We are glad to have had you here.

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Malone.

Senator MALONE. Judge Stone is here. Judge, you are entirely familiar with this project, and I think the committee would like you to call on whatever witnesses you would like to call in whatever sequence you wish. If you would like Colonel Gee now to review the technical detail and then present your witnesses, that will be fine.

Mr. STONE. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be preferable for the Army engineers to explain the project in detail before these other witnesses come on. There will be three witnesses who will present very brief statements aside from that presented by the engineers.

Senator MALONE. Colonel Gee, then, will you explain to the committee in some detail about the project, not only the entire project but the parts of the project and where work would likely start first, and what the expense would be.

STATEMENT OF LT. COL. H. C. GEE, UNITED STATES ARMY, OFFICE, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS

Colonel Gee. Mr. Chairman, the report on the South Platte River and tributaries, authorized in the Flood Control Act of August 11, 1939, consists of a comprehensive investigation of the watershed of the South Platte River, a tributary of the Platte River.

The area under investigation is a basin which is bounded on the west by the Continental Divide, the high mountainous territory of the Rockies, located in central Colorado.

The source of the South Platte River is in central Colorado; it flows generally northeast, and then in a more easterly direction into Nebraska near its southwest corner and joining the Platte River at the town of South Platte, Nebr.

The area under investigation in this report is an area of some 24,000 square miles and includes within it a population of 665,000 people, based on the 1940 census.

Senator MALONE. Twenty-four thousand square miles, Colonel; does that include the entire wathershed area?

Colonel GEE. Yes, sir; the major portion of which is located in the State of Colorado. Minor portions of it are in Wyoming and Nebraska.

Senator MALONE. About what acreage is under cultivation in this watershed in Colorado?

Colonel GEE. In the watershed in Colorado, there are approximately a million acres of land under cultivation which are directly or indirectly affected by this project, the direct effect being overflow from flooding, the indirect effect being damage caused by floods to irrigation works.

Senator MALONE. These dams that are proposed, do they store any water that can be used for irrigation later?

Colonel GEE. No, sir.

Senator MALONE. They are purely flood-control works?

Colonel GEE. This is a straight flood-control reservoir.

In addition to the agricultural resources of the basin it is rich in mineral resources, being the source of some 40 different minerals which are produced commercially in the area.

The city of Denver, the largest city in the basin of the South Platte, with a population of 350,000 people in 1940, is the industrial center of the entire basin, and is the point where the mineral products of the area as well as the agricultural products are processed for shipment outside the area.

The area is mountainous and the headwater tributaries in central Colorado derive their principal water supply from the heavy snow-falls during the winter. The balance of the basin is subject to periodic heavy storms, some of cloudburst proportion. However, the entire basin can be characterized as semiarid.

The flooding in the basin usually occurs during the growing season, and as I have indicated before, approximately a million acres of land under cultivation are affected by floods in this basin.

Local interests in the area desire flood protection on the South Platte and tributaries consisting of multiple-purpose reservoirs and some channel improvement.

There are certain authorized projects in the basin of the South Platte at the present time, one of which is Cherry Creek Dam, located on Cherry Creek, a tributary of the South Platte River which joins the South Platte in the city of Denver.

The prime purpose for constructing the Cherry Creek Dam is to provide flood control for the city of Denver. The authorized project involves the building of a rolled earth-filled dam at the Cherry Creek site immediately upstream from the existing Kenwood flood control dam. The height of this dam is 140 feet, 14,300 feet in length, with gate controlled outlets, and the purpose of the dam will be to hold flows in Cherry Creek to a maximum of 5,000 second-feet through the city of Denver.

The storage available for that purpose, when this project is completed, will be 231,400 acre-feet with a minimum pool of 95,000 acre-feet.

The drainage area on the Cherry Creek project above Cherry Creek Dam is 386 square miles of a total of 414 square miles for the entire Cherry Creek drainage basin. It can be seen from these figures that the great majority of the basin is controlled by the Cherry Creek Dam.

