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submit written evidence to it at the time that Board reviews the report. The Chief of Engineers does not put his final decision on any report of the Engineer Department until it has been reviewed by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors.

Senator OVERTON. Well, now, Colonel, you state that you have no objection to a provision being incorporated in the law that will require the consultation with other Federal agencies involved, and with local interests?

Colonel REBER. No, sir.

Senator OVERTON. You state you have no objection?

Colonel REBER. No, sir; I personally have no objection.

Senator OVERTON. Do I understand from that that you are endorsing the O'Mahoney amendment?

Colonel REBER. No, sir. Very definitely not.

Senator OVERTON. Yes, sir.

Colonel REBER. The final point that I want to make, I feel, is very important for this reason. If the chairman will permit me, I should like to make a few remarks off the record.

Senator OVERTON. Very well.

(There was colloquy off the record.)

Colonel REBER. If I may proceed on the record now:

The Chief of Engineers is specifically limited by existing law, when he completes a survey, which the Pick report is, to those studies which he has completed in that connection, and he can do nothing more until the proposed project is authorized by Congress. There is a provision in H. R. 4485 which is similar to provisions of all previous flood-control legislation.

As I unfortunately do not have my book of flood-control laws with me, I shall read that provision in H. R. 4485:

Provided, That after the regular or formal reports made on any examination. survey, project, or work under way or proposed are submitted to Congress, no supplemental or additional report or estimate shall be made unless authorized by law except that the Secretary of War may cause a review of any examination or survey to be made and a report thereon submitted to the Congress if such review is required by the national defense or by changed physical or economic conditions.

Now, unfortunately we cannot provide construction plans for the Missouri Basin on the grounds of national defense. We wouldn't try. Neither can we prepare those plans on the grounds of changed physical or economic conditions, because that wouldn't be true from the time we finished this report, which was last December, until the present moment. So therefore, unless there is an authorization at this time, we cannot take a single further step to be prepared for the post-war period. If this bill becomes law, there will be authorized greatly needed flood protection for vital areas like Omaha and Council Bluffs, like the Kansas Cities, where a great majority of that protection is afforded by levees and flood walls that have absolutely nothing to do with the problem of irrigation in the upper basin. Very definitely, I think it would be a national calamity if the detailed construction plans for those levees and flood walls were not prepared in time to build those structures when the war is over. There are today large numbers of competent engineering firms in the country who assisted us greatly in our war-construction program in the United States. Fortunately that

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part of our war-construction program is over. Those people are crying for work, and to give them the job of preparing details of design for this type of work would not handicap the war effort in any way, shape, or form.

The same thing is true, gentlemen, of the agricultural lands of the lower basin. For example, we had a representative of the Osage Flood Control Committee in here the other day, saying that he needed to have his plans prepared at the earliest practicable date. I think that if we don't do that and a serious flood comes along right after the war, I personally would feel somewhat responsible for the losses that would occur during that flood.

Now, with regard to possible upper-basin reservoirs, there seems to be only one in which there is any room for discussion, and that is Garrison. There are ways and means, as were described this morning by Mr. Case, of building Garrison so that it will affect only a very small portion of the potentially irrigable land in North Dakota because, after all, gentlemen, 30,000 acres is not very much in a potential irrigable area of 1.275,000. Even so, I do not think that it is quite the American way to hold up everything because of one minor point. I say "minor" because I really do not think there is any real conflict here.

I should like to mention for the sake of the record a project with which the chairman of this committee is very familiar, and that is the great project for the alluvial valley of the Mississippi River. We started on that project way back in the 1800's. It was years and years before the final plan that we have in effect today was evolved. In 1928 after the disastrous flood of 1927, the greatest catastrophe that the Nation has ever had from floods, Congress authorized on May 15, 1928, the plan for the Mississippi Valley which is known as the Jadwin plan. There was one very controversial element in that plan, and that was the Boeuf floodway. Again in 1936 Congress changed that controversial item and authorized the Eudora floodway. That particular floodway was still controversial. So it wasn't until 1941 that Congress again changed the basic plan for the Mississippi River and authorized the protection between the mouth of the Arkansas and the mouth of the Red by main-line levees alone, because in the meantime under the courage and leadership of the various presidents of the Mississippi River Commission, among whom were General Ferguson and General Tyler, we had learned that we could dispense with floodways in the middle section of that river because of the flood-reducing effect of cutoffs. Your chairman played a great part in the final solution of this very controversial problem.

