Senator OVERTON. But as to whether or not to stop an American citizen in his criticism of any official or anyone else is a rather delicate subject, and, after all, if they don't go too far we let them go ahead.

Mr. ÍCKES. I doubt whether it was worth mentioning. The hearings conducted by this committee, so far as my Department is concerned, have been conducted with dignity and on a high plane. We have gone on the theory that what you want is the facts from our point of view, and those we have tried to present.

Senator OVERTON. Well, we certainly welcome your advice and suggestions at any time and we appreciate your appearance here today.

Mr. ICKES. Thank you.

Senator OVERTON. Governor Sharpe of South Dakota is present, and I understand possibly has to leave today or tomorrow, so that the committee is going to extend preference to the Governor and have him appear now.

MISSOURI RIVER VALLEY PROJECT

STATEMENT OF M. Q. SHARPE, GOVERNOR OF SOUTH DAKOTA, PIERRE, S. DAK.

Governor SHARPE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I certainly appreciate the preference in allowing me to appear now so that I can go if necessary. I will proceed with my statement without further introduction.

My name is M. Q. Sharpe; address, Pierre, S. Dak. I desire to submit the following statement as Governor of South Dakota.

I am also chairman of a committee known as the Missouri River States Committee, which is a committee appointed by the Governors of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, and Colorado. My statement, however, is not a statement of this committee. The Missouri River States Committee has not yet formally and finally acted on the various plans of Missouri River development which are being considered by Congress. During the summer of the year 1943 this committee conducted public meetings in each of the 8 Missouri River States under the personal auspices of the Governor of each of such States for the purpose of consideration of a general flood-control plan for the Missouri Valley. A printed report of these 8 meetings is available for your consideration if desired.

I am also a member of the Mississippi Valley Association and a member of its resolutions committee, and served as such at its last national convention at St. Louis, Mo., October 16, 1943.

For more than 30 years I have lived on the banks of the Missouri River and have been a member of various associations interested in its development, and have attended many meetings and conventions in all parts of the valley in connection with it. From all this experience I have gained considerable personal familiarity with the entire river system.

I desire to make the following statement in support of H. R. 4485, "A Bill Authorizing the Construction of Certain Public Works on

Rivers and Harbors for Flood Control and Other Purposes," which I shall hereafter refer to as the flood-control bill.

I refer to and make a part of this statement my former statement made before the Flood Control Committee of the House of Representatives on February 16, 1944, as reported in volume II, pages 936, et seq., of the 1943-44 hearings of said committee. I wish to add the following information upon some of the topics discussed in that

statement.

My first topic in that statement was and in this statement is that flood control must be the prior and always indispensable element in anv plan of development of any large river system.

To consider this topic intelligently it must always be borne in mind that the Missouri Basin contains 529,000 square miles, or more than one-sixth of the continental United States in area; that the river is 2,470 miles in length and drains from a high elevation of 13,000 feet to a low of 400 feet at St. Louis; also that the upper reaches of this river are in latitudes where much winter weather is common and vast areas, by the time of the spring break-up and run-off, are frequently covered with a heavy blanket of packed snow and ice-thousands of square miles of it-sometimes as much as 4 feet deep. The vast expanse, long mileage, and steep slopes of this river system, coupled with the heavy winter weather conditions over its northern half, make it one of the most continuing dangerous flood threats of the entire Nation. The volume and velocity which its floods attain always tend to enlarge its damage as the flood crest moves down the river, so that it takes out or seriously damages all structures in its path and projects its damage far into the Mississippi, of which it is the largest tributary. When the House Flood Control Committee considered this bill in February 1944 we presented to it fresh events of the 1943 flood which did a calculated damage of between forty and fifty million dollars along the Missouri in that one year and a plainly apparent but uncalculated damage of very large proportions in addition. Also, there were reviewed flood damages and history for a hundred years back showing plainly that this one river had already done many times the damage that it would cost to take it completely under flood control. Since that date we have the additional evidence of the 1944 flood which affected large areas and localities of the Missouri River and, while not so large in calculated dollar damage as the 1943 flood, is the most logical kind of corroboration of the proposition that flood control must be the prior and indispensable element of any plan for control or development of this Misouri River system.

