PRINCETON, IND., April 5, 1960. Re proposed Wabash levee unit No. 5. Hon. CLARENCE CANNON, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.: Several thousand acres of valuable farmland will be irreparably damaged if subject levee is constructed. A suit to review the proceedings had to date has been filed in Gibson circuit court, and this matter has been and will be in litigation for years. As one of inore than 100 owners who will be adversely affected I respectfully request that no appropriation for engineering be made at this time. Such would be a needless expenditure. GERALD E. HALL. PRINCETON, IND., April 5, 1960. Hon. CLARENCE CANNON, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, As chairman of committee of landowners representing 17,000 acres adversely affected by proposed Wabash levee unit No. 5, we protest appropriations. This project is still in litigation. JOHN F. HULL, Chairman. CHICAGO, ILL., April 5, 1960. Hon. CLARENCE CANNON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Works, House Office Building, Washington, D.C.: With reference to Wabash River levee unit No. 5, this bank as trustee of trusts owns substantial acreage affected by the proposed levee. We, together with others, have field suit in Gibson, County, Ind., court attacking a previous order pretending to establish the levee. We were notified today by the judge in that new case that he had overruled objections to our complaint and had entered an order requiring the defendants to answer our complaint within 10 days. We respectfully urge that this project is in no position for the appropriation of funds at this time and request that any appropriation now be withheld. C. P. BRONSTON. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1960. CHEAT RIVER FLOOD CONTROL WITNESSES DAVID MATHEWS, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PITTSBURGH COAL EXCHANGE A. C. GUMBERT, PITTSBURGH COAL EXCHANGE HON. HARLEY O. STAGGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA Mr. CANNON. Mr. Mathews of the Pittsburgh Coal Exchange, we are glad to have you with us. Do you desire to discuss the Monongahela project? Mr. MATHEWS. Quite briefly, sir, the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Congressman Harley O. Staggers has already filed my written statement along with his, and those of the two gentlemen I have with me. I want only to say this to you. We are not asking for anything which is not in the budget, sir, but we want to emphasize the impor tance of Maxwell Dam on the Monongahela River, which replaces locks 5 and 6. No. 5 at Brownsville is perhaps the busiest lock in the world. We average 52 lockings a day through that lock. The locks themselves are in operation an average of 221⁄2 hours per day. Every leading steel manufacturer and powerplant receives its coal, all the steel industry in the Monongahela Valley, upper Ohio, and powerplants as well receive their coal through this lock. The smaller existing lock below it is old, having been built around the turn of the century, and is badly in need of repair. It needs to be replaced. One other item, sir. The Rowlesburg flood control and conservation dam on the Cheat River. There is $30,000 in the budget to continue a survey of that project. Many times each year the uncontrolled runoff in the Cheat River floods out lock No. 5 on the Monongahela River when all other locks are in operation. Sometimes it is as much as 2 and 3 days that we cannot move any material whatsoever until the water subsides. I would like to emphasize, sir, that we are not interested in any power aspects of this proposition whatsoever. We feel that any power which might be generated on the Cheat River would be of dubious value, would be peaking power at best. We urge that this survey be completed, looking toward a conservation dam, which will permit us to navigate in the dry summer months and will take away some of the floodwaters during high stages. I have two gentlemen with me who have also filed statements. I would like to introduce them for just a moment. Mr. CANNON. If you will. Mr. MATHEWS. Capt. A. C. Gumbert, United States Steel Corp. Captain Gumbert is responsible for moving more than a million tons a month through lock No. 5. STATEMENT OF CAPT. A. C. GUMBERT Mr. CANNON. Captain Gumbert, we are glad to have you with us. Mr. GUMBERT. Mr. Chairman, it is a distinct honor for me to have the privilege of appearing here before you today. As Mr. Mathews said, my written statement has been filed previously by Congressman Staggers. I have just a few short remarks that I would like to make for the record that have come to pass since the date of my written statement. Mr. CANNON. You may proceed. Mr. GUMBERT. Lock No. 5, as Mr. Mathews has said, is a very important lock in the industrial structure of this Nation. In 1957, which was just an average year of transportation on the Monongahela, there were 2912 million tons locked through this lock. It is the first lock that goes out of operation due to high