sections of West Virginia, including the area most directly affected by the proposed project, and later to its board of directors, a group of 68 outstanding business executives, elected annually. Twenty of the committee voted in opposition to the Big Sandy project while three voted in favor of it. The vote of the directors was 51 opposed to the project and 3 in favor of it. The chamber's appearance here today in opposition is made pursuant to the instruction of its board of directors.

FALLACIES IN REPORTS OF THE DISTRICT AND DIVISION ENGINEERS

The engineers estimate the initial capital cost of the project (which of course must be paid out of taxes levied by the Federal Government) including interest during construction, at $68,204,950. They estimate the cost of annual maintenance and operation, plus amortization over a period of 50 years, at $3,437,820. Justification of the project is founded upon the assumption that at least 15,000,000 tons of coal will be moved annually down the canal into the Ohio River with an estimated average saving in freight rates of 29 cents per ton, or a total gross saving of $4,350,000 annually on the 15,000,000 tons.

It is submitted this estimate of the tonnage which would move down the Big Sandy Canal is highly excessive, that it is not supported by competent evidence, and that it is contrary to reasonable deduction from relevant and well-established facts.

A brief review of the movement of coal upon the much broader waters of the Kanawha and the Monongahela Rivers-both of which tap extensive and highly developed coal fields in West Virginia-and a comparison of such movement with what may reasonably be expected upon the canalized Big Sandy is, we think, highly relevant..

Bituminous coal movements on the Big Sandy Canal would be exclusively outbound-downstream. It appears from the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1944, that a total of 25.6 million tons of bituminous coal, including both in-bound and out-bound, moved through the 15 locks and dams on the Monongahela, in the year 1943. But in that year only 2.9 million tons of all classes of traffic moved through the six locks of the Monongahela located in West Virginia, of which approximately 85 percent was bituminous coal. Thus it appears that 90 percent of the total Monongahela Waterway traffic is in the lower pools of that river and consists mainly in local movements of coal from nearby mines in southwestern Pennsylvania to the steel mills at Clairton, Homestead, and other points near Pittsburgh.

According to the reports of the United States Geological Survey, there is a reserve of not less than 6,000,000,000 tons of high-quality coals in Monongalia and Marion Counties, W. Va., through approximately the center of which the Monongahela River runs. The existing system of locks and dams in the Monongahela was constructed in 1904, more than 40 years ago. Yet its effect upon the development of this enormous coal reserve and upon the shipment of the coal mined in these counties, has been insignificant. In 1943 these two counties produced 22,919,000 tons of coal, of which, as stated, not more than 2.9 million tons moved by water. The remaining 20,000,000 was shipped by rail. Upon this record it is difficult successfully to argue that the Monongahela Railroad on the west bank and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad on the east bank of this river are not doing an eminently efficient, successful, and satisfactory job of serving this basin-notwithstanding all the alleged advantages of water shipment. It seems pertinent in this connection, to quote the Report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, for 1944, as to the adequacy of the existing system on the Monongahela to take care of all traffic offered for water shipment:

"Original locks and dams Nos. 10 to 15, inclusive (at Morgantown, Uffington, two at Little Falls, and at Lowsville, and Hoult, all in West Virginia) are still adequate for present traffic and are maintained under the existing projects" (p. 1211).

Comparison of the suggested movement of coal on the Big Sandy canal with the movement of coal on the Kanawha River is even more destructive, both as to the probable volume of the Big Sandy tonnage and the cost of shipment on that canalized stream. The Kanawah River runs through the heart of the Kanawha coal field. For a considerable distance it is paralleled on its south bank by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and on its north bank by the New York Central Railway. In 1937, the channel of the Kanawha was deepened to 9 feet and three new and modern dams were constructed, all of which produce water power for the generation of electric current. The Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers of the United States Army for 1944 shows that only 2,612,244 tons of coal moved through the Winfield Dam downward on the Kanawha River in 1943. The

largest coal tonnage that was ever moved down the Kanawha into the Ohio in the 8 years since the deepening of its channel was 3,109,652 tons in 1942. Principal coal-producing counties served by the Kanawha waterway are Fayette and Kanawha. According to reports issued by the United States Department of Mines and the United States Geological Survey, the present estimated recoverable coal reserve of Fayette County is upward of 2,000,000,000 tons, and the like reserve for Kanawha County is approximately 3,500,000,000 tons. The actual production of coal for the year 1943, in Fayette County, was approximately 14,000,000 tons and in Kanawha County 8,750,000 tons, a total of approximately 22,750,000 tons, of which, as stated, only 2,612,244 tons moved over the canalized Kanawha into the Ohio.

