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Mr. BOYER. It is much more complex. They are not comparable as to types of equipment.

Senator ELLENDER. It might assist us if you could tell us in a few words what has caused this cost to rise. Is it the great number of buildings you have put up, or more machinery? Just what has caused that change of figures?

Mr. BOYER. The original figure was based purely upon a projection. Mr. Williams prepared that original figure one afternoon in order to arrive at the order of magnitude of the project, and in order to request funds to proceed with the work and get the project started.

An engineering estimate is based upon engineering designs where you take the time to work out the designs and then you lift off those designs the tons of concrete, the tons of steel, the amount of manhours, and so forth. That is an estimate. This first figure was not an estimate.

The first real estimate that we have ever had was the estimate that was used as a basis for the request presented to the committee here. last fall.

Senator MAYBANK. The deficiency?

Mr. BOYER. For a deficiency.

Even that estimate was based on completion of only 10-percent design. That is not a precise engineering estimate. We will not have the precise engineering estimate until all the designs are completed.

Now your question implies, why was our projection so low. In the first place, we had not localized it as to site. We had no idea as to what was going to be involved in the way of site development, the amount of pumping you had to put in, the amount of cooling water you had to circulate, and so forth. If you located in a section where the water was cold it would take a smaller volume of water than in sections where the water was warm. Even the type of equipment had not been determined at that time. Subsequently the type of equipment that was finally selected to go into these plants was different. So I think that it is certainly a legitimate question as to why our ideas were so widely at variance. I think though when you understand the basis that was used in arriving at that original idea, it becomes clear as to the reason for the increase.

Senator ELLENDER. There was quite a bit of criticism about it and I want the record to show why it is that your estimates had changed. The first estimate was a shot in the dark. You did not know what it was about. You are now basing your estimates on actual engineering drawings and plans in order to figure out the amount of concrete, steel, machinery, and labor necessary to put those things together.

PERCENTAGE OF DESIGN COMPLETED

Mr. BOYER. May I, Senator, add a further thought. This variation in estimates is a source of embarrassment to the staff. Purely from an engineering point of view we would much prefer to be able to give you gentlemen estimates which represent the firm cost of a project. For us to do that would add from 18 months to 2 years to the time of completion of any project. Here we have been working on the Savannah River program for something over a year and a quarter or a year and a half. The designs are now only 44 percent

complete. If we were to wait to give you a precise engineering estimate, we would not be ready to ask you for money to proceed today. We would have to go ahead and carry the engineering design on to 80 or 90 percent completion before we could give you a precise cost estimate of the project.

Now we believe that time is very important, because it is going to cost whatever it is going to cost. We are going to exert our best efforts to do the job as cheaply as we can within the time we have to do the job.

ADDITIONAL COSTS OF IMPROVED ENGINEERING TECHNIQUES

Senator ELLENDER. Has there been any money spent on something that you will not need? In other words, have you met your estimates so far? Have you been complying with the designs? Have you had to change the designs after the thing started? Do you get what I am driving at?

Mr. BOYER. I understand. Are we going so fast that we are getting ahead of ourselves and spending money wastefully?

Senator ELLENDER. Yes.

Senatory THYE. In other words, is the research discovering new methods that make your present plans obsolete? That is the question. You are in a new field.

Mr. BOYER. That is a broad question. We are specifically talking about Savannah River.

Senator MAYBANK. The plant at Hanford I think cost more than was originally estimated. I do not know what your original estimate for Paducah was, but I remember distinctly Senator Cordon talking about Hanford on many occasions, saying it has gone up. He had asked the same question that Senator Ellender is asking now about Savannah. So I think whatever you might say to Senator Ellender should apply to all the plants.

Senator ELLENDER. What I am trying to do is put facts in the record to meet the criticisms that have been lodged against the Savannah River project.

Senator THYE. In other words, you are pioneering the field. Are the scientific minds finding that what you had planned for is now obsolete and that you must change your plans?

Mr. BOYER. We can answer that question very clearly and definitely, by saying that the program for Savannah River and the program for Paducah represent our best thinking and our best knowledge today as to methods of accomplishing the production of the materials that we want to produce.

(Discussion off the record.)

Senator ELLENDER. What I want to do is to have something in the record in order to answer the criticism, as I said, that has been lodged against this program so far. Let me put it this way to you: Are there any plans that were actually made and that are now at work that cost more than you anticipated? Is there any project you are now working on, for which you had plans formerly drawn which you presented to the committee, which has gone up in cost?