I mention that project and that problem for one specific purpose. Gentlemen, Congress didn't wait until 1941 to authorize the Mississippi Valley project because there was one controversial item in it. Thank God, Congress didn't wait. And we went ahead and we built as much as we possibly could from 1928 on. Then in 1937, 10 years after the great inundation of 27, another superflood struck the Mississippi. That flood was the flood of record for the Mississippi between Cairo, Ill., and Helena, Ark., and I am very proud to say that that flood was passed safely to the Gulf of Mexico without one break in the main-line levees that had been built between 1928 and 1937. Compare that result with the catastrophe of 1927.

So, gentlemen, why should we hold up flood protection for many thousands and hundreds of thousands of people in this Missouri Valley any why should we hold up the furnishing of water to many thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres because we cannot in all sincerity, apparently, reach a complete meeting of the minds on all details. I think we can eventually, but I think that the adoption now of both plans by the Congress will insure the people of the Missouri Valley and the people of the United States that the future of this great section of our country is in safe hands and can be fully developed with our present knowledge and with such improvements as science permits us to learn in the years to come.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator OVERTON. Now, Colonel Reber, it is getting time for us to recess, and the probability is that the members of the committee and Senator Millikin will want to ask you some questions. Can you return tomorrow morning?

Colonel REBER. I shall, sir.

Senator OVERTON. Very well. Then, we shall recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Senator MILLIKIN. Mr. Chairman, might I put in and offer for the record, please, a communication from Huron, S. Dak., dated June 9? Senator OVERTON. Yes.

(The telegram from Huron, S. Dak., is as follows:)

F. O. HAGIE,

HURON, S. DAK., June 9, 1944.

National Press Building, Washington, D. C.: The Huron Chamber of Commerce's Missouri River Development Committee in session this morning studied text of statement made by Governors of Montana and North Dakota and wired here at committee's request last night. The committee here voted unanimously to concur in full in statement by Governors, and hereby authorize you to present this concurrence to the Senate Commerce Committee and to make whatever use you may see of it. The committee points out that joint Governors' statement is in complete harmony with action here on June 2 at state-wide meeting called by South Dakota Reclamation Association at which time the following resolution was unanimously adopted.

"Whereas there appears to be a controversy as to the merits of different plans proposed for the development of the Missouri River Basin, we hereby respectfully request that the Congress of the United States which gives directives to all divisions of government including the War Department and the Bureau of Reclamation, before taking action on any plan, direct that the War Department and the Bureau of Reclamation and other interested agencies get together and develop a unified, integrated plan, assuring optimum use of the river and its waters for all of its multiple-purpose uses.

Among 200 in attendance at June 2 meeting, representing more than 30 towns and cities of South Dakota were the following: B. W. Wist, president, Greater South Dakota Association; E. M. Brady editor, Mitchell Daily Republic; Henry Schmidt, publisher, Aberdeen American News; R. O. Hillgrin, Sioux Falls Argus Leader; Paul G. Erickson, secretary, State Farm Union; Paul K. Myers, secretary, Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce; H. B. Test, president, South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation; Emil Loriks, national secretary, Farm Union; Millard G. Scott, director of South Dakota Rural Credit Department; Raymond Lund, secretary, South Dakota Reclamation Association; W. S. Morrison, vice president, South Dakota Reclamation Association; Arthur Svenby, legislative member of South Dakota Reclamation Association; Ralph Hanson, Dakota Farmer of Aberdeen; E. H. Everson, secretary of agriculture for South Dakota, and Roy Nord, director of taxation for South Dakota.

H. M. PIERCE,

Chairman, Missouri River Development Committee,
Huron Chamber of Commerce.

STATEMENT OF H. W. BUNSTON, HARDIN, MONT.

Mr. BUNSTON. My name is H. W. Bunston, of Hardin, Mont. I am a farmer and stockman. I appear here as president of the Yellowstone Basin Association at the request of our members in support of a unified and complete program of development of the Missouri River Basin through the control and use of its waters for the most beneficial purposes.

We are in full accord with the control of the upper Missouri River and its tributaries in a way that will prevent it from being a contributing factor to floods in the lower basin. We recognize the necessity and rights of the people below to have their cities, their lands, and their industries protected against flood damages in order that they may use these lands for agricultural purposes and their industries for industrial production. We recognize the rights of the people along the Missouri to have ample water for domestic and sanitation purposes.

