States Shipping Board and confirmed by the United States Maritime Commission. So Sacramento has both ship operating and legal sanction for parity rates.

Sacramento is located about 100 miles northeasterly of San Francisco. The Sacramento Valley is about 200 miles long and from 60 to 75 miles wide. It is a productive valley. The Shasta Dam and the Folsom Dam and the expensive Central Valley project all providing, as they will, more and better irrigation, flood control, navigation and hydroelectric power, all combine to intensify farm production in this area as well as industrial activity and all that means more and increasing volumes of traffic.

Now, the post of Sacramento is the natural gateway for that traffic and this channel is a bottleneck and the only way to break it is to construct this 30-foot channel which will permit deep-water vessels to come directly to Sacramento.

The engineers' report here was made after the most thorough investigation. It was a comprehensive report and covered all features of this case, and we certainly want to compliment the engineering department most highly. We think they did a splendid job. No one, except in one pitifully unsuccessful instance regarding the cost of dredging, has had the temerity to question the engineers' report. It is thoroughly sound. It is also sound from an economic standpoint, even without taking into consideration this large increase in traffic or these heavy increases in rates which Mr. Stone has referred to today. Both of those factors mean greater tonnage and greater savings. It is overwhelmingly justified from an economic standpoint.

Now, a few words in conclusion. I think perhaps one of the outstanding features of this case is the unanimity of the local support. The local populations support it wholeheartedly, and they stand united and steadfast in that support. The Governor supports it. Our Congressmen who cover every inch of this Sacramento area support it. Our Senators endorse it wholeheartedly. The benefit from it will be widespread. The State of California needs this 30-foot channel for the immediate interest and welfare of its citizens. The city of Sacramento needs it. The county of Sacramento and all these 23 or 24 counties embracing the Sacramento area need it for their own health and growth and development. It is continually in their better interest. Our faith in this project and the merits of it is profound. Our conviction of the benefits spreading throughout the West and particularly the eastern section of the United States is deep. The proof of its soundness is complete. Already the House has approved the project and we are here today urging you with the deepest sincerity to put your stamp of approval on it.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your very kind attention and patience.

Senator OVERTON. That completes the hearing on the Sacramento River.

We will take up the Tennessee-Tombigbee River. The opponents will be heard first, but I think Colonel Feringa should explain the project before we proceed with the opponents.

Colonel FERINGA. Did you ask me to explain the project first, Mr. Chairman?

Senator OVERTON. If you please.

TOMBIGBEE AND TENNESSEE RIVERS, ALA. AND MISS.

STATEMENT OF COL. P. A. FERINGA, DIRECTOR OF CIVIL WORKS, OFFICE, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, UNITED STATES ARMY

Colonel FERINGA. I will explain it briefly because I believe you have heard so much about the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, that you know it well, sir.

Before I go into this project, I wish to refer to Senator Brooks' request yesterday with reference to Calumet-Sag project. He asked whether we had received any letters from Blue Island protesting the Cal-Sag project. I told him at that time I was not aware of any, but I would search our files.

We did receive a letter from Blue Island, but it is in favor of the project. With your permission I would like to insert it in the record on the Calumet-Sag project and will give it to the reporter now. This is from the Great Lakes Refining Co., located at Blue Island, Ill. It is not from the city of Blue Island.

Senator OVERTON. It may appear in the record.
Colonel FERINGA. Thank you, sir.

(The letter referred to will be found in the record of June 12, 1946.) Colonel FERINGA. I can either explain the Tennessee-Tombigbee project briefly from the map or give you the statistics on it. Which would you prefer, Mr. Chairman?

Senator OVERTON. Oh, I think we would like them both.
Colonel FERINGA. All right, sir.

The report on the waterway connecting the Tombigbee and Tennessee Rivers is in response to a resolution adopted by the Rivers and Harbors Committee on January 2, 1945. The wording of that resolution is not the normal wording. It says:

With a view to bringing up to date the data with respect to economic benefits. The report has been printed as House Document No. 486, Seventyninth Congress, and in the back of that document there is a map which pictorially depicts the waterway and the locks. This document, of course, is available to the committee members.

Senator OVERTON. Have you a number of copies with you?

Colonel FERINGA. Yes, sir; Miss Porter, will you get them. Suppose you take that one, sir. I won't need it.

