they can go into improved pasture which means a difference between 20 pounds of beef per acre and 200 pounds of beef per acre.

Mr. POAGE. What it means from the standpoint of flood prevention is, if you have sufficient grass, you are not going to have the runoff that you have with a few weeds and bare spots.

Mr. SWIGART. That is right.

For the rest of them, that pasture planting was a major item of expense, some $304,000. There are dikes and levees, $34,200. Some pumping plants-they need to use pumping plants in connection with the utilization of this water in water conservation, and also for getting rid of it into the channel.

Some farm ponds. Some structures, individual structures on farms, to keep their individual channels in order, and mains and laterals just serving a few farmers, and surface field ditches which is an item of $46,200 which is what you mentioned before.

So it is quite an expensive job for the individual to take advantage of the work that the sponsors and the Federal Government are going to pay for through Public Law 566.

Mr. HARVEY. The pattern is to take land, in certain cases I know, of this type, get it drained and use it 1 year for the production of highpriced crops like tomatoes. Then convert it immediately to permanent pasture. Is that the pattern that is going to prevail here? Are you going to put in a crop 1 year and wind up spending all this money just for improved pasture eventually?

Mr. SWIGART. I would not think so, because there are 1,210 acres of truck crops now in small holdings of 10 acres or less, for that matter. Now, I do not think those folks are going to convert to pasture or a beef economy. This improved pasture is going to be on these larger holdings of up to 2,000 acres that are in the cattle business. You are still going to have vegetable production by these small farmers as a principal aim from now on out.

Mr. HERLONG. In that connection, Mr. Harvey, may I interject that I used to live in this county? I think I have been over every foot of the land in that area. The principal truck crop in that area is cucumbers, and they have overhead irrigation in these fields at this time. They are not going to sell that land for pasture where they have overhead irrigation for a cucumber crop.

Mr. HARVEY. What part of this 200-farm area is used for this intensive farming?

Mr. HERLONG. Virtually all of it. There are a number of 5-, 10-, and 15-acre cucumber plantings, some tomatoes, some strawberries and peppers. Four or five acres of strawberries, as you know, is a lot of strawberries.

Mr. HARVEY. I am just trying to get a percentage of the total for this area. Would it be 100 of these who would be small crop farmers and 100 ranchers?

Mr. HERLONG. I would say it would be nearer 125 or 150 small crop farmers. There would hardly be as many as 50 ranchers. There are not very many ranchers in that area at all because they necessarily have to have larger acreage. They don't have very large acreage for truck farms but as far as the number of farms is concerned where they do intensive truck farming, it is nearly all of them.

Mr. SHORT. This is not in an area where you can grow sugarcane? Mr. HERLONG. Oh no. They have some sugarcane for local use so we can get the "skimmings" and for making syrup for home consumption but that is all.

Mr. GATHINGS. Is that area in the northwest corner used for irrigation purposes?

Mr. SWIGART. This is a proposed reservoir they are going to build locally. That is not actually a lake at the present time. That is a further development that is going to come in there.

Mr. HERLONG. We hope we can conserve the water in that area because we do have peaks and valleys in our rainfall down there. I have been in some of these cucumber fields which had overhead irrigation and seen a foot and a half of water standing in the fields under the irrigation pipes. It has been that bad. We would like to save the water because there are other times when people have been fooled into building houses in some of these pond bottoms and found, too late, when the rains came that they were in the middle of a pond. This has happened. We have to do something to stabilize our water table. The Withlacoochee River flows into Lake Tsala Apopka; on the way it catches a lot of drainage from the entire area. This, incidently, is one of the finest resort fishing areas in the whole United States.

Mr. GATHINGS. Now, sometimes you do have better than 70 inches of rainfall a year?

Mr. HERLONG. Yes, sir. We have had as much as 18 inches in a
Mr. GATHINGS. We had nine in Arkansas once.

day.

Over 50 percent of the project is

Mr. POAGE. Do you have anything further, Mr. Herlong? Mr. HERLONG. I do want to call the committee's attention to the great contribution being made here. being contributed by local interest. Mr. POAGE. That is pretty good. that went to 68.

However, yesterday we had one

Mr. HERLONG. This is better than average, I will say.
Mr. POAGE. We thank you very much.

NORTH BRANCH MILL CREEK, MICH.

Mr. POAGE. Our next item will be North Branch Mill Creek watershed.

(The North Branch Mill Creek watershed work plan is as follows:)

NORTH BRANCH MILL CREEK WATERSHED WORK PLAN

Size and location: 47,547 acres in Lapeer, St. Clair, and Sanilac Counties. Tributary to Mill Creek, Black River, St. Clair River, and Lake St. Clair. Sponsors: Central Lapeer Soil Conservation District, St. Clair Soil Conservation District, Sanilac Soil Conservation District, North Branch of the Mill Creek Inter-County Drainage District, Brant Lake Drainage District.

Watershed privately owned.

Number of farms: 450.

Size of farms: About 100 acres.

Project purposes: Watershed protection, flood prevention, drainage.

Project measures: Soil conservation practices on farms; and structural measures consisting of about 15 miles of stream channel improvement and one floodwater retarding structure with a storage capacity of 1,670 acre-feet.

Number of beneficiaries: Owners or operators of 157 farms.

1 This is primarily the cost of applying land-treatment measures by landowners. Cost sharing from Federal funds appropriated for the agricultural conservation program may be available if included in the county program developed each year in consideration of approved State and National programs and the annual authorization by the Congress.

2 Consisting of

Prorated Public Law 566 cost per acre: $60 (derived from figures marked by asterisk).

