Mr. MULHOLLAND. Below the Lees Ferry proposed dam site; the Little Colorado, the Virgin River, and the Muddy. Well, the Muddy, of course, is a small stream that goes into the Virgin. Then there is the Paria, that does not carry in an enormous quantity of silt, but the Little Colorado is a bad actor. Mr. RAKER. Is it your judgment as an engineer that a dam located either at Boulder Canyon or Black Canyon would accomplish more beneficial results and, so far as capacity of storage, run-off, and power, than any other place above or below within a hundred or two hundred miles? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Beyond question, it is nearer the center of the market for its product. Mr. RAKER. If you constructed a reservoir there with about 80,000,000 acre-feet capacity, how long would it take it to fill, if at all? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I know of no proposition that has come to my attention that calls for 80,000,000 acre-feet. About 32,000,000 or 33,000,000 acre-feet is the largest I know of. Mr. RAKER. And that is with a 600-foot dam? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes, sir. Mr. RAKER. Thirty-two million acre-feet? Mr. RAKER. What would be the life of that dam? Mr. MULHOLLAND. About 300 years. Mr. RAKER. So you and I would not have to worry over that? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I am not losing any hair over that proposition. Mr. RAKER. About what would be the cost of a dam to impound, say, 30,000,000 acre-feet of water? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I have seen an estimate made by the Reclamation Service, made under the direction of a man in whom I have the utmost confidence and with whom I have had a long, in fact, a life acquaintance, and have participated with him in projects and in the discussion of projects, and I have gone over with him, and some of his subordinates almost equally as competent as he is, estimates in detail, with the greatest scrutiny, and I agree with the computed costs. In fact, I believe the prices are liberal, that the costs they assign to the different units of the construction are liberal and adequate to complete the job. That figure is $50,000,000. think the dam can be built for less than that at Boulder Canyon or Black Canyon, either one. I Mr. RAKER. That would be just the construction of that dam, without any installation of electric appliances? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; no hydroelectric installation at all. Mr. RAKER. And that would have no relation to what they call the all-American canal? Mr. MULHOLLAND. No, sir; no relation whatever. Mr. RAKER. Have you, in connection with this estimate of $50,000,000 as the cost, figured what it would cost to install the initial or a proper power plant or plants, so as to utilize the power and start the distribution, not a distributing line, but to start the distribution? 92265-24-PT 1-9 Mr. MULHOLLAND. I have not made an estimate myself, but the power department of our works in the city of Los Angeles have made estimates, and witnesses will be here to tell you about them. Mr. RAKER. About what is the depth to which you have to go to get bed rock in Boulder Canyon or Black Canyon? Do you know? Mr. MULHOLLAND. About 20 or 30 feet. The canyon is very narrow and a V-shape. Mr. RAKER. What can you say about the length of time that would be required to complete this dam? Suppose we start it within six months and had proper equipment, no lack of material and men, what would you think would be the time required to complete it? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I think it would be a six or eight years' job. Mr. RAKER. And from your knowledge, based on an experience of 40 years or more, and your building of over 40 dams for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, with a cost of $50,000,000 for the dam alone you are of the firm opinion and conviction that the Federal Government would be amply justified in starting this project and carrying it to completion? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I say that unequivocally; that is my opinion. It is certainly justified in performing that work. Mr. RAKER. How long, if you develop the amount of electrical energy that it is figured can be developed by such a dam, with the proper installation of electrical machinery and a proper return for interest, and then a proper charge, a reasonable charge, for the electric energy disposed of, with a return for the money from those who used the money, would it take before the Government was repaid? Have you given that any thought? Mr. MULHOLLAND. We have a chart here, showing prospective growth of the electric demand in the Southwest. I propose to leave a discussion of that matter to the electric end of our organization. I think this chart is very illuminating and goes directly to the question you have propounded. Offhand I would prefer not to answer, because this drags in a lot of things I am imperfectly informed on, and following the question with the proper witness you will get the whole of it. Mr. RAKER. Have there been any surveys or investigations by other people than the officials of the United States, by engineers representing organizations, associations, privately or otherwise, that have advised against the construction of this dam as a feasible proposition, an economic proposition, irrespective of who put in the dam? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Not that I know of. I have seen two parties, I think, representing different organizations that were surveying there. One of them, I could not say who he was or whom he was representing. I saw, by the way, Government people working there. There was another party there that was under the direction of a man named Hess or Hays, who lived at Las Vegas, and I found out on inquiry and some investigation that he represented some private interest. Mr. RAKER. He represents Harry Stetson, son of John T. Stetson, does he not? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes. Mr. RAKER. Mr. Stetson gave his testimony before the committee in February of last year. Mr. HUDSPETH. You have given us the approximate cost of this dam. In your opening statement you stated that the city of Los Angeles stood ready to contribute its portion, in turn, for the water it needed and the electric power. Could you give the committee, in dollars, approximately what that contribution would amount to? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I can not do it at the present time. That is a contribution toward the building of the dam? Mr. HUDSPETH. I understand after the dam is built then you propose to secure water and electric power? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes. Mr. HUDSPETH. Could you give approximately what your contribution would amount to along that line in dollars? Mr. MULHOLLAND. I can not do that. I can say that the city of Los Angeles would willingly become a customer to the extent of taking water for itself and its associates Mr. HUDSPETH (interposing). I think you said this morning something about 200,000 horsepower? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; that is, to pump water. Mr. HUDSPETH. I do not know, of course, what that would cost. I thought perhaps you could afford to pay Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; I would imagine a reasonable charge for that, at the point of delivery, at the power house at Boulder Canyon, would be anywhere from 3 mills to 4 mills per kilowatt hour. Mr. HUDSPETH. You will have to figure that in dollars for me, as I do not know what so much per kilowatt hour would amount to. Mr. SWING. Other witnesses who will be called will be in a position to make a more definite statement. Mr. MULHOLLAND. The only thing I have heard in substitution for this that seems to be shaping up-because I have been referred by the Secretary of the Interior to engineers who are working for him. under his direction preparing an alternate proposition, or a review of the whole proposition here, that is to be offered here in substitution for the Boulder Canyon Dam, a dam at the Needles. There is a dam site there a good one. I have seen it many times and it has been long familiar to me. I have read some reviews of it by engineers. It is proposed to put a dam there about 140 feet high or so. That dam, of course, entails the removal of the city of Needles. Mr. HUDSPETH. Whose scheme is that? Mr. MULHOLLAND. It is a scheme being prepared by the United States Government, by the Interior Department. Mr. HUDSPETH. Having the sanction of the Reclamation Service? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Being reviewed by an engineer specially employed by Secretary Work to prepare a report which he has promised on this subject. Mr. HUDSPETH. This seems to be something new. It is new to me, and I think perhaps it is to the committee. When did all this business start? Mr. MULHOLLAND. There are many men here who have seen the Secretary and he has told them about it, and he told them it would be ready on the 3d of February, and it is not prepared yet. We have been waiting for it. Our party has been charged, through a newspaper in Los Angeles, a paper that usually gets the news pretty straight, that we have been impeding the work of that board of engineers. I have never seen them but once, and then they seemed to be glad to see me and made inquiries about information they were seeking. None of this delegation has appeared before them to impede their work or obstruct them in any way. Now, that has been charged in our newspaper. You can not tell what the newspapers will say or put much credence in them. Mr. HUDSPETH. Do you know who composes this board of engi neers? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Colonel Cosby, Colonel Kelly, and Stabler-I do not know his initials-those three. Mr. HUDSPETH. Under the sanction of the Secretary of the Interior, did you say? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes, sir. Mr. HUDSPETH. Who initiated the movement? Mr. MULHOLLAND. This is a special board of engineers. The CHAIRMAN. I think I should read right here a short letter from the Secretary of the Interior, dated January 19, in response to one I addressed to him, transmitting a copy of the bill. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, HON. ADDISON T. SMITH, Chairman Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation, House of Representatives. MY DEAR MR. SMITH: I am in receipt of your request for report upon H. R. 2903, entitled "A bill to provide for the protection and development of the Lower Colorado River Basin." Under authority of and appropriations made by Congress, this subject has been under investigation for some time, and a large amount of data and information has been gathered by the Bureau of Reclamation, the Geological Survey, and other agencies. As you are aware, the subject is, however, new to me, and I do not feel that I am sufficiently informed to submit an intelligent report immediately. Some additional data are being compiled by the chief engineer of the Bureau of Reclamation, and will be filed in a few days. In view of the magnitude of the subject, the voluminous amount of the data gathered, and pronounced differences of opinion as to the best location for a dam, I have appointed a committee of engineers who have worked over the field to review and collate the data gathered and furnished me in abstract data which I should review. Field investigations by this committee are not contemplated. Some of the committee are already at work. I hope to have the report in a few weeks, and will promptly thereafter submit my report on bill to your committee. Sincerely yours, HUBERT WORK, Secretary. Mr. SWING. In addition to the names given by the colonel here, there are three other names which have not been put in the record. Colonel Weymouth, chief engineer of the Reclamation Service, and Engineer Young, who was on the job, and another engineer brought by Colonel Weymouth from Denver, making a board of six. Mr. ALLGOOD. I would like Colonel Mulholland to state this: He made a statement awhile ago that Boulder Canyon Dam was the best place far down. Now he states that Needles is a good place; that is, they have good banks and so on. I would like to have him give the relative values there; that is, what at one place is better than there is at the other, if one has advantages over the other. If there are advantages at Needles over the Boulder Canyon Dam, and if Boulder Canyon Dam has advantages over Needles, what are they? You stated that Boulder Canyon Dam was nearer to the points of consumption? Mr. MULHOLLAND. As to the water. Mr. ALLGOOD. And also as to the electric power. Mr. MULHOLLAND. As to the electric power that does not make much difference as to either point. Speaking of the Needles Dam, in the first place, it destroys 20,000 or 30,000 acres of very valuable land. It requires the removal of the town of Needles. It requires the removal of some of the track of the Santa Fe Railroad and the abandonment of two bridges across the Colorado River, and, in all, it is a very expensive thing to inaugurate, first, before you start off and put a stone in there. It is a very unfavorable place as to location for building material. In point of capacity the reservoir would have only a capacity of some 10,000,000 acre-feet, something like that. It would have no value for power. The fluctuation in the height of the water there, due to the fact that it only has a small capacity, would almost destroy its value as a power-producing institution. The fact that it only holds a small quantity of water and would be subject to running almost dry in a period of dry years, such as if you look at your run-off record of the Colorado River you will see, is something to be considered. There would be years when the river would be virtually in a virgin state again, running along on the bottom; that is, what discharge would run into it would run straight through by the dam; and there is to be considered the unloading of the silt that might be deposited in there through years of abundant flow; you would collect a lot of silt there. You would restore the natural condition of the river inevitably when you get down to the period when you are using virtually all the water in the reservoir. You would have very small capacity for the storage of silt, for desilting the river, and you would destroy that every time you would get to scraping the last few thousand acre-feet out of the reservoir, because you would move all the dirt and all the material that was deposited in the reservoir, that had been deposited there in the course of a copious flow of water. That would render the thing wholly hopeless as a proposition in the matter I am interested in, to wit, the domestic water supply of the city of Los Angeles. You would have to have a large desilting area and capacity. Mr. RAKER. You should think of the other fellow, too. It would destroy the Imperial Valley as well, would it not? Would not the silt run down there? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Certainly. I am not thinking of my own side of it alone. But there are others here who will give aid to my proposition and what I have in mind. The proposition referred to would be a hopeless thing in connection with the domestic water supply of the city of Los Angeles. And why do it? Does it offer any advantage in the way of economy? It virtually destroys the power end of it. Mr. RAKER. If you build a dam 150 feet high at a cost of forty million or fifty million dollars, and the power companies could go up to Boulder Canyon or Black Canyon and build their power plants without any trouble, could they not? Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; I had not thought of that. There is merit in the reflection. Mr. HAYDEN. You stated that you have had many years of experience in pumping water. Would you consider that with cheap |