Representative RANKIN. Might I interrupt the witness to call your attention to the fact that objection was raised that this report was not up to date and that the Chief of Engineers had not signed it and that the locks were not standard. Those are two of the objections.

Then there are two other objections that have been eliminated. So this time it is signed by the Chief of the Army Engineers and also the present Chief, General Wheeler, who came before the Committee on Rivers and Harbors and gave it his unqualified approval.

Senator BILBO. In other words, you have two chiefs. General Reybold has retired within the last few months.

Colonel FERINGA. That was the reason for the peculiar type of resolution. Everyone was satisfied with the engineering efficacy of the project as reported, but we were requested by the resolution to bring up to date the economic data. As Mr. Rankin brings out, this report is signed by General Reybold, while General Wheeler himself ap

peared before the House Committee, and they have both endorsed the project.

The Tennessee Valley is separated from the headwaters of the Tombigbee River by a small ridge located 15 to 18 miles south of the Tennessee River in northeastern Mississippi. The Tennessee River is indicated by the blue line and flows into the Ohio River. Actually, Yellow Creek, which flows into the Tennessee and the East Fork of the Tombigbee, and Mackey's Creek are close together.

I visited the site of the proposed works early this spring and those streams were not more than 10 or 15 miles apart. They are separated by a ridge located 15 to 18 miles south of the Tennessee River. Opposite the point on this ridge where the waters of Yellow Creek flow northward into the Tennessee River, the waters of Mackeys Creek flow southward into the East Fork of the Tombigbee River.

The Warrior River is formed by the confluence of the Locust and Mulberry Forks about 20 miles west of Birmingham, Ala., and flows southwesterly 178 miles, entering the Tombigbee River just above Demopolis.

The Tombigbee River is formed by the East and West Forks in northeastern Mississippi near Amroy, Miss., and flows southeastwardly through eastern Mississippi and western Alabama to its confluence with the Alabama River to form the Mobile River, 45 miles upstream from Mobile, Ala.

The Mobile River flows southward to Mobile where it enters Mobile Bay, an arm of the Gulf of Mexico 8 miles wide and 30 miles long..

The Tennessee River is formed by the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers near Knoxville, Tenn., and flows southwestward to a point on the Alabama State line near the Georgia boundary. From there it crosses into Alabama and flows westward across the northern part of the State to the intersection of the Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee boundaries; thence it turns northward across Tennessee and Kentucky and empties into the Ohio River at Paducah, Ky. The length of the main stem of the Tennessee River is 652 miles.

The existing project on the Warrior-Tombigbee waterway provides for a year-round channel 9 feet deep and 200 feet wide by means of a series of locks and dams, 15 in number. This project is completed. The head of navigation is at Port Birmingham, Ala.

The Tombigbee River upstream from Demopolis has a controlling depth of 1 foot at low water and 5 feet at high water. No work except snagging has been undertaken.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has undertaken a comprehensive development of the Tennessee River for navigation, power, and flood control. A series of 10 locks and dams provide a year-round 9-foot navigation channel with a standard 2-foot overdraft to Knoxville. The locks below the confluence of the proposed Tennessee-Tombigbee Canal and the Tennessee River are the standard Ohio River type locks, 110 feet wide, 600 feet long, and 13 feet deep. The Kentucky Dam has the same size locks. They are the largest of the standard-type locks.

The port of Mobile is connected with the Gulf of Mexico by a dredged channel, 32 feet deep and about 30 miles long, through the Mobile River and Mobile Bay.

The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, 12 feet deep, crosses Mobile Bay. The proposed Tombigbee-Tennessee waterway is properly consid

ered as a connecting channel between the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway on the south and the Mississippi River system to the north. Traffic in 1944 on the existing waterways to be connected by the proposed improvement is as follows:

For the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, over 24,000,000 tons and nearly 6,000,000,000 ton-miles.

For the Mississippi River system, over 91,000,000 tons and slightly over 19,000,000,000 ton-miles.

For the Warrior-Tombigbee waterway, 1,400,000 tons and 240,000,000 ton-miles.

For the Tennessee River, 2,482,000 tons and slightly over 162,000,000 ton-miles.

