gests several ways in which the area's attractiveness to the tourist can be enhanced. Enthusiasm and action cannot be effective, however, without first meeting one basic requirement-organization.

Because of the favorable report received from Arthur D. Little, Inc., the county commissioners authorized the establishment of a county planning commission with a paid county planner. The chamber of commerce and the County Development Association are also continuing their studies and plans for this area and are enthusiastic concerning the reservoir's recreation potential.

The above organizations, as well as a large majority of private individuals, favor the construction of the dam and hope that no further postponements will be considered by this committee.

The Warren County Commissioners wholeheartedly endorse the early construction of this dam and recommend to the committee that favorable legislation be recommended to Congress.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Commissioner Mead.

Mr. GAVIN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Langdon is here from Warren County.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Langdon, we will be glad to hear you.

STATEMENT OF MR. ARTHUR L. LANGDON

Mr. LANGDON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Arthur L. Langdon, mayor of Warren Borough, Warren, Pa.

There have been volumes written and delay after delay in regard to this Allegheny River Reservoir. I represent thousands of people in the Allegheny Valley in and around Warren County that live in fear. It was only by the grace of God that a most disastrous flood was prevented this spring. We had 3 or 4 days of warm sunshine that resulted in taking off the snow. The river at Warren was up to 13.95 feet. Fourteen feet is the flood stage. If those 3 or 4 days had been rain, we would have had a most disastrous flood all the way down to Pittsburgh. We could easily have had 19 to 20 feet of water.

I hope this committee will see fit to sit out any selfish interests there may be in connection with this proposition, and I sincerely hope this appropriation will be granted so that a flood-weary people will have relief without further delay.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Langdon.

CONEWANGO VALLEY

Mr. GAVIN. Mr. Chairman, I notice in the Salamanca Republican Press of April 7 at the end of a story appearing on the first page this

statement:

Another proposal, which would improve the Conewango Valley instead of using it for a flood basin, was approved Wednesday by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. It is the Conewango Valley watershed.

It was approved at a cost of $3.8 million, of which $2.2 million would be the Federal share.

Mr. BOLAND. We will not need that, then?

Mr. GAVIN. I am merely saying the House and Senate Agricultural Committees have already approved it on Wednesday--this is the date,. April 7.

If you will give us a bit of additional time, not much, I want to call your attention to a letter received from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau. I will read it rather rapidly, but I do think it is important for you to hear it.

(Thereupon, the following letter was read by Mr. Gavin:)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, WEATHER BUREAU,
Pittsburgh, Pa., February 12, 1960.

Hon. L. H. GAVIN,
House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. GAVIN: Relative to your telephone inquiry of Vernon T. Houghton Jr., of this office on February 11, 1960, concerning flood losses in the Pittsburgh River district during the January 21-25, 1959, flood, the following information is furnished for your use. It should be noted that the flood damages in our re port were obtained by analyzing questionnaires received from local officials of various communities and augmented by personal field visits to flooded areas t observe and to discuss damages with local, company, and State officials. The savings values were obtained in a similar manner.

In the entire Pittsburgh River district, the total damages amounted to $27,821,856. Damage to private, industrial, and commercial property amounted to $11,224,114 or about 40 percent of the total damages reported. Of the total. $9,897,012 occurred in the Allegheny River Basin and $17,924,844 in the upper Ohio River Basin between Pittsburgh, Pa., and dam 13, McMechen, W. Va... which includes principal tributaries such as the Beaver, Shenango, and Mahoning Rivers. No damages occurred in the Monongahela River Basin. This flood was one of the most destructive floods of record in this river district with 10,906 dwellings flooded and 1 loss of life. The dollar value of property saved by action taken on receipt of flood warnings and forecasts issued by this office was $15,405,900.

In the State of Pennsylvania alone, flood losses amounted to $18,082,199 or 65 percent of the total damages for the entire river district. Total number of dwellings flooded in Pennsylvania was 5,573. Savings in Pennsylvania due to receipt of flood warnings amounted to $10,847,400.

We hope that the above information meets your needs and that it will serve a useful purpose in bringing to the public's attention the importance and serious ness of floods.

Very truly yours,

HENRY ROCKWOOD, Meteorologist in Charge.

Mr. GAVIN. At this time, I would like to call on my very good and able friend, Representative Flood of Pennsylvania.

Mr. CANNON. Congressman Flood is a member of this committee, and we will be glad to hear from him at this time.

STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE DANIEL J. FLOOD, PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. FLOOD. I am here to lend my support to the eloquence and earnestness of my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Gavin. For me to attempt to improve on that eloquence and earnestness would be gilding the lily. I simply give my support to him.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Flood and Mr. Gavin.

Mr. GAVIN. I want to thank the committee for their patience in listening to our testimony and I hope they will follow the recommendation of the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of the Budget and recommend $4.5 million for this project.

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1960.

WILKES-BARRE FLOOD CONTROL

WITNESS

HON. DANIEL J. FLOOD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. CANNON. Congressman Flood of Pennsylvania.

Congressman Flood is a member of this committee. We will be glad to listen to him at this time.

Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Chairman, I want to talk to you about a project which General Itschner of the Army Engineers told me and a group of people in Wilkes-Barre was one of the most difficult he has ever encountered. At a meeting called by me and attended by General Itschner and Mr. Ankeny, the Director of the Bureau of Mines, a rather unusual combination, General Itschner advised me that the project I am talking about now is the most complicated and the most difficult he has ever experienced since he has been with the Army Engineers or since he has been an engineer.

