reservoir and as irrigation and power development project. Confident vast majority North Dakotans share this view. JOHN O. H. JELLE, Editor, Bismarck Tribune. Hon. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, Chairman, Committee on Public Works, KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 13, 1949. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. The Flood Protection Planning Committee for Greater Kansas City, representing Governmental bodies, civic and business associations in flood plains at the Kansas Citys is opposed to Lemke bill restricting operating level of Garrison Dam. For maximum benefits of irrigation navigation flood control and power there should be maximum storage reasonably possible in this rservoir. The 1,850-foot elevation will provide 20 additional feet of head and power for 6,000,000 additional acre-feet of storage that could be used for any of above purposes or divided among them. Restriction to 1,830 feet would be detri mental to the Kansas City area as well as to entire basin. The 1,850 foot elevation was adopted by Missouri Basin Interagency Committee in October 1945 and construction of reservoir should be permitted to proceed to this ele vation. The unit cost of the additional 6,000,000 acre-feet of storage is by far cheapest storage on an acre-foot basis of any storage in the entire Pick Sloan plan. Adequate provisions are made with the 1,850-foot elevation to protect Williston and other areas in North Dakota. Opposition of your committe respectfully requested. WILLARD J. BREIDENTHAL, Chairman. OMAHA, NEBR., June 15, 1949. Hon. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, Chairman, Public Works Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. Following is resolution passed by the Omaha Dock Board: Whereas we see in the press in the Lemke bill now before Congress proposes to restrict operating level at 1,830 feet, and whereas the efficient operation of entire Pick-Sloan plan, the Missouri Basin requires maximum storage facilities to insure total benefits to all the people of the Missouri Basin, and whereas city of Omaha and other cities of the middle and low basin have a vital stake in seeing maximum storage for flood control, navigation, irrigation, and power development: Now, therefore. we the members of the Omaha Dock Board, do hereby earnestly and emphatically urge that no crippling restrictions be passed on construction of Garrison Reservoir and that it be built to provide for operating level at 1.850 feet as designed and recommended by Corps of Engineers agreed to by Interagency Committee at its meeting in October 1945, in Bismarck, N. Dak. Hon. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, Chairman, Committee on Public Works, House of Representatives. HENRY B. MCCAMPBELL, Chairman, Omaha Dock Board. KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 15, 1949. This city council repeatedly has gone on record in favor of Pick-Sloan plan for development of Missouri River Basin. We respectfully urge opposition to Lempke bill reducing height of Garrison Dam. The height planned by Army engineers and approved by interagency committee is geared to the needs of the entire plan and provides most economical storage possible. We regret very much this attempt to break down this carefully studied engineering plan. Hon. WILL M. WHITTINGTON, Chairman, House Public Works Committee, House Office Building, Washington, D. C. OMAHA, NEBR., June 16, 1949. Protest is hereby registered with your committee against Lemke bill limiting height Garrison Dam to 1,830 feet. Passage this bill would greatly impair efficiency entire Pick-Sloan program and deny us the most economical flood storage in entire program. Interagency committee has endorsed 1,850 foot height and so do we. A. C. SCONCE, Acting President, Omaha River Development Association. Hon. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, Chairman, Committee on Public Works, YANKTON, S. DAK., June 16, 1949. House Office Building, Washington, D. C. The Yankton Chamber of Commerce has for years been on record as unqualifiedly endorsing the Pick-Sloan plan for Missouri River development which includes a high level dam at Garrison in North Dakota. We hereby reaffirin our conviction that the 1,850-foot pool level is essential in the operating efficiency of the whole program for the control of the Missouri River as originally conceived. We again oppose any modifications. YANKTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, President. Hon. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, YANKTON, S. DAK., June 16, 1949. Chairman, House Committee on Public Works, House Office Building, Washington, D. C. The Yankton Press and Dakotan is strongly opposed to the Lemke proposal to limit by law pool level at Garrison Dam on the Missouri River to 1,830 feet and believes it vital to the success of the entire river development program to go through with plans as prepared by Corps of Engineers. Benefits in firm power output, flood storage capacity, irrigation possibilities and navigation possibilities would be materially reduced if lower pool level is enforced. FRED H. MONFORE, Publisher Yankton (S. Dak.) Press and Dakotan. (The following statement and communications were subsequently submitted:) STATEMENT STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA, County of Williams, 88: Eugene A. Burdick and Harry E. Polk, being first duly sworn, depose and say that they are residents of the city of Williston, county of Williams, State of North Dakota, and that on the 16th day of August 1945, they attended a meeting of the Missouri River Basin Inter-Agency Committee, held in the city of Omaha, Nebr., commencing at 10 a. m. and that at such meeting the said Eugene A. Burdick appeared as the acting city attorney of the city of Williston, N. Dak., and that the said Harry E. Polk appeared as a member of the irrigation committee of the Williston chamber of commerce, and that affiants make the following statement concerning events immediately preceding and during the meeting of such Inter-Agency Committee: During the evening