Mr. WAGNER. Mr. Chairman, I have here a page from the March issue, 1948 of the Capper's Farmer, which is a publication in the State of Kansas, that is entitled "Stop Floods in the Hills." Now, to be very appreciative, and to show you what farmers can do actually themselves, they can do this work much cheaper than the Government, apparently. The CHAIRMAN. Well, do you mean by that that you want the farmers to do soil conservation. You want the Government to discontinue appropriations we are making for soil conservation? Mr. WAGNER. I want to show you that if this money was put out there for the direct benefit of the farmers, if the farmers were to handle that money themselves————— The CHAIRMAN. We cannot correct all of the ills of the country. That goes for the Department of Agriculture and the Committee on Agriculture. But go ahead and file that and that is Senator Capper's paper and that is a good paper. File it. Have you got anything else to file? Mr. WAGNER. That is about the size of it, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have your statement, and I just want to say this personally, that I sympathize with people that own lands above any dam or reservoir site, whether that dam is being constructed to generate power or whether it is being constructed for the development of navigation or for flood control, or whether they may take our cemeteries because of the construction of a highway. I know of some highways that go right through the cemetery. It is all bad. Some of the most magnificent homes have had to be condemned for the location of levees. But after all, the problem that confronts you people out there is a problem that confronts people behind every dam except in the canyon country in every State of the country where dams are authorized. We sympathize with you and we will give your views most careful consideration. Mr. WAGNER. There is one other thing. This morning you asked one of the other witnesses that I wish to call to your attention, which is a copy from the State board of agriculture of conservation in Kansas. There is a map in the rear of it that covers this district, in the very north part of our State, which is supposed to be the most fertile land in the world, which is of glacial construction or forma tion. It is quite sandy, sandy loam and it is the most erosive area in this section of the country, right in the reservoir site; it is very easily eroded. Most erosive area in the State. The CHAIRMAN. You are pointing out that the land that is going to be condemned for the reservoir is very susceptible to erosion. Mr. WAGNER. Absolutely. And another thing, if soil conservation does not work in this area and this dam is built, the first thing to do is to employ conservation practices to the fullest extent. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. Mr. WAGNER. I wanted to call attention to that. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions? Mr. MOULDER. May I add to your statement that the Constitution specifically provides that all persons whose properties are exappropriated for such purposes shall receive just compensation. I believe that question seems to be on the mind of this witness. (The matters above referred to are as follows:) CONGRESSIONAL WORKS COMMITTEE, Washington, D. C. OZAWKIE, KANS., May 14, 1949. GENTLEMEN: I am a licensed trucker in Jefferson County, Kans., residing in the town of Ozawkie, and I do general trucking for the public in this locality. I want to register a protest against the proposed Perry Reservoir, as it will take out of production one of the most fertile and productive tracts of land in the county and ruin my business. It will cripple the county so that it will have a hard time to operate as a unit. This can all be avoided if a saner method is practiced to control floods in our vicinity, by more constructive practices, instead of such destructive practices. CONGRESSIONAL WORKS COMMITTEE, Washington, D. C. O. V. MEREDITH. OZAWKIE, KANS., May 14, 1949. GENTLEMEN: We hereby register a protest to reject the Perry Reservoir project, as destructive to our community. The Delaware River Valley is a necessary part of our school unit, the Ozawkie Grade School No. 28, which has an enrollment of about 60 pupils, and if this valuable part of the district is flooded, our school unit will be ruined. We are American citizens and as much entitled to flood protection as any below this proposed project. We will never favor such a project. GLEN LEHMAN, Director, Board of Education, [From Capper's Farmer of March 1948] STOP FLOODS IN THE HILLS-KAW VALLEY FARMERS SAVE FERTILE ACRES FOR CROP PRODUCTION WITH CHECK BASINS THAT SLOW RUN-OFF Farmers in the Silver Lake drainage district, Shawnee County, Kans., have found a way to save erops from annual floods. Instead of helplessly watching water rush out of the hills to cover their rich Kaw Valley bottom land they hold it back with check dams and let it out gradually. The idea is so simple they wonder why they didn't think of it years ago. What they have done is attracting attention of other communities in the county. The Rossville district above Silver Lake and the Topeka district below are beginning to locate sites for check dams. Farmers in the Wakarusa Valley are considering the plan for their watershed. Land protected in the Silver Lake district is a strip of bottom 2 to 3 miles wide between the Bluestem hills on the north and the Union Pacific Railroad on the south. Water off the hills ran into a dike protecting the railroad and flooded fields. Farmers say they lost crops 3 years out of 5 before they built the dams. As early as 1900 farmers dug a drainage ditch which worked for a few years. But glacial sand coming off the hills soon choked it up. Fertile land remained wet and seepy too late for planting. As unusually heavy flood that covered the whole area in 1942 brought the landowners together for action. They petitioned the county commissioners to assess a special drainage tax. Then the district voted $5,000 in bonds to open and improve ditches and to build a series of holding basins. A. J. Thomas, chairman of the drainage board, got the idea of the check dams from a large pond in his pasture. It wasn't