We likewise assert our right to use our land in our arid and semiarid West for the best and highest production purposes and to the accomplishment of those purposes the Missouri River should be controlled, and its water used. It is as important to us to put the water on the land when needed as it is for those of the lower area to keep the water off the land when not needed, if we each produce. Therefore, flood control in the lower area through storage in the upper area is necessary and the use of that stored water to the extent of our needs is vital in our crop production program. The one complements the other. The only fly in the ointment is the attempt to revive the antiquated and voluntarily discarded system of transportation on the Missouri River. We have no objection to navigation provided it does not interfere with the orderly and proper development of our area and can be justified economically before the Con

gress.

It is, however, necessary that a definite protective policy be provided through proper amendment to the flood-control bill to warrant the large expenditures needed for irrigation development and assure a dependable water supply which is vital to irrigation development. With such an assurance we will progress and develop with confidence.

The Yellowstone Basin comprises about 45,000,000 acres, about 1,000,000 acres of which is now irrigated. Another million acres is irrigable. Not to exceed 5 percent of the area is capable of irrigation. This 5 percent must be irrigated insofar as practicable to provide a proper backlog for livestock production and have land on which a cash crop may be dependably produced, through which earnings may be had to provide a living and meet the necessary expense of production and development.

We favor the Bureau of Reclamation program of development in the Yellowstone Basin. This is not because it is a Bureau program rather than an Army program, but because the proposed Army program does not meet our needs. Take both programs for the Big Horn River as an example.

The Army program for the Big Horn consists of one storage far upstream of 32 million acre-feet capacity. No irrigation is practical from the reservoir itself. The only benefit we would receive

would be through silt elimination, flood control benefits, and river flow stabilization.

The Big Horn River is about 300 miles long. It flows through two distinct valleys made so on account of the Big Horn Mountains through which it flows. Considerable irrigable land lies above the Boysen-Army dam site and much below it in Wyoming before it reaches the Big Horn Canyon at the Montana-Wyoming line.

The Bureau program recommends a 750,000 acre-foot storage at about the Boysen-Army site and several smaller ones above, designed to provide irrigation water for all irrigable land above.

It also recommends storage immediately above the Big Horn Mountains of three-fourths million acre-feet and storage at the mouth of the Big Horn Canyon in Montana. This storage would be nearly threefourths million acre-feet and would be high enough to permit irrigation of all irrigable land in the Big Horn Valley in Montana by gravity flow. It would also retain a mountain run-off of well over a half million acre-feet for conservation and beneficial purposes. When all actual and potential irrigation needs were met there would still be a substantial amount of water to maintain stream flow and for beneficial uses below. Such a control and use of the water would be in full accord with the flood-control needs below.

The same principle of storage and use is provided for in other areas. Substantial power is developed, silt is controlled, stream flow is maintained and regulated. The right of our people to use the water rising and flowing through our States in the arid West is maintained and much water will be available for use below through the Bureau plan.

Until a substitute for water needed for crop production is provided our arid States we must have the first right to the use of the water rising and flowing through our States to the extent of our needs. This is vital if these arid States are to be self-sustaining units and contribute their share toward our national wealth.

It is necessary that we have assurance of this right to the water in order that money needed for irrigation development may be obtained.

Montana people support the position taken by Governors Hunt, Moses, and Ford in their statements.

Senator MILLIKIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have inserted in the record at this point a resolution of The North Dakota Stockgrowers Association.

Senator OVERTON. Very well.

(The resolution is as follows:)

RESOLUTION No. 15 OF THE NORTH DAKOTA STOCKGROWERS ASSOCIATION WATER CONSERVATION AND MISSOURI RIVER

We again commend the State Water Commission for its endeavors in developing a program of water conservation and irrigation. We feel in the pronouncement of its plans for any specific project that full publicity should be given to the contemplated economic benefits and particularly to the construction, maintenance, and operation costs, as well as the cost of the water to the user. This will enable the public, and particularly those to be effected by the project, to have a clear picture of the offsetting costs against proposed benefits.

For many years the people of the State have been hoping for and looking towards a plan for the use of the waters of the Missouri River for wide range of irrigation, flood control, and water conservation within the State. Now we find ourselves in a position where two governmental authorities have pro

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