The wisdom and judgment of any Congress which spends substantial sums of money for irrigation, navigation, power development, or any other structures in this kind of river, without first providing for an absolute flood control, would always be open to serious question and criticism; the advent of any reasonably to be expected flood of the Missouri, taking out one or more of such expensive installations, would undoubtedly foment such questions and criticism into open censure. In fact, it seems almost foolhardy to consider any structures of substantial cost in this river without first taking the sensible, logical step of providing a complete flood control system.

The next topic of my House committee statement on which I wish to make some additional statement is the Army flood-control plan.

This topic I discussed at page 938 of the document above cited. I now wish to add:

Before and since that House committee hearing, the Army floodcontrol plan has been the subject of investigation by other committees of the House and much has been heard about it in the Senate; it has been the subject of much press and radio comment and of much official correspondence and statement here in Washington. One thing stands out singularly clear and prominent in all this investigation and comment, however, and that is that no one has ever pointed out a single defect in the Army engineers' plan as a flood-control plan. Not a single criticism of it as a flood-control plan exists; in fact, the contrary is true as most all agencies, departments, engineers, and technicians agree that it is a good flood-control plan for this particular river system. All the controversy that has been set in motion about this plan has not been because of any claimed engineering faults in it but solely on economic or local-interest grounds. There has been a tendency to confuse it with the river and harbor bill or portions of that bill authorizing a 9-foot channel to Sioux City. Other attempts have been made to confuse it with the irrigation interests involved. Still others with the power-development interests. None of these has the slightest relevancy to its value as a flood-control plan. Likewise, in all the controversy, comment, and correspondence about this Army engineers' flood-control plan, no one has ever suggested any different or better plan from a flood-control standpoint. The nearest of anything to a substitute plan is that of the Bureau of Reclamation, recently made public, but as the primary objective of that plan is plainly irrigation and not flood control, it cannot be accepted as a safe flood-control substitute plan. However, it is plain from the similarity of the two plans and the fact that the Army engineers' plan repeatedly points out that it is flexible and adaptive to such alterations as might make it more beneficial to irrigation, navigation, power development, conservation of wildlife resources, and similar benefits, that there could be some coordination of the two plans so that the Nation at large would receive fully compensating benefits.

The fact does remain, however, that the Army engineers' plan is the only plan which has been made primarily from the flood-control perspective and by a department of our Government which has had floodcontrol responsibility and has been our only Government specialist in flood control for at least 100 years. Before their experience and skill are dispensed with or ignored the Congress which does it ought to have the most convincing proof that it can be safely done and that so ignoring it would be practicable and wise as a matter of utilization of the various agencies and departments which the Government finds it necessary to maintain at all times.

If, as I claimed in the House committee statement and now claim before this committee, flood control must always be the prior and indispensable element in any plan for development of this Missouri River system, it seems to follow logically that a plan designed by flood-control specialists and primarily from a flood-control perspective should be the paramount and determining consideration from the standpoint of legislative judgment.

The consequences of taking any great risk on a project of the dimensions and importance of this one are too dangerous and expensive