In addition, there is a local protection project now authorized for Morrison, Colo., involving channel improvement in the amount of $343,000, and some emergency flood-protection work has been undertaken with emergency funds on the main stream of the South Platte, particularly after the 1942 flood. The amount of money expended' there by the Federal Government was $45,000.

In addition, local interests from time to time have undertaken certain flood-protection work themselves with their own capital.

There have been minor flood-protection works all through this reach of the South Platte River from its junction with St. Vrain Creek through the site of the proposed Chatfield Reservoir.

These works are not connected elements of a complete plan, hence are not fully effective in protecting against flooding through the entire area.

I have no estimated cost of these local works available. Under the plan recommended by the Chief of Engineers, there would be constructed a flood-control reservoir at the Chatfield site on the main stream of the South Platte River upstream from the city of

Denver. This reservoir would provide storage for flood control in the amount of 300,000 acre-feet, and silt storage in the amount of 20,000 acre-feet.

The dam is an earth-fill structure. Its height is 132 feet, and it is 11,200 feet in length. It will reduce maximum flows in the channel of the South Platte River from the dam site through Denver to 13,000 second-feet, and in the reach from Denver to the junction with St. Vrain Creek, to 21,000 second-feet.

The plan involves another element, the construction of levees from Chatfield Reservoir to tie in with the existing levees through the city of Denver, again picking up at the northern limits of the Denver local protection works and carrying on through this valley northward down the main channel to the point where St. Vrain Creek joins the South Platte.

This valley area north of Denver through the towns of Platteville, Fort Lupton, Brighton, and Henderson is where a great part of the land under cultivation, which will be affected by this project, is located.

The plan recommended by the Chief of Engineers also involves work downstream from the junction of St. Vrain Creek, in the reach from Greeley to the authorized Narrows project of the Bureau of Reclamation.

The work in this reach of the South Platte will consist of minor stream realinement and minor channel clearing; no continuous work is involved in that region.

Senator MALONE. Colonel, how many acres of land along the river is directly menaced by the flood?

Colonel GEE. There have been 500,000 acres directly damaged by overflow in the area affected by these works.

Senator MALONE. It is a rather flat valley above the river banks? Colonel GEE. Yes, sir.

In addition, the Chief of Engineers in his report recommends local protection works for the city of Boulder, consisting of channel improvement and levee construction, and also flood control work in the town of Erie, located on Coal Creek, a tributary of Boulder Creek, and a tributary also of the St. Vrain Creek system.

The cost of these various elements is as follows:

The Chatfield Reservoir on the main stream above Denver is estimated to cost $26,222,600, using price indexes of December 1947.

The system of levees extending northward on the main stream from the Chatfield Reservoir to the junction of St. Vrain Creek is estimated to cost the Federal Government $21,406,800, and local interests, $1,901,900, a total cost of $23,308,700.

The channel improvements below St. Vrain Creek in the reach from Greeley to the Narrows project are estimated to cost $1,365,000, with a contribution by local interests in the form of rights-of-way of $27,300.

The Boulder local protection project is estimated to cost the Federal Government $396,800. Local interests' share of the project is $924,600, making a total first cost of $1,321,400.

At Erie, the local protection project is estimated to cost the Federal Government $40,900, with local interests contributing $18,200, making a total cost of $59,100.

The total cost of the recommended plan to the Federal Government is $49,432,000 and to local interests $2,872,000, making a total cost of $52,304,000.

Benefits are estimated at $3,032,500 annually, and annual charges are $2,299,000, showing a benefit-cost ratio of 1.32 to 1.0.

Are there any questions, sir?

Senator MALONE. Colonel, tell us for the benefit of the committee, what would be the first construction if the Army engineers had their way, and what you could do the first year, or, say, year and a half.

Put it the other way around: What would be delayed if certain parts of it were not authorized this year?

Colonel GEE. Do I understand that you propose that the committee would authorize the entire plan and limit the authorization for appropriation?