Brief reference to the comparative cost of improving the Kanawha to provide a 9-foot stage and of canalizing Big Sandy to the same depth, of is interest.

The total cost of constructing the new Winfield, Marmet, and London Dams on the Kanawha, which raised its stage to 9 feet, was $14,000,000. If, in addition to the cost of these three dams in the Kanawha, we include that of Gallipolis Dam in the Ohio, located 8 miles below the mouth of the Kanawha, an additional $10,000,000 will be added, making the total cost of the recent Kanawha improvement (including the Gallipolis Dam) $24,000,000, or about 35 percent of the Big Sandy estimate of $68,000,000. Furthermore, economic justification for the recent Kanawha project rested to some extent upon the hydroelectric installations in the three dams in the Kanawha which produce revenue to the Federal Government amounting to $72,000 annually. This has no counterpart in the Big Sandy proposal. It may also appropriately be noted that 1943 maintenance and operating costs on the Kanawha were $177,000, from which must be deducted the $72,000 received from license fees for power, leaving a net cost of $105,000. Compare this with the estimated annual cost of $603,710 for maintenance and operation on the Big Sandy.

Finally, in appraising the economic aspect of the district engineer's recommendation for canalization of Big Sandy, it is noteworthy that his estimate of 15 million tons of bituminous coal traffic annually is nearly three times as great as the coal tonnage actually handled on both the Kanawha and the Monongahela in West Virginia during the peak year of 1943.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS TO THE PROPOSED CANALIZATION OF BIG SANDY AND ITS TUG AND LEVISA FORKS

1. In view of the present enormous public debt, the large excess of Federal expenditures over Federal revenues, and existing high taxes, expenditure of public funds to provide unnecessary transportation facilities is economically unsound and unjustifiable.

2. The loss of revenue to the State of West Virginia and to the West Virginia counties bordering upon the proposed canal, including boards of education and municipalities of these counties, which would result from the canalization project (if successful), is a vital item to them, as witness the protests filed by these bodies. Inevitably the amount of State and county taxes (as well as Federal taxes) payable by the railroads now serving the Big Sandy Basin will be substantially diminished if the revenue from transporting 15 million tons of coal annually be diverted from them to a federally subsidized canal.

3. The physical difficulties attendant upon shipment over the proposed canal seem prohibitive. We understand that the total length of the canal will be 190.5 miles and that all but 27 miles of its entire length, that is to say 163.5 miles, will be upon the Tug and Levisa Forks. Both forks are narrow and tortuous. Their narrowness and extreme curvature necessarily will make the canal dangerous, difficult, and expensive for navigation by the proposed tow of 540 feet in length. We are reliably informed that the Big Sandy project has no counterpart in respect to these physical conditions in the United States.

4. We understand that the normal flow of water in both the Tug and Levisa Forks is so low that storage dams, however costly, will not impound a sufficient supply of water to support year-around navigation. To meet this condition, it is planned to install pumps to force water upstream from the Ohio River from pool to pool, for a maximum distance of 111 miles on the Levisa and 86 miles on the Tug. 5. It has been suggested, we understand, that the canalization project will attract to West Virginia, along the east bank of Tug River, industries requiring the use of large quantities of water in their manufacturing processes. However, when the Kanawha (as now locked and dammed), with a mean stream flow of 13,040 second-feet at Kanawha Falls, is hard pressed to furnish an adequate supply of water for use by the industries now located on its banks, it seems obvious that

the Tug, with a mean stream flow of only 1,517 second-feet at Kermit, 22 miles below Williamson, can never supply sufficient water to induce manufacturing plants to locate along Tug River.

6. The same scheme has heretofore been weighed in the balance and found wanting. We understand that prior to 1945 Army engineers have made numerous reports on the canalization of Big Sandy and its forks, but never until the present time has an engineer claimed economic justification. In 1933, the district engineer reported:

"The physical characteristics of the river and its forks are unfavorable to the development of a modern waterway and it is not believed that the improvements as proposed would attract sufficient traffic to justify its high cost."

This report was approved by the Board of Engineers.

7. The railroads serving the Big Sandy area are capable of handling all available traffic. They have extended their lines as development has reached new areas, in order to serve new mines. The canal is not needed and is a mere duplication at public expense of a transportation facility. The Federal Government now proposes to make a capital investment of more than $68,000,000 of taxpayers' money for the construction of an unnecessary additional means of transportation of highly speculative value.

8. Reduction of the burden of Federal taxes requires economy instead of waste or extravagance in the expenditure of Federal funds created by taxation.

9. For the above, among other reasons, the project appears so manifestly unsound, both conomically and practically, as, in our opinion, to be little short of fantastic.

Respectfully submitted.

THE WEST VIRGINIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, By R. S. SPILMAN, President.