to warrant taking it. It will certainly be much better to have a little less irrigation, a little less navigation, a little less power development and other collateral benefits, and have them surely and safely and practicably, then to take the risks which already in one or two instances in recent history have proved so damaging and costly and have caused so much dissatisfaction with governmental operations. From more than 30 years' experience with various sections of this Missouri River system I believe I am qualified to point out with conservative warning the grave dangers of taking any risks on the flood characteristics and flood frequency of the Missouri River. Such risks are quite likely to result in a repetition of past events when inhabitants of this valley have stood upon the river bluffs and witnessed a veritable inland sea of charging floodwaters bearing on their surface the floating bodies of cattle, horses, hogs, and other livestock, dwelling houses and outbuildings, farm vehicles and equipment, remnants of town and city structures, and even the bodies of drowned persons; to say nothing of literally thousands of acres of rich bottom lands washed out and going down to clog the channel of the Mississippi and the Delta at the Gulf. Try to erect some irrigation, navigation, power development, or similar structures in this river without adequate flood protection and you are quite likely to witness the sudden sweeping away of irrigation systems, power structures, docks and wharves, and shortly thereafter to have delegations here before this and other committees wanting more and more appropriations to repair and restore that which should never have been lost in the first place. The Missouri River has a habit of changing its channel in time of flood and wandering around over its flood plain making new channels and courses. Put in a few main dam structures on this river without adequate flood control first and you are sometime quite likely to see an $18,000,000 spillway structure-I am referring to the cost of the Fort Peck spillway-high and dry and utterly useless sitting out on a sandbar, an impressive monument to the memory of those who were willing to take a chance on a Missouri River flood. Without a complete flood-control system designed for the entire valley, as this Army system is, you are quite likely to have some, or all, of those results in future Missouri River floods. The only safe and reasonable plan is to make absolute and complete flood control the "must" requirement of spending any large sums of money on development of this river.

My next topic is: "The real question that confronts this committee and the correct answer to it." It is possibly a little presumptuous for me to set this topic up down here before this committee, but after all I am called down here as a witness and am supposed to know something about this Missouri Valley and that is the only excuse for my being here.

Senator OVERTON. I am quite sure you do, Governor, and we are very glad to have your advice.

Governor SHARPE. With that introduction I will proceed to this topic.

I doubt if there will be any serious opposition to the proposition I have first set forth to the effect that flood control should be the first thing provided for. I doubt if the proponents of irrigation, navigation, power development, or anything else, will come before this committee and tell you in effect to go ahead and take a chance

and authorize the installations and appropriations primarily for their particular interest, with flood control in the background, or only partially provided for. It is more likely that all of them will claim they have, in fact, provided for flood control as well as the Army plan has and, in addition, have a number of other benefits which they want authorized and appropriated for. In other words, they will agree that flood control has to come first but will claim they have made it first.

I think the real question which will confront this committee will be one of economics and apportionment of benefits. The main controversies on the subject to date seem to involve allegedly conflicting interests of navigation and irrigation, each of which apparently desires to be recognized as the paramount interest in all or some sections of the Missouri Valley. There is also some assertion of State's rights, to determine, independent of the National Government, what each separate State may do with all the water in any interstate stream flowing within its boundaries. It seems plain that to give practicable effect to this latter theory Congress would have to give up completely its constitutional jurisdiction over interstate waterborne commerce and its policy of flood control and other improvements on interstate streams. While there seems to be some growing popularity in the idea of a more aggressive assertion of rights by the several States, and while the idea may have some justification in certain matters, the fact remains that there are certain branches of Government and administration which have to be controlled by the paramount authority of the Nation under its Constitution, and it seems almost too plain for argument that one of these must be interstate streams. The various conflicts of interests which might immediately develop from legislation and claims of water use and control by several different States along an interstate stream are so plainly apparent, and have in the past exhibited themselves so plainly, that no recital of them here is necessary.

Therefore, assuming that the main controversy is between irrigation and navigation, control of the power developments, and individual rights of the several States, and assuming that the flood ravages of the Missouri River should now be halted and that the construction program would be quite practicably appropriate to postwar-adjustment plans, what practicable legislation could Congress pass for the Missouri River?

In seeking the accurate answer to this important question there are several factors which must be taken into consideration.

The first one is that this flood-control bill which has been passed by the House does not in itself allocate any water to any State nor to any interest or purpose. It is purely a construction plan, devised to afford absolute flood control of the river system. It provides storage reservoirs and channel definement structures to accomplish flood control, and goes no further. Apparently enactment of that bill into law would not have the effect of allocating any water to any State or interest, nor would it vest any rights in any State or interest except the right of the National Government to have right-of-way for the storage spaces and channel definement structures.

The next factor to be considered is that this Army flood-control plan is not rigid and unalterable. It is plainly specified as being a flexible framework which will produce an absolute flood control for the