Senator STENNIS. I think he has brought out everything clearly, gentlemen.

Senator MCCLELLAN. You say the cost of maintenance should be how much, annually?

Colonel JEWETT. $108,000.

Senator MCCLELLAN. That is not all incurred by reason of this expansion or enlargement of the channel. What is the present cost of maintenance to the channel?

Colonel JEWETT. It runs somewhat less than that, sir. But this is a method whereby we have to go down to a little deeper channel, with the result that the increased maintenance increases more than in proportion to the depth.

Senator MCCLELLAN. All I want to emphasize was that the $108,000 annually was not all additional cost. Only a small part of that would be additional over what is now being expended to maintain the channel, I assume?

Colonel JEWETT. There would be this much additional maintenance because of the fact we are going down deeper.

Senator MCCLELLAN. It would all be additional?

Colonel JEWETT. Yes, sir; because of additional depth of the channel.

Senator MCCLELLAN. Have you made a survey sufficiently to determine that the increased commerce there at that port will justify this expenditure?

Colonel JEWETT. Yes, sir; we have.

Senator MCCLELLAN. You are thoroughly satisfied about that? Colonel JEWETT. We are satisfied that is is economically justified. Senator CHAVEZ. Mr. Johnson. Identify yourself for the record.

STATEMENT OF S. A. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR OF THE PORT OF

GULFPORT, MISS.

Mr. JOHNSON. My name is S. A. Johnson. I am director of the port of Gulfport, Miss.

Senator CHAVEZ. Is that a Federal function or a local function? Mr. JOHNSON. A local function.

There is one point that has had considerable discussion here that I would like to make clear. We do get in vessels presently drawing as much as 28 feet, because we have a tide variance there of 3 feet, and it involves considerable delay to the vessel. We have to wait for the tide to bring the vessel in. I want to make it clear that we do handle large vessels at this time.

The engineers' hearing was in 1946, and I came with the port in 1947, and I would like to state for the record that during the year 1947 we handled 62 shiploads, Liberty type or larger, of Government relief cargo.

I think one important feature of the port of Gulfport is that we set the pace in the Gulf, and it has been followed by several other ports in establishing practices to meet the Government's needs, and as a result, have saved them several hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs. In other words, we have accepted cargo in the port, put it at water side, and assisted the Department of Agriculture and the Army, for that matter, in assembling cargoes for overseas shipment which other

wise would have had to be assembled at inland points, reloaded, and shipped in for water movement.

Another important fact in connection with the port is that we have a project for expansion involving the expenditure of $6,000,000. Our plan is to spend $2,500,000 this coming year. But before we do so, we want to make certain that we have sufficient water to justify that expenditure.

That expenditure has already been approved by our State legislators, and we plan to go ahead with it this fall.

We lost part of our facilities during the hurricane and we intend to rebuild that facility at the expenditure of about $2,500,000 this fall. In doing so, we plan to put in a modern bulk handling facility for the handling of petroleum oil and for the handling of fuel oil.

We have had a great deal of difficulty in increasing the commerce of our port because when we attempt to get shiploads, invariably a ship loaded to anywhere near its capacity must go to another port and take on its fuel. With ship costs what they are today, steamship lines simply balk on it, and we have an awful time to keep commerce in the port. To progress further, we have got to get additional water. Senator CHAVEZ. Mr. Johnson, of course, that is of local economic interest. But the justification is the need of you getting a deeper channel.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir. In other words, our place today is just like a warehouse with a door too small to get a truck out. These ships have increased in size until we have just got to have a wider door to get them in and out. That is all I have to say.

Senator MCCLELLAN. Do local interests make any contribution in this project?

Mr. JOHNSON. You mean the deepening or dredging?

Senator MCCLELLAN. Yes.

Mr. JOHNSON. No, sir. _The harbor itself is, of course, a local project. Senator MCCLELLAN. But the local interests will make these other improvements in increased facilities to meet the situation from that angle?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir.

Senator CHAVEZ. Build wharves and equipment of that kind?
Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir.

Senator MALONE. Then the only expense to the Federal Government would be the actual deepening of the channel?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. sir.

Senator STENNIS. This seems to me like clearly a case of growth, growth in ships, and growth in commerce. The only thing that will meet it is expansion of this channel because the commerce will be there. Senator MALONE. I think that is entirely clear.