The proposed waterway will be a connecting link between two waterway systems already improved and carrying substantial traffic. In a broad sense, therefore, the tributary area includes the entire Tennessee, Ohio, Missouri, and upper Mississippi Valleys to the north, and the lower Mississippi Valley as far north as Baton Rouge, and the area to the south adjacent to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

A steady increase in the population of the States immediately adjacent to the proposed waterway has been noted since 1900. During the last census period the population growth in the area was more rapid than for the United States as a whole.

The region tributary to the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers contains thousands of acres of fertile agricultural lands with a wide variety in types of soil. The principal crops in the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee are cotton, corn, sweetpotatoes, peanuts, vegetables, and hay. Dairying is becoming increasingly important in northeast Mississippi and in parts of Alabama.

The proposed connection passes through a territory in which southern yellow pine and a wide variety of hardwoods and cypresses are available in considerable quantities.

Estimated commercial forest areas in Alabama total over 21,000,000 acres, in Mississippi 18,000,000 acres, and in Tennessee almost 14,000,000 acres.

The more important mineral resources of the area are located in the Tennessee River Valley. Chief among these deposits are coal, iron ore, limestone, phosphate rock, marble and other building stones, copper ore, zinc ores, cermic relays, asphaltic limestone, bauxite, barite, slate, sand, and gravel. Within or near the basin of the Tombigbee River the mineral resources include sand, gravel, limestone, asphalt rock, fuller's earth, bentonite, bauxite, brown iron ore, and clay.

Most of the minerals found in the Tombigbee and the Tennessee Valleys have been worked in the past. Some of these, especially in the Tennessee Valley, have been mined extensively.

The principal mineral production of Alabama, as listed by the Bureau of Mines, is coal, iron ore, cement, and clay products; those of Mississippi, natural gas, sand, gravel, and clay; and in Tennessee, coal, cement, stone, and zinc.

Crude oil has been discovered in Mississippi and Alabama fields so recently that it is not now possible to predict future developments in primary oil production in the area adjoining the waterway, although I think Mr. Rankin has some progress reports——

Representative RANKIN. They have just brought in one well of a thousand barrels a day. That is the largest well that has ever been brought in east of the Mississippi River.

Colonel FERINGA. The latest estimated reserves, according to the American Petroleum Institute, are 209,011,000 barrels in Mississippi and 317,000 barrels in Alabama. In 1944 Mississippi produced 16,337,000 barrels and Alabama 43,000 barrels of crude oil.

Local interests desire the construction of a waterway connecting the Tombigbee and the Tennessee River. They claim that the growth of industry in the Mobile and Birmingham districts and the favorable prospect for much greater development justify the need for water transportation.

Other benefits claimed for the waterway were that it would shorten the distance by water from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, thereby lowering transportation charges; that it would offer an alternate slack-water route for northbound Mississippi River traffic destined to points upstream from Cairo and Paducah on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers; that it would be an asset for national defense in that it would give additional access by water to the interior of the country. That was the claim made by local interests, and although in our previous reports the national defense value was given some consideration, in this report we have carefully stayed away from making any evaluation of that, feeling that it was somewhat imponderable. We have dealt in this report only with ponderables.

Senator OVERTON. Do you have any recreation included?

Colonel FERINGA. No, sir; not in this report. We realize that it will give recreational benefits, but we do not evaluate them in dollars and cents.

Senator OVERTON. It does not enter into the factor of economic justification?

Colonel FERINGA. Not in this report.

Senator BILBO. Colonel, since the construction of the Oak Ridge atomic plant, wouldn't national defense be a justifiable item?

Colonel FERINGA. Senator Bilbo, I believe waterway traffic is a great asset to national defense. I believe, for instance, if this crossFlorida waterway had been built prior to the last war we would have saved untold damage. I believe this inland waterway will be a great factor toward future national defense, but we have not evaluated it in dollars and cents. We do not take cognizance of it as such in this report.

Representative RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the colonel, isn't it a fact that this has put the Oak Ridge project, which covers 70 square miles-that is the atomic-bomb plant-put it 807 miles closer to the Gulf of Mexico by water?

Colonel FERINGA. Yes, sir; absolutely.

Senator OVERTON. I don't like to take you from the thread of your thought, but I would like right now, because I have to leave in a few minutes and I may not be here when you explain it, the counteraction between the Tennessee and the Tombigbee. I have heard statements made that this is an effort to move water up hill?

Colonle FERINGA. No, sir.

Senator OVERTON. Well, I want that explained for the record, any

way.

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