Mr. FERGUSON. I don't think so. The greatest opposition is above the dams on the Yadkin River. Senator OVERTON. That is the upper dam? Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. Senator OVERTON. Now then, the testimony further shows that the lands that are subject to inundation by these detention reservoirs will be inundated not more than twice a year, and for a length of time. variously estimated at from 2 days to a week. Is that correct? Mr. FERGUSON. Well, the 1940 flood, as I remember, took probably about 12 hours, or probably 20 hours to recede back into the banks. Of course, that was without any dams. With a dam, of course, the water would be retarded and would flow off more slowly. I might say this, that after the 1940 flood I had 14 samples of the mud that was left on my bottom land tested in a laboratory at Raleigh. Every one of those tests came back deficient in lime, organic matter, phosphate, and nitrogen-the main elements that plant food uses. We find, it is our experience in farming, that where mud is left about 4 inches deep, you can very readily mix it with the old soil; but when it is left over that, up to 12 inches or 2 feet deep, that it can't be mixed readily with the old soil, and therefore you can't get your land back into production in less than about 3 years. We figure that under these dams the mud will be left deep, and therefore it will render Senator OVERTON (interposing). Well, the statements so far in the record, made by two or three witnesses, are that the silt or mud deposit will be only immediately next to the dam, and the lands above it will be comparatively free of silt deposit. Mr. F5RGUSON. Well, during the 1940 flood the silt was left on the bottoms from Wilkesboro clear up to the foot of the mountains. Senator OVERTON. I can understand that of course, silt flows with the stream. Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. Senator OVERTON. You stated that the 1940 flood resulted in adding to the fertility of the soil in the valley. Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. Senator OVERTON. But your opinion is that Mr. FERGUSON (interposing). It took about 3 years to get it back into production. Senator OVERTON. Well, would a flood in these detention reservoirs add to the fertility of the soil embraced within the reservoir? Mr. FERGUSON. We have an average of about one small flood a year, sometimes we have two small floods. By reason of these dams these small floods would also back the water out of your crops and on your land, and probably do that each year. Senator OVERTON. How much cultivation can take place on these lands if these detention reservoirs are constructed? Will they be abandoned to cultivation, or can they be used for grazing purposes? Mr. FERGUSON. It would depend largely on how much flood you have. If you have a flood maybe only every 3 or 4 years, it would probably be possible to cultivate it, but our history is that we have had an average of one small flood a year. Senator OVERTON. Assuming then, that history will repeat itself and that you have an average of one small flood a year, will you be able to cultivate your land in the detention reservoir? Mr. FERGUSON. Not with any profit. Senator OVERTON. Then of course you cannot. Senator OVERTON. These lands, when they are acquired by the Government, of course the landowners would receive just compensation. Mr. FERGUSON. You wouldn't consider $57, that is the average .price Senator OVERTON (interposing.) The value of your land would be determined by a jury impaneled by the Superior Court, and it would be taken from a venire of the vicinage that is familiar with the land and its value, and the jury would determine the value. Under the Constitution of this country, a man must receive a fair and just compensation for his land that is taken for public use. So I assume the law will be carried out in that regard. Now, they are also going to lease the land back to cultivation to those that wish to cultivate it, giving preference to the original landowners. Mr. FERGUSON. I understood that, but who would want to live in a community that had been destroyed, and the churches and school buildings had been dislodged and homes pushed back into the hills, and maybe abandoned entirely; who would want to live in a community of that kind? Would you? Senator OVERTON. Well, I am not on the witness stand. I have had a lot of experience, though, down in Louisiana with flood construction work. I have seen our people have to abandon many homes, many a nice farm, in order to divert the waters of the mighty Mississippi to new channels into the Gulf, and it is a great hardship, I admit. It is a question of the greatest good to the greatest number. Are there any questions? Senator HOEY. Mr. Jones is the next witness. Senator ROBERTSON. This would naturally leave a regular mud silt all over the area where the water was, would it not? Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. Senato ROBERTSON. Is any of that land grazing land? Mr. FERGUSON. Well, naturally if you had your land sodded to grass, and this silt was left there each year, it would cover your grass up so you would have to reseed it, and I wouldn't think that it would be satisfactory for grazing. Senator OVERTON. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. Who is your next witness? Senator HOEY. Mr. Jones. Senator OVERTON. Give your full name to the reporter. Mr. JONES. Rufus McC. Jones. Senator OVERTON. Proceed with your statement. STATEMENT OF RUFUS McC. JONES Mr. JONES. I live in the upper part of this proposed Yadkin Basin, about 15 miles above Mr. Ferguson. Senator OVERTON. That is above the upper dam? Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. The valley where I live is about 6 miles long before it closes in, and around a mile wide in the bottoms. In that there is something over 8,000 acres of land. Even before I could remember, that land practically all was owned by two families. Since that time, or since I can remember, it has been cut up and sold to farmers for small farms, because of the fact of labor and because of the fact that nobody needed that much land in that country. It is the most productive and the most fertile part of that county. In this particular basin there are about 183 homes that, should the water come up there, those will all have to be moved. We who have farmed up there have farmed it as scientifically as possible. We brought these farms up from poor farms that really were worth nothing much, to the most fertile farms that we have got, just as fertile as any we have in western North Carolina. Now we have also paid a great deal of attention to our timber. there is a lot of we farmers have gone through our wood and trimmed our timbers and trimmed our lands according to the specifications of our county farm bureau instructors. Senator OVERTON. Would the inundation of this land affect the timber? Mr. JONES. Lots of it, yes, sir; and it affects all the underpaths to this timber. It goes up those hollows. Take my particular place, if we were to do that, the water would be, from my side of the river to the other side of the river where it would extend, at least a mile and a half wide. I have got some bottom land up there with timber right down to the edge, where my timber is growing. It is that way with every single farmer up there. I don't control very much land up there, I have only got 487 acres of land, and in that it has got three buildings-three homes. Senator OVERTON. Including your own? Mr. JONES. Including my own. And of course, I have barns and sheds and things like that, that go with a farm, to make the farm in the best shape possible. Senator OVERTON. Are they all subject to inundation? Mr. JONES. No; not where the engineers say this will come to. But that isn't the question. It won't be covered, but it will be soggy with water, we will have no fall for our ditches, and we can't keep our land dry. It is just below me where the proposed basin will come to, I mean the proposed dam, the headwaters. We have been offered quite a good deal of money for our lands up in there. Mine is not for sale if I can keep it. I have been offered 3 or 4 times what it really might sell for, and I don't want to sell it. Personally, I live in the oldest house in that whole country, it came down from my great grandfather, and the house is 135 years old; and I don't put so much stress on the house, only I love to live in it, and I want to stay home if I can. I speak for the people of Caldwell County so far as our production and sale is concerned, that keeps up our town. And there is only one other place of about 2,000 acres in that town that compares in any way whatever with the farm land. That is on the Caldwell-Burke County line, in the Johns River section. We hope that this won't come in there on us in the manner that it seems. Senator HOEY. Mr. W. A. Strickland. STATEMENT OF W. A. STRICKLAND Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen; Mr. Ferguson represents the people of Wilkes County, above the dams, that will be affected by these dams if they are built. We had a meeting of some 7 or 8 hundred people in this valley Thursday night of last week, when we received word that this matter was again coming up before the committee. Mr. George Weise had represented the former committee, and we understand now that he has gone over with the Wilkesboro people, favoring the construction of these dams; and Mr. Ferguson, from Wilkes County, was reelected president of the association last Thursday night. Those 500 or 600 people voted unanimously, not a single dissenting vote out of the bunch, to oppose the construction of those dams. Senator OVERTON. The evidence here so far discloses that you had a meeting at the time when this multiple-purpose or dual-purpose dam, the single dual-purpose dam, was under contemplation, and that meeting resolved against, as I understand it, this dual-purpose dam. But it did favor the construction, in lieu thereof, of these four detention dams that are now contemplated; and you, yourself, approved of the substitution of the four detention reservoirs that we are now considering. Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir, we did not. Mr. Weise did that of his own initiative after that meeting, and without any knowledge of the members, the residents of the valley, the landowners; and Mr. Weise doesn't own a foot of land in the valley. He has no personal interest in it at all. Senator OVERTON. You never, then, took the position of being in favor of this? Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir. He went to Wilkesboro and had a meeting with thise fellows without my knowledge or consent, and without the knowledge and consent of the membership of that organization. Senator OVERTON. Were you present at the meeting? Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir; I didn't know it had happened until after it was over with. Senator MCCLELLAN. Are you talking about this meeting last Thursday night? Senator OVERTON. No; it was one about a year or two ago. Mr. STRICKLAND. That was when we were in opposition to it, at that time. Now then, I spent all of Sunday going up and down the Yadkin River, and it will completely flood that valley whenever they have these excessive floods. It will flood it up as far as the village of Patterson, which is close to Blowing Rock, a famous summer resort. Now within the memory of man, there have been only two floods in that valley that have done any appreciable damage. The lives that have been mentioned, that were lost in the 1940 flood, are way up the mountainside, which will not receive any protection by reason of these dams. The water will gush down the mountainsides, and those mountain streams up there, with the same velocity and the same force that it always has. There was a flood on the river in 1916 that did some damage. Then the one in 1940 did some damage. But not enough to justify the expenditure of the amount of money that has been recommended. When we were discussing the matter, Mr. Chairman, the first time that you asked me about, preliminary to that meeting the Army engineers went up there and went over the matter with a committee. My recollection is that the evidence taken at that meeting with the Army engineers was to the effect that if they used power in connection with the proposed dam at that time, that the income from that power would yield slightly over 1 percent on the Government's investment in the cost of the dam. That is not considering the cost of acquiring the land. 1 Now then, if the dry detention dams are erected, it is our belief that they will shortly be converted into power dams, and we don't need any power, there would be no sale for that. Senator MCCLELLAN. In that connection, I don't believe you could build them for flood control only, and later convert them, unless it is provided in the bill that they be constructed that way in the beginning. I think you may be laboring under a misapprehension about that. Senator OVERTON. That would require another act of Congress to authorize it. Senator MCCLELLAN. Yes. Mr. STRICKLAND. I realize that, but once they drive these people out of the valley, there will be no reason or logic for not converting them into power dams. If the people are going to have to leave the valley, then what difference does it make? Senator MCCLELLAN. Well, I would say this, if that is true, if there is any real merit in that position, that Congress ought to act wisely and build multiple-purpose dams from the start; in other words, if we are going through with the project. Mr. STRICKLAND. That is exactly what we don't want done, we don't want you to go through with the project if we can keep you from doing it. The notice of this hearing was received only last Thursday. I first asked that it be continued until we could contact all the people in the valley who are opposed to it, and I have already forwarded to Senator Hoey a petition, with several hundred names on it, in opposition to it. Others will be following just as soon as the people can finish getting them up. Senator OVERTON. Are all the signers of this petition residents of the area covered by the upper dam? Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir; some of them below the upper dam. Mr. STRICKLAND. I can say that there are 100 on that list that are below the upper dam. Senator OVERTON. That is over half, then. Mr. STRICKLAND. Neither Mr. Ferguson nor myself had sufficient time to notify the people in the valley, that is, all of them, of the meeting that we had last Thursday night, but he got in touch with as many of them as he could and I got in touch with some of them. The people are unanimous, that is, so far as the homeowners and landowners are concerned, in the valley where they will be affected, in their opposition to it. Senator MCCLELLAN. Will you clear up one other thing for me, please? There has been some testimony about nine lives having been ! |