Mr. BOYER. In view of the sense of urgency in which we are working, I do not recall any project that we were able to make precise engineering estimates on.

Senator ELLENDER. So, as I said a while ago, the whole plan was a shot in the dark and since that time you have been more accurate in developing from an engineering standpoint the material needed, the labor needed. and everything else, so that you can now come before the Congress and say that this project costs so much and that will be about what it will cost?

Mr. BOYER. The accuracy will improve as the completion of the design progresses. So when we get this new estimate based on 40-percent design we should have a better idea of what it costs than we have with the present estimate based on 10-percent-design completion.

Senator ELLENDER. When you made your first estimate you had no engineering design whatever?"

Mr. BOYER. That is absolutely correct. And therefore it was not an engineering estimate but an approximation.

WAGES PAID AT ATOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLANTS

Senator MCMAHON. I think it is particularly important that you should get that in the record at this time because of the $765 a week plumber at Los Alamos,

I want to make a point. I heard a radio broadcast the night that came out saying the Chairman of the Commission estimated Savannah River at $660 million. Now it is going to cost $1.200.000.000. Maybe the reason for that is to be found in the story out of Los Alamos when it was developed that the plumber got $765 for a week's work. Senator THYE. Is there any truth to that statement?

Senator MCMAHON. The joint committee made an immediate investigation of that situation. We have made a preliminary report to the Congress on the facts. A more detailed report will be submitted before this appropriation bill goes on the floor.

Senator MAYBANK. Why can we not have this so we can include in the record here the wages paid at the various atomic plants? There is no secret about that. Let us make that a part of the record to refute some of these statements made about you and which have been called to my attention.

Hourly rates paid to certain crafts in certain locations where AEC construction is
being performed

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1 Data taken from Engineering-News Record of Jan. 10, 1952. Data is based upon rates in 20 metropolitan

cities.

Data based upon the prevailing rates listed above for Atomic Energy Commission locations. Data

developed in same manner as the ENR rates.

Senator MCMAHON. The statements are in the record as to the facts relating to that incident at Nevada, a full statement of them, and we will have a more complete record. Perhaps I should say, Senator Thye, that the bare bones of that case are as follows. I do not know why I should testify to it when the Commission is here. I know what the story is.

Mr. DEAN. I shall be happy to state it in summary form.

Senator MCMAHON. I think it is important that the Congress and the people not get the idea that the Los Alamos situation is repeated throughout this program because the joint committee finds it is not.

Senator THYE. I think we must get all the facts and get them in the record, because it is not only damaging to the Commission but it is damaging to the Joint Atomic Energy Committee as well as any man serving in Congress.

Mr. DEAN. Could I make a brief statement?

Senator MAYBANK. I wish you would, because this hearing before Senator McMahon refers to a statement by you and Mr. Carroll Tyler, who is manager of that plant.

Mr. DEAN. I would like to make a few categorical statements at the outset, if I may.

Let me acknowledge that this has been a very unfortunate incident. public-relationswise, because anything of this kind that causes people. to feel that this situation generally prevails in the atomic-energy program is very harmful to everybody connected with it. I would like to say very flatly this does not prevail throughout the atomic-energy program. This was a very unique situation at Las Vegas.

PERMANENT TEST FACILITY

It grows out of this fact. The Las Vegas range has made one of the most important contributions to the atomic-energy program, certainly since I have been in it, for this simple reason: It enables us to go out fast from Los Alamos and immediately test an idea instead of taking a very expensive route, timewise, dollarwise, logisticswise, by having to go to Eniwetok, because it takes time to plan it-many people to plan it. We at last have a range practically at the back door of the Los Alamos laboratory.

The things that have come out of the Nevada tests have been the most significant things from the standpoint of our stockpile. The things we tested out, the first shot at Las Vegas, have been incorporated in our stockpile, and it is much to the good of the stockpile that they have been incorporated. These ideas are already in today; it is not theory.

Now the situation that prevailed this last summer when this unfortunate incident of the plumber took place was this: We had just finished the Eniwetok test. Most of our test team was completely wrapped up there into May, and we commenced construction shortly thereafter at Las Vegas of a permanent test facility. Heretofore it was completely a jerry-rigged affair-little shacks, no accommodations, nothing. We also at that time had a program laid out as to the type of shots we wanted to make. One of these was extremely important. I have described it to you off the record and shown to you what was tested. Unfortunately I cannot do this on the record. Suffice to say it was one of the most important shots ever fired.

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