does not in any way conflict with the Columbia Valley Authority legislation to which you have called our attention. The Engineers say that the two are not in conflict, and regardless of how 308 is carried out, being an engineering program, whether by an authority or under existing regulations and laws or some other regulations, this report is germane and should have the attention of the Congress.

Senator MAGNUSON. I appreciate, Congressman Angell, your observation, and I hope that that will be the case because the problems involved in both reports and in both proposals are, of course, all directed toward the same end and the same goal.

Senator MAGNUSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, last Friday and again today you have heard a number of witnesses, including Army engineers, on the so-called revised 308 report on the Columbia Basin. This, together with a companion report by the Bureau of Reclamation, constitutes the combined thinking of these two agencies of the Federal Government on immediate and long-range development of the Columbia River system. Local and State agencies have participated in the development of the Columbia River system. Local and State agencies have participated in the development of the construction plan incorporated in this report, as have other agencies of the Federal Government. The combined program here presented involves authorization of 24 projects and ultimate expenditures of approximately $3,000,000,000.

The revised 308 report, that of the Bureau of Reclamation, and the so-called Bureau-Corps agreement represent the first broad-scale attempt to integrate the work of these and other agencies of the Federal Government operating in the basin. Together these proposals, when and if carried to fruition, will provide a main flood-control plan for the Columbia and its tributaries, will bring to the region an additional four to five million kilowatts of electric energy, will provide navigable waters to a large share of what we call the inland empire, and will place water on an additional 300,000 acres of land.

As I understand it, the revised 308 report is not yet officially before your committee. Neither has the revised report of the Bureau of Reclamation been officially submitted to the Public Lands Committee. Our discussion here today, therefore, is necessarily preliminary in character. I am convinced, however, that when the reports are placed before the two committees of the House and Senate, there will be incorporated substantially the same recommendations contained in the unofficial copies most of us have received.

Under present procedure the Public Works Committees of House and Senate will consider the 308 report. House Public Lands and Senate Interior-Insular Affairs will consider the Bureau's revised recommendations. In a way this segmentation of responsibility is unfortunate. The Columbia River and its tributaries represent a region containing water, land, mineral, fish, and wildlife resources which are interrelated, unified by nature-and, in the main, inseparable. This divided jurisdiction in the Congress itself further high lights the problem we have always encountered in our attempts to achieve integrated development of this great section of our country.

I am sure your committee is fully aware of the fact that I have sponsored, along with 18 other Senators, a bill to establish a Columbia

Valley Administration. Congressmen Jackson and Mitchell have introduced identical legislation in the House. In due time both branches of Congress will have an opportunity to consider the merits of these proposals.

Hearings on Columbia Valley bills are scheduled to begin in the Senate Friday of this week. Undoubtedly and properly, committee members, and ultimately the Congress itself, will wish to examine thoroughly the merits of a Columbia Valley Administration. Too, I believe the people of the area affected should have an opportunity to present in full their views to committees having jurisdiction. Since it would be difficult, if not impossible, for many people in the Pacific Northwest to come to Washington, D. C., I intend to exert every influence I have to insure that hearings are held at appropriate places in the Columbia Valley. This will take time. In my judgment, consideration of Columbia Valley Administration bills should not delay action by your committee and the Congress on the revised 308 report. I have studied this report. I have great confidence in the engineering ability of the corps and the Bureau. The engineering plans developed by these two agencies for the structures and related works they are asking us to authorize are good plans-plans which are indispensable to any comprehensive and integrated development that Congress ultimately authorizes. Structures represented by these plans will be necessary, irrespective of the type of administration we ultimately decide upon. I hope your committee will approve the 308 revised report and that the Public Lands Committee of the House will take similar action on the program soon to be submitted by the Bureau of Reclamation.

I concur in the statement made by Secretary of the Interior Krug when he said in a memorandum to Commissioner Straus:

I find that your report and that of the Army, reflecting as they do the terms of my agreement with the Secretary of the Army of April 11, 1949, represent substantial progress in meeting the requirements prescribed by the President for perfecting a fully coordinated and comprehensive plan for the development of resources of the Pacific Northwest. Despite the excellence of these reports, I do not believe that they represent as effective a plan for accomplishing and administering a comprehensive program of resource development as that proposed by the President in his recommendation for the establishment of a Columbia Valley Administration.

Accordingly my approval of your report is not to be construed as implying that it is a satisfactory substitute for a Columbia Valley Administration. These reports do provide, however, a statement of projects and related resource development program which, if they are authorized and carried out, will facilitate the work of a Columbia Valley Administration.

GREEN RIVER FLOOD-CONTROL PROJECT

STATEMENT OF HON. WARREN G. MAGNUSON, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

Senator MAGNUSON. As to the second matter about which I wish to speak, I am not quite clear whether this bill is before the committee or not, but I believe it is.

There has been introduced in the House by Congressman Tollefson, of the Tacoma area, and by myself in the Senate a bill which involves a flood-control project on the Green River, but I want to urge that

the committee take favorable action on that proposal because of the almost imminent necessity of getting something done.

I have a statement here which I want to put in the record, but I will just briefly tell the committee about it in passing.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appear here today to urge that you take favorable action on the proposal soon to come before you to authorize construction of the Green River flood-control project. Let me first identify the location of this river and review some pertinent facts concerning it.

The Green River rises in the Cascade Mountains, about 60 miles southeast of Seattle, at an elevation of approximately 5,000 feet. It flows north and west to its junction with the Black river. Below the junction it is known as the Duwamish River, which in turn flows about 12 miles and empties into Puget Sound at Seattle.

The flood plain starts just above the city of Auburn, population 6,000, and comprises a very fertile valley 2 or 3 miles wide. Exclusive of Seattle, the basin has an area of about 474 square miles and a population of approximately 35,000. The city of Kent, population 3,000, is next to Auburn as the principal community affected by recurring floods. The flood plain is devoted to farm crops of unusually high value. There is considerable dairying in the area, and the tracks of three transcontinental railroads traverse the basin.

FLOOD HISTORY

Between November and February are the worst flood months on the Green River. The December 1933 flood inundated 13,800 acres and the December 1946 flood 12,000 acres. The gross area subject to inundation from a flood flow of 40,000 cubic feet per second would be 19,000 acres. The area subject to flooding contains a considerable portion of urban property and facilities, agricultural land and improvements, and transportation and service facilities. The tangible damages from the 1933 and 1946 floods are estimated at $1,750,000 and $1,350,000, respectively, based on 1947 prices.

ENGINEERS' RECOMMENDATIONS

Several methods of controlling the floods were surveyed by the Army engineers. A dam and reservoir at Eagle Gorge was deemed most feasible, and the best means of controlling floods, providing water storage for municipal purposes, irrigation, and conservation. The dam, with spillway crest of 1,205 feet, would create a reservoir with a capacity of 106,000 acre-feet, more than three times the amount necessary to control the greatest flood on record-first measurements established in 1931. The project design would provide protection from the standard project flood by reducing its crest discharge of 65,000 cubic feet per second to the safe capacity of the existing channel below the dam. With the end of the spring run-off, water would be stored for release during summer to maintain stream flow.

COST OF PROJECT

Cost of the project is estimated at $18,300,000 and the annual carrying charge at $823,139. With $2,000,000 of the cost borne by State

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