You have, on your subcommittee, Dr. Fenton and Mike Kirwan who know about the difficulties of the problem. Dr. Fenton has gone through this for many years in his district. Mike Kirwan was born and raised in the middle of where the problem is.

The picture you see there was delivered this morning where the truck drove down the river and disappeared a hop, skip, and jump from where Congressman Kirwan was born. I drive along there every week.

Across the river, four children nearly drowned on Sunday because of water seepage up from below, a problem it would be difficult for you to understand. A great lake is forming with water seeping up from below because of vast pressures from underneath.

You may wonder what we are doing with the Army Engineers; why is this not in the Bureau of Mines Subcommittee? Well, this no longer, to our amazement-and this we never knew until last month--is concerned with mining problems at all. As you remember, in the investigations conducted several years ago, there was discovered underneath this great Wyoming Valley a vast wide glacial bed. There is a vast glacial stream underneath the Pennsylvania coalfield and on top of that are the coalfields. The city of WilkesBarre, with 100,000 population-by the way, this affects about 40 miles and 34 million people live in this area. It is a densely populated anthracite area.

In the last few days, two of our great churches have been seriously damaged, plus convents and a high school. A two-story apartment building collapsed as though hit by an atom bomb. The streets opened in a great void as though it were an earthquake. We thought in that area a mine must have caved in, but it had not. There is a subterranean glacial stream, and the reason we could not understand the situation in the streets of Wilkes-Barre is there is no mining under these areas. We thought that was an act of God or the common enemy. God knows we had trouble enough, but now we had glacial streams

and with the great floods of last week we had 12 feet of water above flood level in the Susquehanna. Thank God the dikes you put there saved the city and saved the entire area. You kept our feet dry in the city because you built those dikes, and should you ever look for another reason for your existence besides the project you put in Dr. Fenton's valley, the dikes you put in the Susquehanna justify your existence.

This, gentlemen, is something we do not know what to do with. We need a study. As a member of your committee I have the same low opinion about supplementals that you have, but I come to you on this because the emergency has arisen since the Army Engineers testified before you here. I asked them to come up there and they came. You can imagine when you get General Itschner and Mr. Ankeny to go out of town personally to observe these things you have a fantastic problem. In 1959 you know what a shellacking we took from Hurricane Diane. Now this you will not believe. The Susquehanna River broke through its bottom to the mines and we had 40 billion gallons of water in a few days. Twelve miners were drowned. It destroyed millions and millions of dollars of property. We do not know how much. It closed two of the five mines we had; 3,200 men are permanently out of work. Two of our great mines were closed and abandoned and the men thrown out of work in a matter of hours and 12 men were drowned.

The Army Engineers say if this continues-mark you, we have a year and a half the way this water is coming in, and if something is not done-God knows what can be done; the Engineers do not know, nobody knows what can be done. Maybe nothing can be done. If you make this study maybe it will not be any good. We do not know. There is nothing like this in the world, nothing like it in the world that we know of.

So we want to study it. The Army Engineers are in command. They cannot do this. They do not have the engineers to do this kind of work. They want to make use of the Bureau of Mines. The Bureau of Mines in turn wants to use geologists of the Geological Survey.

There are nearly 1 million people in the vicinity of this area. It is on the threshold of the Nation's Capital. There are hundreds of millions of tons of anthracite coal that may be inundated and abandoned and lost to our natural resources forever.

I want to say I am understating this case. I am in a hurry and am understating it. I want a study. The Army Engineers, with the Bureau of Mines, have estimated the cost of a study. Because of what has happened in the past 30 days the need has doubled. Whether they need all this money in 1 year, I do not know.

Mr. BOLAND. What was the amount they were asking for?

Mr. FLOOD. $495,000, but I do not know if they will need that in 1 year. In the original report they said the study would take ? years. If it will take 2 years maybe they do not need it all in 1

Mr. CANNON. The gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. FENTON. Congressman Flood, you have stated that 12 men. lost their lives.

Mr. FLOOD. Yes, Dr. Fenton.

Mr. FENTON. It would be important for the committee to know that those 12 bodies are still there. They have never recovered the bodies.

Mr. FLOOD. Probably never will, Doctor.

Mr. FENTON. They have that condition all through the anthracite area. I do not know under whose jurisdiction this will come.

Mr. FLOOD. It should be the Engineers now. It is a flood problem and no longer a mining problem.

Mr. FENTON. There have been some underground studies made. Mr. FLOOD. All of that information will be used.

By the way, the State of Pennsylvania has spent $3 million on this problem with no Federal help at all.

Mr. CANNON. I can understand your anxiety with this difficult problem.

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1960.

FLOOD CONTROL AND OTHER PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS IN PENNSYLVANIA

WITNESS

HON. HUGH SCOTT, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. CANNON. Senator Scott, of Pennsylvania, is present and we shall be very glad to hear from you at this time, Senator.

Senator SCOTT. I will be very brief. I will submit a statement and simply mention the highlights.

Mr. Chairman, I appear in behalf of flood control and other public works projects in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

First, in regard to what Mr. Flood has said, I agree with it and I underscore it. I have discussed this situation with Representative Flood. I have testified on the same subject and these other subjects this morning before the Appropriations Committee of the Senate. Chairman Ellender has indicated he will consider further the questions raised here by Mr. Flood and by myself.

As Mr. Flood said, this is a new problem. There is evidence now which was not available before as to the cause of mine subsidence and underground flooding and this will be further investigated by the Senate committee.

As to the Allegheny River Reservoir and Kinzua Dam, I support what Congressman Gavin and other witnesses have said.

And on French Creek and Turtle Creek and the Delaware River channel deepening and anchorages, I can only say I support the budget items for all of those projects.