of August 15, 1945 we met as a group with Mr. H. D. Comstock of the Bureau of Reclamation and a member of the Missouri River InterAgency Committee representing the United States Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior. Mr. Comstock stated that we would not be permitted to make a direct statement to the Inter-Agency Committee in behalf of an 1,830 foot pool level for the Garrison Reservoir and that any statement which would be presented would have to come through the Governor of North Dakota. We then learned that the North Dakota State Water Commission was meeting in a nearby hotel in Omaha, and through a telephone conference with Governor Fred G. Aandahl of North Dakota, we arranged to discuss the matter with the State Water Commission and the Governor, who is ex-officio chairman of the State Water Conservation Commission. We knew the attitude of the State Water Conservation Commission concerning an 1,850-foot pool elevation and we pleaded with the Governor to make a recommendation for an 1,830-foot pool level. After a lengthy conference, the Governor stated that he would recommend to the Inter-Agency Committee five points: First, an early appropriation for the development of the Missouri River program and including construction of the Garrison Dam; second, the construction of a dam with an 1,850-foot pool elevation; third, that the plan must provide adequate protection for the city of Williston, the Great Northern Railway, the BufordTrenton irrigation project, and the Lewis and Clark irrigation project; four that the plan must provide protection by a lower operating pool level than 180 feet until a higher operating pool level became necessary; and fifth, that if the protection planned by the Corps of Engineers was not possible or could not be improved, then the Federal Government should pay for damage caused by higher operating pool level. It should be borne in mind that the recommendations made by the Governor were representative of his own views and the State Water Conservation Commission, and did not represent the views of those present from the Williston area, and the Governor confirmed what Mr. Comstock had said, to the effect that he alone would be permitted to make a statement in behalf of anyone from North Dakota. At no time did we agree that if protection could not be arranged through a lower pool level or through dikes, that we would consent to the taking of our property upon the payment of damage. Naturally, we were appreciative of whatever recommendations the Governor would make, looking towards the protection of our interests, although they did not go as far as we desired. In the course of the meeting of the Inter-Agency Committee on August 16. 1945, the plan of the Army Engineers was described. After several hours of conference on the subject, Brigadier General Crawford began to summarize what he considered to be the consensus of the meeting and made a statement regarding the capacity of the Garrison Reservoir, indicating that the group was in favor of an 1,850-foot pool level. At this point Mr. Comstock interrupted Brigadier General Crawford, who was chairman of the meeting, and stated that he would not go along with all that the chairman had said. He stated that he had no objection to the construction of Garrison Dam in such manner as to accommodate, or provide for, an 1.850-foot pool level, but stated that he suggested that the elevation of the spillway sill be 1,824 feet above sea level, and as an experimental matter that they start the operation low and make a most careful study of the operation of the pool, and particularly to study the effects of aggradation or silt deposit in the Williston area of the pool, and that he would consent to an operating pool level above 1,830 feet only if damage was unlikely. In other words, Mr. Comstock consented to the construction of the dam as desired by the Corps of Engineers, but did not agree to an operating pool level higher than 1,830 feet above sea level, as the initial operating pool level, and indicated that extensive study would be required before he could agree to an operating pool level as high as 1,850 feet above sea level. We are in sympathy with the views expressed by Mr. Comstock, but we ask only that the ultimate determination of an operating pool level higher than 1,830 feet above sea level, except for an additional three or four feet to collect a precedented flood, be determined by Congress. EUGENE A. BURDICK. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 28th day of May 1949. My commission expires September 28, 1950. [SEAL] RESOLUTION OSCAR W. BELL, Whereas the Eighty-first Congress, now in session, is considering the 1.830 versus 1,850 level for the Garrison Dam on the phase of testimony being submitted by one Louis Pick, Chief of Army Engineers, and Whereas the Pick-Sloan plan coordinated report, which was adopted as Public Law No. 534, in December 1945, now a part of the Congressional Record, arrived at by joint agreement by the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army engineers, provided for an 1,830 foot Garrison Dam level, which in turn would impound 17,000,000 acre-feet of storage, and Whereas this reservoir of water was accepted by the Army as sufficient for their purposes, in as far as navigation needs were concerned, coupled with the hydroelectric power output which they anticipate, and was also subscribed to by one William G. Sloan, coauthor of the plan, as being sufficient replacement of storage to insure irrigation of some 1,000,000 acres or more, as proposed in the Missouri-Souris project, covering part of northeastern Montana and northwestern North Dakota, and Whereas the 1,850-foot level, if accepted and passed into law, would jeopardize three irrigation projects now in operation near Williston, because of the necessity of protecting them by dykes, which would inescapably raise the water level, curtailing sizable production income and materially destroy investments already made, and result in serious economic dislocation to the improvements already made, and result in serious economic dislocation to the