water and our most recent outage occurred at 6:40 p.m. on April 4, to 6 a.m. on April 5, and this outage was due strictly to the runoff from the Cheat Valley, which I would like to make a remark on just a moment later. Just last week at lock No. 5 it was out of commission from 5:30 a.m. on the 30th to 12:30 p.m. on April 1, for a total of 55 hours. The entire system of transportation on the Monongahela River was stopped due to this outage. This is one of the oldest locks on the river. It is in constant danger of failure all the time. There is, I think, in the current budget, $1,400,000 to begin construction on Maxwell Dam, which will replace this structure and lock 6. I respectfully ask you, Mr. Chairman, and your committee look upon this amount in the budget favorably that we can eliminate this bottleneck in this steel industry situation at Pittsburgh. Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Captain. Have you served in the armed services of the United States? Mr. GUMBERT. I have not served in the armed services of the United States, only to the extent that during the war I was a master pilot. I came up in this river transportation business the hard way. The nearest I got to serving in the Armed Forces was during the war Then better than 150 LST's were built at one of the shipyards in Pittsburgh. It was in the contract that the Navy had with this shipyard that my immediate superior or myself had to be present at each one of the launchings of these LST's, plus we had to be in charge of her on the trial run. I thought I was going to get over to Europe and get one of those gs when the war broke out but I did not get that far. That was ay contribution to the service. On the Rowlesburg conservation and flood control structure, Mr. Chairman, I believe there is included in the present budget $30,000 to complete the survey that is under progress for this structure and these outages that I have just mentioned, it is a matter of record of the U.S. Weather Bureau that all of this outage, on the Monongahela River was caused strictly by the runoff from the Cheat River, which if this flood control dam in the Cheat River were installed, it would control it to the extent that it would eliminate the majority of these outages. This outage that I spoke of here just a moment ago when lock 5 was out for 55 hours, the flood stage in Pittsburgh, according to the U.S. Weather Bureau, is 25 feet, and the stage of water at this last outage was 27.2 feet, and the Weather Bureau has said that had this runoff from the Cheat River been controlled, it would have lessened the stage of water at Pittsburgh by 3 feet. It is also a matter of record in Pittsburgh that since the disastrous flood of 1926, there have been over a hundred deaths in the vicinity attributed strictly to floods and high waters, and the most recent one-I don't have a copy of the paper, but it is a matter of record on the front page of the Sun Telegraph in Pittsburgh of Sunday's edition; I was here in Washington on Sunday, and I haven't been able yet to get the Sunday paper, but there is an article of a little 3-yearold girl in New Martinsville, W. Va., who went down to her basement, and there happened to be 3 feet of floodwater in the basement of her house, and she fell off the steps and fell into this water and was drowned. I just merely state this. This is also some of our problems in Pittsburgh. Mr. MATHEWS. Mr. Chairman, Capt. James K. Kinds, of Consoli- 54265-60-pt. 4—43 Mr. MATHEWS. Thank you, Congressman. I should like to say that I have been coming down here for 20 years now, and we have always found the committee to be most gracious and considerate. Mr. CANNON. You have never found us with less money. Mr. MATHEWS. We are not asking for anything not in the budget, sir. APRIL 6, 1960. WABASH RIVER VALLEY PROJECTS WITNESSES HON. FRED WAMPLER, REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA MRS. CHAUNCEY BALDWIN, MEMBER, INDIANA-ILLINOIS INTERSTATE COMPACT COMMISSION, MEMBER, WABASH VALLEY ASSOCIATION RABB EMISON, MEMBER OF THE INDIANA-ILLINOIS INTERSTATE COMPACT COMMISSION, AND MEMBER OF THE WABASH VALLEY ASSOCIATION CARL I. HALE, VICE PRESIDENT, VIGO COUNTY CHAPTER OF THE WABASH VALLEY ASSOCIATION JOHN ZERR, RURAL ROUTE 1, BRAZIL, IND., SECRETARY, VIGO COUNTY CHAPTER OF THE WABASH VALLEY ASSOCIATION AND EXTENSION AGENT OF VIGO COUNTY PETER FARMER, MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, VIGO COUNTY CHAPTER, WABASH VALLEY ASSOCIATION, AND CHAIRMAN, SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE, VIGO COUNTY HOWARD MILLER, FOUNTAIN COUNTY, IND., REPRESENTATIVE, JOHN MYERS, FOUNTAIN COUNTY, IND., REPRESENTATIVE, FORREST JACK KAY, FOUNTAIN COUNTY, IND., REPRESENTATIVE, CLERK, CIRCUIT COURT, FOUNTAIN COUNTY, IND. Mr. CANNON. Congressman Wampler, Congressman from Indiana. Congressman, we are very glad to have you with us. Will you seated? be Mr. WAMPLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I would like not to infringe on the