Carrying out the project: The North Branch of the Mill Creek Inter County Drainage Board and Brant Lake Drainage District will assume local responsibilities for installing the structural measures. They will also operate and maintain the structural measures at an estimated annual cost of $7,780.

Mr. POAGE. We will be glad to hear from Mr. Fisk at this time. Mr. FISK. This is the map of the North Branch Mill Creek Watershed and we might start by just examining it a little closely.

As you can see, there are two parts to this project. This is an upper area here. The water actually flows this way over to this end of the map. There is a separate drainage project above a floodwater retarding structure which is located at this point and has the pool area in blue. The main project will consist of a floodway-and there is a total of 15 miles of floodways in the project-that serves both flood prevention and drainage. And the area in yellow is the area that will benefit from the flood prevention and drainage.

That is multiple-purpose benefit, flood prevention and drainage. The area in green will benefit from the drainage program in this

watershed.

This watershed is located north of Detroit about half way up on the east side of the State of Michigan, about half way up on the thumb of the State, north of Detroit.

The flood plain and the area needing drainage is predominantly highly fertile lands used for vegetable crop production and of course being close to Detroit the farmers have a ready market for their potatoes, onions, and so forth which they produce.

Thirty percent of the watershed will be above the point where the floodwater retarding structure will be built and the retarding structure will store 1,670 acre-feet of water.

The yellow area, the area I metnioned would be benefited from both flood control and drainage, is about 3,984 acres and contains 64 farms. The total area (both the yellow and green area) benefited is 9,756 acres and 157 farms. There are many beneficiaries in this project.

One unique feature is the land treatment in this watershed. A large part of this land treatment and a large part of the cost will be associated with the drainage program that will be necessary in order to release the benefits upon which this project is based. There is about $800,000 worth of title drainage alone plus the cost of surface drainage. The surface drainage would include spoil bank leveling and so forth so the total cost of land treatment is estimated at $1,330,310. A good part of that would be the program of drainage through the low arcas to realize the benefits of this project.

The prorated Public Law 566 cost per acre benefited is about $60. There are two organized drainage districts as sponsors. The Brant Lake Drainage District up here [indicating], and the North Branch Drainage District here [pointing], which will be the agencies that will take care of the structural measures, the contracting, and the future maintenance.

Mr. POAGE. You show a tremendous cost there for land treatement. What occasions the size of that cost?

Mr. FISK. Primarily tile drainage and all other practices associated with drainage. Of that cost $800,000 will be for 4,101,000 feet of tile drainage.

Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Is that a Government contribution? Mr. FISK. Yes. I do not know what the cost sharing might be. Probably 50-50.

Mr. O'HARA. It is my impression it is 50-50, Mr. Chairman, on the tile drainage.

Mr. FISK. There is a cost of $67,500 for open drainage, and surface field ditches cost $27,000. There are other costs: Farm ponds, $33,600 for 42 of them, and there are some irrigation ponds and so forth but the big cost is drainage.

Mr. McINTIRE. How much is that cost per acre, the tile drainage? Mr. FISK. I do not know, sir.

Mr. O'HARA. I could not give you a per acre cost. It depends somewhat on the distance between the tiles and the severity of the problem. The ACP program, of course, provides payments for drainage tile on the same basis it provides payments for certain other conservation practices.

I might add that applications for ACP assistance on tile in this area of Michigan far exceed the capacity of the ACP program to carry and so there was quite a waiting list.

Mr. POAGE. All I want to do is get a rough idea. We do not use that practice in my area. I think our land is too tight to justify it but I did not know how much you might spend on tile drainage.

Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. You have a cost of $60 an acre.

Mr. FISK. The item is cost sharing, sir, for the land treatment measures I mentioned; $1,205,000 is a non-Federal cost and $124,380 is a Public Law 566 cost. Then, of course, the drainage is a major portion of structural costs so you do get a considerable local cost sharing on the drainage structures.

The total cost of the drainage and flood control structures here [pointing], is $905,932, of which the local interests pick up $298,725. The overall sharing is 67 percent local cost, and 33 percent Federal cost for the entire project.

That is all, sir.

Mr. POAGE. Thank you.

Mr. O'Hara, have you anything further?

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES G. O'HARA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. O'HARA. I would just like to mention, Mr. Chairman, it is my impression this project has an extremely favorable cost-benefit ratio. Mr. POAGE. It is the largest I have ever seen.

Mr. O'HARA. I have never heard of one that has the cost-benefit ratio this one has. I need not tell the members of this committee how important this is to the farmers of the watershed area and how important it is to the economy of the entire region.

I am very anxious, of course, that this project receive approval and that it be begun as soon as possible. I want to thank the committee for its consideration.

I have here, Mr. Chairman, some pictures of flooding that took place just a short while ago in this area. I would be happy to leave these pictures for the perusal of the members of the committee.

Also, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that I might insert in the record an article from the Lapeer, Mich., Lapeer County Press (which I will add is the largest rural weekly in the United States) reporting on the flooding that took place in early June in this partic ular area.

If I could, Mr. Chairman, I would like to have my statement, which I will leave with the reporter, included in the record.

Mr. POAGE. Without objection it will be so included.

(The several pictures and the newspaper article referred to above may be found in the files of the committee. The prepared statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES G. O'HARA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for this opportunity to appear today before your subcommittee in support of the North Branch Mill Creek watershed work plan. This work plan embraces parts of Lapeer, St. Clair, and Sanilac Counties in what we call the "thumb" area of Michigan, which I represent.