For the committee members that are not here, I might say to you I know they are entirely sympathetic with the project.

The House put through a relatively small emergency bill, did not intend at first to put through any bill. We just discussed it with the committee, whether to take on a regular omnibus bill this year or wait until next year due to the fact a good many reports were not ready, and yours was not ready.

They decided there were too many emergency projects to neglect it entirely, and still they did not want to have a large omnibus bill

and make this a major year. I understand the precedent has been established for an omnibus bill about every other year.

So, what we are trying to do is to get at what were the real emergency projects and then next year spend a considerable time and take the projects that really ought to be constructed under the law.

Senator CHAVEZ. Senator, the only thing I would have to say with. that idea of the House Members is this: I think it is good, but I do believe that they ought to let the Senate committee pass also on what might be an emergency once in a while.

Senator MALONE. I had no intention of indicating that we are precluded from putting anything in that we decide should be put in. But I did want to bring the point up that it had been discussed and we would not have a regular omnibus bill this year but more or less in the nature of an emergency bill.

Representative COLMER. May I express myself very briefly to that point, Mr. Chairman?

Senator MALONE. Yes. You represent the House.

Representative COLMER. It so happened that I served on the Rivers and Harbors Committee when I first came to the House, as Senator McClellan and Senator Chavez will probably recall.

We did not get this matter in there, as I explained in the beginning, because we had not gotten the favorable report, or any report, from the engineers in time.

On yesterday, the House passed this small bill to which you referred and Chairman Dondero made pretty much the same statement you have just made.

Senator MALONE. I did not intend to put his name in the record, but I really was quoting him.

Representative COLMER. Having that in mind, I took advantage of the situation to ask him to yield to me, and I pointed out to him that I could understand that situation but that there were such emergency matters that should be included.

I made somewhat the same argument that I made here before this committee a moment ago. The record will disclose that he agreed with that statement.

I do not want to be misunderstood. I never mentioned this project. I was speaking of a policy as a whole.

Senator MALONE. I just mentioned that, Congressman Colmer, because we are going to almost immediately add these projects up and the testimony and do the best we can to meet the situation.

Of course, personally, I know some of your trouble in the country there is you do not have steel for the proper construction, and to have your tankers and the things that you need.

We are shipping 7 or 8 million tons of steel to Europe every year. We could just as well, and it is one of my pet peeves, let Germany use their plants. All you would have to do is to sweep some of them out. I saw them. And let them furnish the 7 or 8 million tons, and let us use the steel here.

Furthermore, I am in favor of doing something for our own people when we reach a certain point. I am not criticizing either House of Congress at all, but I made my position clear on the floor.

Senator CHAVEZ. I think you would get a lot of sympathetic support.

Senator MALONE. And I shall continue unless I get further evidence that I am wrong.

Representative COLMER. May I comment briefly on that?
Senator MALONE. Congressman Colmer.

Representative COLMER. It so happened that I was chairman of the House Committee on Postwar Economic Policy. We made a study of that situation over there in Europe first hand, and in the fall of 1945, recommended the very thing you are talking about, and abandoned the so-called Morgenthau plan which has been the basis of all of the evils in the situation of which you complain.

Senator MALONE. There is a plan on right now to go further than the Morgenthau plan. I like to relieve suffering, but I think we are going entirely too far.

Senator CHAVEZ. They have been discussing lately this proposition of Saudi Arabia, Europe, and so forth, and there has been brought out about the expansion of oil industry in Mississippi. It is the same way all over the country. In New Mexico, West Texas, Arkansas, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, they just cannot get anything to go with, and then they worry about the shortage of oil.

Senator MALONE. It is exactly the same on the Pacific coast. I think if you kept the steel here and let it be manufactured over in Europe, you would have no spot oil shortage. We studied that in the National Resources Economic Committee as created by the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. We brought out and made public if we kept that steel at home in a year and a half, you would have no spot oil shortage. And that is what it is, a spot oil shortage.

You cannot get tubular steel to build pipe lines. You cannot get the steel to build the refineries to turn the natural gas into gasoline. You cannot get the steel to build the tankers or tank cars. So you have a spot oil shortage. You cannot get it where it belongs.

After all, we are doing the best we can. The majority of Congress did that, and I am entirely in accord with helping to make it work now that it is done.