Senator MALONE. The committee will take that part of it up. But the information I would like to have for the benefit of the committee is what work could be commenced, what would be the cost of the work you would undertake the first year if authorization for such work were secured, and if it would then become a part of the entire project if the remainder of it were authorized next year.

Give us some idea of what could be done. Time is short here and there will be not much more providing Congress does adjourn on the 19th.

Colonel GEE. The best answer I can give to your question must start off on the assumption the plan is approved.

Senator MALONE. That the plan is ultimately approved?

Colonel GEE. Yes, sir. For that would influence tremendously the design of this entire system of levees, which is dependent directly upon the building of Chatfield Reservoir.

Those are the two major elements in the plan.

If the plan is approved and funds are limited, the first element of the plan which would produce benefits at once are those elements involved in the channel improvement located upstream from the Narrows Reservoir site to the vicinity of the town of Greeley, being the portion of the project farthest downstream. The results of that work would be felt immediately in the area.

If the subsequent authorization were increased sufficiently to permit the building of the Chatfield Reservoir, it should be the next element of the plan undertaken. It would be a mistake to build these levees without the reservoir for they might be overtopped if the reservoir is not constructed.

Senator MALONE. In other words, the levees and the reservoir upstream would be all a part of one segment of the entire river improvement?

Colonel GEE. Yes, sir; and it would be most wasteful to build these levees properly to contain the entire flow of the river without the reservoir.

Senator MALONE. What is the cost of this reservoir estimated at? Colonel GEE. $26,222,600.

Senator MALONE. Do you have any questions, Judge Stone?

Mr. STONE. No.

Colonel GEE. I might add, Mr. Chairman, that the local protection works for the city of Boulder and for the town of Erie are independent features of the plan and might be undertaken at any time.

Senator MALONE. Thank you, Colonel.

Will you remain available until we complete the hearing. I will appreciate it.

Colonel GEE. Yes, sir.

Senator MALONE. Judge Stone, you are entirely familiar with the project, and there are two other witnesses here or three.

Mr. STONE. Congressman Hill is here and he wishes to make a statement.

Senator MALONE. Congressman Hill, of Colorado. We are glad to have you with us, Congressman.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM S. HILL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

Representative HILL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to add my support to the Senators from Colorado who have appeared in favor of this flood-control program on the South Platte.

I am glad to see the flood control beginning at the right place. Frankly, I have been convinced for many years the place to control these floods is in the mountains where they begin.

I am familiar with every foot of this project. I have walked over most of it.

I represent the Second District of Colorado and live at Fort Collins. If you notice on the map, I live on the Cache La Poudre almost due north of Loveland. My territory takes in all of the farthest points to the south where you have the Chatfield Reservoir.

I have a brother living on Cherry Creek. He owns a farm on it, and he knows what flood water can do.

If you are going to protect the lower Mississippi region of the Missouri River, you are going to start this flood-control project up near the mountains. No one who has ever lived in this territory any length of time but knows what those terrific torrential rainfalls do

to a stream.

It is impossible for people living in this territory where the rivers have a very moderate flow and a very moderate decline, or slope, to comprehend what those rivers with that tremendous drop will do. I have seen them in action and what a terrific power they have.

In that territory there, we are troubled every now and then by torrential rain. The engineer from Denver is well acquainted with what power those mountain floods have, and the size of the rock and the trees and the soil they carry away.

Senator MALONE. Congressman, all over the West some people will see a rock out in the middle of the desert about the size of a house, and they think it probably just happened there because there is no water in sight. When the water is there, it will move anything.

Representative HILL. That is correct, and I wanted to say this: When this torrential rain comes down through the mountainside, they clean everything out, all the good land on the sides of the stream, and unless they are protected far up into the mountains; and this, in my opinion, is one of the most vital spots in the State of Colorado down south of Denver and west of Denver, Morrison, and Evergreen, and farther down south around Kiowa and Elizabeth, those tremendous floods a few years ago really raised the Republican River until it was