By H. A. STANSBURY, Managing Director.

STATEMENT OF THE WEST VIRGINIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN OPPOSITION TO PROPOSAL FOR CANALIZATION OF BIG SANDY RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES, MAY 6, 1946

The RIVERS AND HARBORS COMMITTEE,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

SIRS: The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce registers its opposition to the canalization of Big Sandy River and its tributaries, which has recently been recommended to the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States by the Chief of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army.

At the annual meeting of the chamber, held at Charleston, W. Va., August 19, 1944, its members unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing its officers to oppose all governmentally financed projects, including improvements of navigation, which did not clearly appear to be "economically sound." In respect to the instant project, the executive officers of the chamber during the month of October 1945, by referenda, submitted the question of the economic soundness of the proposed canalization of the Big Sandy River, first, to its water-conservation and flood-control committee, composed of 28 members of the chamber coming from all sections of West Virginia, including the area most directly affected by the proposed project, and later to its board of directors, a group of 68 outstanding business executives, elected annually. Twenty of the committee voted in opposition to the Big Sandy project while three voted in favor of it. The vote of the directors was 58 opposed to the project and 4 in favor of it. At the 1945 annual meeting the general membership reaffirmed the chamber's opposition without a dissenting vote. Pursuant to these instructions, the officers of the chamber on November 13, 1945, presented to the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors a statement opposing the project, and by the same authority this statement is made here today.

FALLACIES IN THE REPORTS OF THE ENGINEERS

Reports of the district and division engineers

These reports were the subject of extensive hearings held by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors. At the hearing at Washington on November 13, 1945, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce appeared in opposition to the

approval of these reports and filed a statement, copy of which is attached to and made a part of this statement.

The report of the Chief of Engineers

The report of the Chief of Engineers presents estimates materially differing from the estimates in the reports of the district and division engineers. The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, upon the basis of the report of the Chief of Engineers, considers the Big Sandy project to be no more economically sound than upon the basis of the reports of the district and division engineers, and therefore submits this statement substantially repeating its statement before the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, but adapted to the estimates presented by the report of the Chief of Engineers.

The Chief of Engineers estimates the initial capital cost of the project, including interest during construction, at $82,300,000. He estimates the cost of annual maintenance and operation, plus amortization over a period of 50 years, at $4,190,000.

Justification of the project by the Chief of Engineers is sought upon the assumption that 8.3 million tons of coal will be moved annually down the canal into the Ohio River with an estimate average saving in freight rates of 80 cents per ton, or a total gross saving of $6,700,000 annually on the 8.3 million tons. Less than half this estimated saving, however, would be attributable to the Big Sandy, and the estimate is therefore highly excessive.

It is submitted this estimate of the tonnage which would move down the Big Sandy Canal is highly excessive, that it is not supported by competent evidençe, and that it is contrary to reasonable deduction from relevant and well-established facts.

A brief review of the movements of coal upon the much broader waters of the Kanawha and the Monongahela Rivers--both of which tap extensive and highly developed coal fields in West Virginia-and a comparison of such movements with what may reasonably be expected upon the canalized Big Sandy is, we think, highly relevant.

Bituminous-coal movements on the Big Sandy Canal would be virtually exclusively out-bound-downstream. It appears from the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1944, that a total of 25.6 million tons of bituminous coal, including both in-bound and out-bound, moved through the 15 locks and dams on the Monongahela in the year 1943. But in that year only 2.9 million tons of all classes of traffic moved through the six locks of the Monongahela located in West Virginia, of which approximately 85 percent was bituminous coal. Thus it appears that 90 percent of the total Monongahela waterway traffic is in the lower pools of that river and consists mainly in local movements of coal from nearby mines in southwestern Pennsylvania to the steel mills at Clairton, Homestead, and other points near Pittsburgh. The geography and industrial development, including potentialities, of the Big Sandy area do not indicate that any such substantial local movements may be expected there.

According to the reports of the United States Geological Survey, there is a reserve of not less than 6 billion tons of high quality coals in Monongalia and Marion Counties, W. Va., through approximately the center of which the Monongahela River runs. The existing system of locks and dams in the Monongahela was constructed in 1904, more than 40 years ago. Yet its effect upon the development of this enormous coal reserve and upon the shipment of the coal mined in these counties, has been insignificant. În 1943 these two counties produced 22,919,000 tons of coal, of which, as stated, not more than 2.9 million tons moved by water. The remaining 20 million was shipped by rail. Upon this record it is difficult convincingly to argue that the Monongahela Railroad on the west bank and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad on the east bank of this river are not doing an eminently efficient, successful and satisfactory job of serving this basinnotwithstanding all the alleged advantages of water shipment. It seems pertinent in this connection to quote the report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, for 1944 as to the adequacy of the existing system on the Monongahela to take care of all traffic offered for water shipment:

"Original locks and dams Nos. 10 to 15, inclusive (at Morgantown, Uffington, two at Little Falls, and at Lowsville, and Hoult, all in West Virginia), are still adequate for present traffic and are maintained under the existing projects" (p. 1211).