surrounding towns, and especially to the city of Williston, and Whereas an additional 93,000 acres of North Dakota's finest agricultural and grazing land in the Missouri Valley, would be inundated by the additional pool level, and destroy a great portion of North Dakota's present agricultural and livestock industry, and Whereas the city of Williston would be protected by dykes on three sides, and thus would deter present and future expansion because of the constant fear of flood, and possibly would necessitate moving the city of Williston, the Great Northern Railway, because of a psychological and perhaps actual fear of inundation, and Whereas, removal of additional real estate from taxation, would inflict additional burdens on other real estate owners of McLean, Mountrail, Williams, McKenzie, Oliver, and Mercer Counties or other political subdivisions affected in the entire Missouri Valley, west of the Garrison Dam, and could possibly retard, if not jeopardize the greatest development in the history of North Dakota since the Homestead Act, the proposed Missouri-Souris diversion and irrigation project in northeastern Montana and in the northwest portion of North Dakota; now be it Resolved. That the Mountrail County Farmers Union at the annual picnic at Sanish on June 12, 1949, do hereby respectfully petition the North Dakota congressional delegation, and the other members of the Eighty-first Congress, to restrict the pool level to the 1,830 level, at least to such a date as when the Congress and the engineers of the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army find it necessary and essential for the future welfare of North Dakota, to elevate the height of the Garrison Dam. DEAR CONGRESSMAN WHITTINGTON: I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Mississippi Valley Association meeting in St. Louis this early spring. I am sure that you have an interest in the flood-control possibilities in the upper Missouri River. Therefore, I wish to ask for your consideration to the allowance of the 1,850-foot level for the Garrison Dam. As chairman of the waterways committee of the Sioux City chamber of commerce, I have a great interest in developing the navigation on the Missouri River and in the power and irrigation which could be made possible by these dams on the upper Missouri River. If we do not take advantage of the 6,000,000 acrefeet of water which will be possible by a high-level dam, we will lose considerable control of floods and lose greatly in the amount of irrigation, power, etc. Since this addition of 6,000,000 acre-feet of water is approximately the size of the Fort Randall Dam, you can see that it would be a great loss in this flood-control and irrigation possibility. Also, we feel that this additional water storage will make possible a much more even flow of water in a navigable channel of flowing water to the south. Your support to the recommendation to the Corps of Engineers in the 1,850-foot level, will be greatly appreciated by all your friends here in Sioux City. Respectfully yours, HAROLD O. BENSON, THOMAS MCGEF & SONS. KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 16, 1949. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, Chairman, Public Works Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. O. MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN: Personally I have always been interested in the Missouri River, both from the standpoint of navigation and flood control, and as a member of the chamber of commerce. I feel it is my duty to call your attention to the fact that a bill has been introduced by Congressman Lemke providing for a maximum 1,830-foot elevation on the Garrison Dam. We here in Kansas City are dependent on the reservoirs that the Government is building as well as the levees and flood walls for our protection, and we sincerely hope that the elevation will be fixed at 1,850 feet, which will provide for much additional storage and give the lower part of the river much added protection, and at a minimum cost, because while the dam is being built the additional storage space would cost far less than any other protection that the Government could provide, and I do hope that your committee will recommend and champion an 1,850-foot level for the Garrison Dam. Thanking you for the consideration you give this request, which we feel is vital to the multitude of cities and the vast amount of property to be protected. I am, Sincerely yours, JOSEPH J. MCGEE, Congressman WILL WHITTINGTON, CALL BOND & MORTGAGE COMPANY, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN WITTINGTON: After having had the pleasure of visiting with you at the Mississippi Valley Association meeting in St. Louis this last spring. together with having had the pleasure of your being my guest for breakfast, I feel that you have a personal interest in the flood-control possibilities of the upper Missouri River and would appreciate hearing from your many friends in the upper Missouri River Valley as to the needs of this program. I therefore, want to write you to ask your favorable consideration to the allowance of the 1,850-foot level for the Garrison Dam. As a member of the board of the Federal Barge Lines. I have had a great deal of interest in developing the navigation on the Missouri River and feel that to properly serve the navigation interest and to conserve the water for the additional needs of irrigation and hydroelectric power, that there would be a definite error made if we did not take advantage of the storing of the additional 6,000,000 acre-feet of water provided for in this dam over one which might be 1,830 above sea level. The loss of this approximate 6000,000 acre-feet, which is approximately equivalent equivalent to the water storage at the Randall Dam now under cou struction, will in my opinion, he injurious to the general flood-control, irrigation, hydroelectric power, and navigation features provided for by the Corps of Engineers. I am also told that adequate protection can be made to the town of Williston so that this higher water level should not be dangerous to that community. |