I did mention this matter of emergency because I know that is the temper of the Congress. I think it is.

Senator STENNIS. I remember your speech on the floor of the Senate when those matters came up when I first came here.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you for your consideration and your time.

Representative COLMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We consider this as an emergency.

Senator MALONE. It will be considered by the committee, you may be very sure.

OSWEGO HARBOR, N. Y.

Senator MALONE. We will now take up Oswego Harbor, N. Y. I will submit for the record an outline and digest of this project. (The digest is as follows:)

O'S WEGO HARBOR, N. Y.

Location.-Oswego Harbor, N. Y., is on the south shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego River, 59 miles east of Rochester Harbor, and 11 miles south of Sackets Harbor. The harbor comprises the lower 2,500 feet of Oswego River which has been improved for deep-draft navigation, and which is also a part of the New York State barge canal system.

Report authorized by.—River and Harbor Act approved March 2, 1945, and interim report has been submitted.

Existing project.-Provides for the maintenance of breakwater, stone-filled timber cribs, and dredging to a depth of 21 feet in the outer harbor east of the Lackawanna coal dock, and for dredging to a depth of 21 feet in the outer harbor west of the Lackawanna coal dock for the removal of certain obstructions and islands in the river. The estimated cost is $5,277,000. The cost to December 31, 1947, was $4,731,400 of which $4,143,200 was for construction on the project and $588,200 for maintenance of the structures and dredging. The latest estimate for annual cost of maintenance is $34,500.

Plan of recommended improvement.-To provide for (1) the construction of an east breakwater approximately parallel to the shore 10 feet above low water datum for 2,300 feet and to 12 feet above low water for 2,600 feet, (2) removal of approximately 1,020 linear feet of the inner and of the present east Arrowhead breakwater, (3) dredging a channel 350 wide with depths 18 feet in earth and 19 feet in rock to and including an irregularly shaped basin of the same depth at the easterly end of the harbor.

Federal cost.-$7,838,000 for construction.

Local cooperation.-Provide that local agencies will furnish without cost to the United States all necessary lands, easements, and rights-of-way for the construction and maintenance of the project; hold and save the United States free from claims for damages due to the construction and maintenance of the project; construction of a wharf about 1,300 feet long including the necessary extension of a water intake line and construct handling and storage facilities of such design and capacity as to insure expeditious handling and adequate storage for the prospective commerce; dredge and maintain certain areas; and agree to receive, handle, and store at reasonable and equal terms to all, the wood-pulp requirements of paper mills in the vicinity. The estimated non-Federal cost is $1,307,000. Annual cost of maintenance to the United States.-$28,400. Benefits.-Oswego with a population of 22,100 is located in an agricultural area but has a large variety of industries. The harbor is a distribution center for petroleum products, coal, and cement. It is exposed to storms from the west, northwest, north, and northeast. Commerce of the harbor averaged 1,500,000 tops annually for the years 1937-46. Commerce by the New York State barge canal averaged 436,900 tons annually for that period. The proposed improvements would provide additional harbor area needed for an anticipated expansion in commerce. The transportation savings would accrue largely to the transportation of wood pulp, coal, and soybeans. The estimated average annual benefits are $584,300, and the benefit to cost ratio of the project is 1.41 to 1.0.

Senator MALONE. Senator Ives is unable to be here, and he has submitted several letters which will be made a part of the record. There is a letter to me as chairman of this committee from Senator Ives dated June 2, 1948, and a letter to the Hon. Irving Ives from Congressman Hadwen C. Fuller.

(The letters are as follows:)

Hon GEORGE W. MALONE,

UNITED STATES SENATE, Washington, D. C., June 2, 1948.

Chairman, Subcommittee on Flood Control and Improvement of

Rivers and Harbors,

Senate Committee on Public Works, Washington, D. C.

DEAR GEORGE: Mr. Shugrue, my counsel, informs me that he spoke to you this morning concerning the appearance of several people of New York State before your subcommittee with reference to the proposed harbor works at Oswego, N. Y.

I want to tell you how much I appreciate your permitting them time to appear and to assure you that they will be as brief as possible in presenting their

case.

I am enclosing herewith several copies of a letter addressed to me by Congressman Fuller, in whose district this project is located, which explains the reason for my request. In addition, I have enclosed several copies of the report of the Office of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of the Army.

Sincerely yours,

78432-48

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