Comparison of the suggested movement of coal on the Big Sandy Canal with the movement of coal on the Kanawha River is even more destructive, both as to the probable volume of the Big Sandy tonnage and the cost of shipment on that canalized stream. The Kanawha River runs through the heart of the Kanawha

coal field. For a considerable distance it is paralleled on its south bank by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and on its north bank by the New York Central Railway. In 1937 the channel of the Kanawha was deepened to 9 feet and three new and modern dams were constructed, all of which produce water power for the generation of electric current. The Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers of the United States Army for 1944 shows that only 2,612,244 tons of coal moved through the Winfield Dam downward on the Kanawha River in 1943. The largest coal tɔnnage that was ever moved down the Kanawha into the Ohio in the 8 years since the deepending of its channel was 3,109,652 tons in 1942. Principal coalproducing counties served by the Kanawha waterway are Fayette and Kanawha. According to reports issued by the United States Bureau of Mines and the United States Geological Survey, the present estimated recoverable coal reserve of Fayette County is upward of 2,000,000,000 tons, and the like reserve for Kanawha County is approximately 31⁄2 billion tons. The actual production of coal for the year 1943 in Fayette County was approximately 14,000,000,000 tons and in Kanawha County 834 million tons, a total of approximately 224 million tons, of which, as stated, only 2,612,244 tons, or slightly more than 10 percent, moved over the canalized Kanawha into the Ohio.

Brief reference to the comparative cost of improving the Kanwaha to provide a 9-foot stage and of canalizing Big Sandy to the same depth, is of interest.

The total cost of constructing the new w infield, Marmet, and London Dams on the Kanawha, which raised its stage to 9 feet, was $14,000,000. If, in addition to the cost of these three dams in the Kanawha, we include that of Gallipolis Dam in the Ohio, located 8 miles below the mouth of the Kanawha, an additional $10,000,000 will be added, making the total cost of the recent Kanawha improvement (including the Gallipolis Dam) $24,000,000, or about 29 percent of the Big Sandy estimate, of $82,300,000. Furthermore, economic justification for the recent Kanawha project rested to some extent upon the hydroelectric_installations in the three dams in the Kanawha which produce revenue to the Federal Government amounting to $72,000 annually. This has no counterpart in the Big Sandy proposal. It may also appropriately be noted that 1943 maintenance and operating costs on the Kanawha were $177,000, from which must be deducted the $72,000 received from license fees for power, leaving a net cost of $105,000. Compare this with the estimated annual cost of $600,000 for maintenance and operation on the Big Sandy.

Specific objections to the proposed canalization of Big Sandy and its Tug and Levisa Forks

1. In view of the present enormous public debt, the large excess of Federal expenditures over Federal revenues, and existing high taxes, expenditure of public funds to provide unnecessary transportation facilities is economically unsound and unjustifiable.

2. The loss of revenue to the State of West Virginia and to the West Virginia counties bordering upon the proposed canal, including boards of education and municipalities of these counties, which would result from the canalization project (if successful) is a vital item to them, as witness the protests filed by these bodies. Inevitably the amount of State and county taxes (as well as Federal taxes), payable by the railroads now serving the Big Sandy Basin, will be substantially diminished if the revenue from transporting 8.3 million tons of coal annually, be diverted from them to a federally subsi ized canal.

3. The physical difficulties attendant upon shipment over the proposed canal seem prohibitive. It is understood that the total length of the canal will be 190.5 miles and that all but 27 miles of its entire length, that is to say 163.5 miles, will be upon the Tug and Levisa Forks.. Both forks are narrow and tortuous. Their narrowness and extreme curvature necessarily will make the canal dangerous, difficult and expensive for navigation by the proposed tow of 450 feet in length. It is believed that the Big Sandy project has no counterpart in the United States in respect to these physical conditions.

4. It is understood that the normal flow of water in both the Tug and Levisa Forks is so low that storage dams, however, costly, will not impound a sufficient supply of water to support year-around navigation. To meet this condition, it is planned to install pumps to force water upstread from the Ohio River from pool to pool, for a maximum distance of 111 miles on the Levisa and 85 miles on the Tug.

5. It has been suggested, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce understands, that the canalization project will attract to West Virginia along the east bank of Tug Fork industries requiring the use of large quantities of water in their