time of the committee and also to eliminate any repetition therefore, I would like permission to file my statement as a part of the record, sir, and just brief the information. Mr. CANNON. It will be made part of the record. (The statement follows:) STATEMENT OF HON. FRED WAMPLER, DEMOCRAT, OF INDIANA, RE PUBLIC WORKS APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1961 Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, first I should like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before your distinguished group to explain to you the public works, or more specifically, the flood control difficulties, that have been experienced along the lower reaches of the Wabash River, to a very large extent within the Sixth Indiana Congressional District, which I have the honor to represent. Last year, I and the people of the Sixth Congressional District of Indiana were fortunate to have appropriated approximately $52,000 to allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to initiate planning and design work on the following four flood control projects: the Clinton, Ind., levee; the Sugar Creek, Ind., levee; the Terre Haute-Conover, Ind., levee; and, the West Terre Haute local protection project. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, that was the first time the Congress has appropriated funds for these vitally necessary flood protection projects since they were originally authorized some 22 years ago. I am informed by the Army Corps of Engineers that work on these projects is progressing at a highly satisfactory rate. A study of the proposed Clinton local protection project is now underway to determine whether the authorized food protection for Clinton is economically justified under present conditions. The Clinton report is scheduled for completion about mid-1960. The Conover levee, Terre Haute, provides for an improvement in the existing levee located on the northern edge of the city. Also being studied is a plan to use the proposed fill for the relocation of U.S. Highway 41 and the State highway instead of the authorized plan. The economic study and report on the Conover levee are due to be ready by early summer of this year. Preliminary studies of the West Terre Haute local protection project and the Sugar Creek levee were begun in November 1959. Field mapping of the Sugar Creek project commenced in January 1960. The Sugar Creek project provides for the improvement of the existing levee which is situated in Vigo County, Ind., on the right bank of the Wabash River between Sugar Creek and U.S. Highway 40. Mr. Chairman, pending the results of the studies on the Clinton and Conover levees, it is my intention to concern myself exclusively with the West Terre Haute and Sugar Creek projects. I have been advised by Col. C. C. Noble, district engineer for the U.S. Army Engineer District, Louisville, Ky., which has operating responsibility for the State of Indiana, that with the formation of the West Vigo Levee Association, Terre Haute, Ind., he has received full assurances of local cooperation for the continuation of planning and construction of the West Terre Haute and Sugar Creek units. I include for the record at this point, Mr. Chairman, a statement from the West Vigo Levee Association spelling out their intense interest in the projects and their aims and goals. Hon. FRED WAMPLER, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. WEST VIGO LEVEE ASSOCIATION, West Terre Haute, Ind., March 30, 1960. DEAR FRED: The West Vigo Levee Association met tonight in special session to consider your kind invitation to be present at the session of the Public Works Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations to state our views on public works and flood control construction in the Sixth Indiana Congressional District. We regret that none of our members are able to be present at this session, but we are deeply interested in presenting our needs, through you, to the subcommittee. Our association is interested in obtaining flood protection for the West Terre Haute area at urban level, either by improvement of the existing Sugar Creek levee, or by construction of the proposed West Terre Haute levee, or both. These two projects are presently under survey by the Corps of Army Engineers, operating out of the Louisville, Ky., district. Flood protection is a necessity for the welfare of our community, for the continued periodic flooding is seriously depreciating the value of all our community, and has reduced the valuation of most of the real estate to the point of no return, and of practically no sale. In the last 3 years, traffic on U.S. Highway No. 40, the principal east-west artery in this area, has been interrupted twice for periods of almost a week, due entirely to failure of the Sugar Creek levee. As you are aware, our association has been in existence for a period of only 3 months, but we are determined to do all in our power to protect our community from any further devastation from flooding. |