MR. GEORGE W. FULLER, Chairman of Board of Review.

DEAR SIR:

1. Your committee on the value of the diverted water for transportation from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico, begs to make the following report:

2. It is submitted that a waterway from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico could be constructed without the diversion of any water from Lake Michigan. No one is known to advocate this course, but as a physical undertaking such a waterway could unquestionably be built.

3. It is further submitted that the value of the waterway itself to the people of the country as an additional means of transportation, while believed to be great, forms no means of determining the value of the diverted water, because most of the resulting economies in transportation could be obtained whether any water was diverted or not.

4. The value of the diverted water for transportation between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico, it would seem, should therefore be measured by the ensuing reduction in cost of construction and operation of such a waterway which the diverted water would permit, and this value can be determined fairly closely by comparing the cost of the waterway under the various diversions proposed, viz., 0, 1000, 4167, 6800 and 10,000 c.f.s. (cubic feet per second).

5. The dimensions assumed for the waterway for the purposes of this discussion are locks 600 x 110 feet with depth of channel of 9 feet, these dimensions being the same as those used by the United States in improving the Ohio River. Certainly no dimensions less than these should be taken, and while larger dimensions might eventually be adopted, it is by no means certain that they ever will be, and no such enlargement is at all likely during the present generation. The locks under construction by the State of Illinois are of these dimensions. These locks, however, are being made 14 feet in depth, presumably as a concession to efforts made some years ago to secure a 14-foot waterway. (Fourteen feet is the depth of the present St. Lawrence canals.)

6. This waterway has been under consideration for many years, and

there have been numerous Government reports concerning it. The more recent of these reports are the following:

House Doc. 263; Fifty-ninth Congress, 1st Session; Report of a Special Board of Engineers on a survey made in 1902-1904 in accordance with the provisions of the River and Harbor Act of June 13, 1902.

House Doc. 50; Sixty-first Congress, 1st Session; Report of a Special Board of Engineers on Mississippi River from St. Louis to the mouth; Submitted to Congress by the Secretary of War on June 9, 1909.

House Doc. 1374; Sixty-first Congress, 3rd Session; Report of a Special Board of Engineers upon a waterway from Lockport, Ill., via Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers to the mouth of Illinois River; Submitted to Congress by the Secretary of War on Feb. 9, 1911.

House River and Harbor Doc. 2; Sixty-seventh Congress, 1st Session; Report of the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors on Illinois and Mississippi Rivers from Lockport, Ill., to Cairo, Ill; Submitted by the Chief of Engineers on Nov. 1, 1921 (Incl. 7).

House River and Harbor Doc. 7; Sixty-seventh Congress, 2nd Session; Report of the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors on reconsideration of its previous report on Illinois and Mississippi Rivers from Lockport, Ill., to Cairo, Ill.; Submitted by the Chief of Engineers on April 20, 1922 (Incl. 8).

7. Below Cairo, Ill., it is understood that an open channel 9 feet or more in depth is maintained all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi River and above Lockport, Ill., the deep channels constructed by the Sanitary District connect directly with Lake Michigan.

8. Between Lockport and Cairo the waterway naturally divides into four sections.

The upper section, Lockport to Utica, is under improvement by locks and dams and dredging on a 9-foot depth basis. This work is under supervision of the Division of Waterways of the State of Illinois, W. L. Sackett, superintendent, M. G. Barnes, chief engineer.

The Illinois River section from Utica to mouth of Illinois River, is under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Government, District Officer, Major Rufus W. Putnam, Chicago, Ill. There are four locks and dams in this section at Henry, Copperas Creek, La Grange and Kampsville. The first two are owned and operated by the State of Illinois; the last two by the U. S. Government. Locks are 350 x 75 feet. A depth of 7 feet is maintained from La Salle (7.4 miles below Utica) to the mouth. Full width of channel has not been obtained-but minimum width for 7-foot depth is 75 feet. Between Utica and La Salle no improvement has been made awaiting action on the through waterway, and the channel is obstructed by numerous boulders, with minimum low water depths under existing conditions of 4 to 41⁄2 feet.

The upper Mississippi River section, mouth of the Illinois to mouth of the Missouri, is under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Government, District Officer, Major B. C. Dunn, Rock Island, Ill. Improvement now under way is for 6-foot depth by wing and closing dams, shore protections and dredging, with an estimated further expenditure of $520,000.

The lower section, mouth of Missouri to mouth of Ohio at Cairo, Ill., is under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Government, District Officer, Major John C. Gotwals, St. Louis, Mo. It is claimed that a depth of 8 feet is being maintained throughout by dredging.

9. Inquiry has been made of the offices in charge of these four sections as to the cost of a 9-foot improvement under the various assumed diversions from Lake Michigan.

10. M. G. Barnes, chief engineer Illinois State Waterway, reports for the upper section, Lockport to Utica, as follows:

The cost with O diversion manifestly is very great. Capacity lockages in this section necessitate 1000 c.f.s. The natural low water flow at the lowest lock near Utica is not over 500 c.f.s., with lessened amounts ascending to Lockport. The necessary water for capacity lockages in this case would have to be obtained from storage reservoirs or by pumping from lower levels, either of which methods would be very expensive. This solution has never been seriously proposed. It seems necessary, however, to make approximate estimate for it, in order to arrive at the value to the waterway of the water diverted from Lake Michigan. (See Incls. 1 and 2.)

11. The Illinois River section, Utica to mouth of Illinois River, is covered by House River and Harbor Doc. 2, Sixty-seventh Congress, 1st Session (Incl. 7), which contains a report dated March 23, 1921, by Col. W. V. Judson, and from this the following data have been abstracted.