intended for the purpose, but it served as a check basin because the water seeped away rapidly in the sandy soil. Why wouldn't catch basins in large draws draining out of hill pastures hold water temporarily and let it away gradually? Neighbors made up a fund to build the first basin at the head of the district in the pasture of C. C. Cogswell. It is 400 feet long, cost $1,750, and catches water from 750 acres. A 2-foot steel tube, 100 feet long with a 6-foot drop from mouth to outlet, goes through the bottom of the dam. The dam holds back 65 acrefeet of water. It takes 18 hours to empty from full stage. At that rate the drainage ditch below carries the water without overflow. The Cogswell Dam was built in 1945. Two more went in in 1946 and two were built in 1947. These last four hold from 30 to 40 acre-feet. Besides these catch basins for holding water temporarily, several sand traps have been built. These are small dams which slow water long enough for sand to settle out before it reaches the main drainage ditch in the bottom. Major benefit of the catch basins is on bottom land that is subject to overflow. Most farmers own both bottom land and upland. To make the projects successful, bottom land and upland farmers must cooperate. Grass improvement and small pasture ponds are other phases of the district flood control. Cogswell, for instance, didn't stop with the big catch basin. He built two other large ponds with concrete-protected spillways and four smaller ponds in his 600-acre pasture. When he bought the farm 8 years ago the pasture had been badly overgrazed. With controlled grazing and mowing he has brought back bountiful bluestem growth. With ponds scattered, the grazing is more even. Thick sod slows the run-off, and the ponds hold a lot of it. Part of the rainfall finds its way to a spring which flows 20,000 gallons a day. Below one of the ponds, Cogswell plans to irrigate a 3-acre garden and truck patch. Control of water from above also has permitted Cogswell to salvage 40 acres of bottom land below the big catch basin. With a bulldozer on his tractor he dug a straight ditch big enough to carry the flow from the 24-inch outlet. The old winding ditch that overflowed is being filled and put to crops. Diversion ditches around slopes keep the hill water off the bottom land below the dam. Good crops in 1946 and 1947 from usually flooded land are convincing evidence that the check-basin system works. Thomas got good alfalfa and corn from land along the ditch last year that didn't produce much more than canary grass in former years. His drainage tax runs about $200 annually, but he says he got it back severalfold from increased crops. Walter Salley said the additional crops he got the last 2 years were worth $1,600 a year, and his annual drainage tax is $70. How successfully the catch basins work was emphasized by Wayne Mitchell, or Rossville, when he came down to see the Silver Lake ditch after a 7-inch rain. While his own farm was under water, the drainage ditch below the Cogswell catch basin was carrying the water away without overflow. Members of the Silver Lake Drainage District think their system will work wherever surface water concentrates to rush out on bottom land. If they can spread the run-off from a heavy rain over an 18-hour period so their little drainage ditch will carry it without flooding, they reason that a lot of these check basins in a major watershed would prevent many damaging floods in the river bottoms. We, the members of the Jefferson County Pomona Grange, have carefully studied the effect the construction of the proposed Perry Reservoir would have upon the county and its various subdivisions. Our study indicates the project to be for flood protection and whereas this particular section is recognized by our agricultural college as the most erosive and productive area in our State, and whereas such a project would not render the desired protection the interested parties are entitled to receive, therefore a program calling for construction of retention dams on smaller streams together with an intensified soil-conservation program would prevent this needless erosion, save the watershed area, and provide the desired flood protection, without causing the dislocation of persons. HARVEY GRIFFIN, Master. To Whom It May Concern: EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, DEAR SIRS: The church is a vital institution in the world, therefore I feel that it should be given consideration in all activities of the community. It is for this reason I wish to voice the opinion of the people of the church and the community concerning the Perry Dam. We have a church membership of 217. A large majority of this number are farmers and people of Ozawkie who will be affected directly by this project. There are also many other people of the community who prefer this church but are not members. As the minister I have a mailing list of 170 families. Just what these families will do if the dam is built I do not know. Most of them will be driven from their homes and the church will be lost. We, the people of this community feel that there are other methods of flood control than building the dam. We feel that a well-organized program of soil conservation would fill the needs of this community much better and will answer the purpose of flood control much better than the proposed dam. Why is it necessary to destroy homes and good farm land when some other method would do better? We feel that there should be greater consideration given to this project. I wish to thank you for any consideration that you can give to this matter. Respectfully yours, PAUL LIFE, Minister, Whereas the improvements which have been placed on Jefferson County Drainage District No. 1 have cost the members $270,000; And whereas the proposed Perry Reservoir Dam on the Delaware River would submerge these improvements as well as many acres of our valuable farm land curtailing the income of the district and the sources of tax revenue to our county; Therefore we resolve to ask our Government to refrain from building the aforesaid dam; and recommend the building of source water dams to keep water on the farms where it is needed. F. F. HURST, Chairman. R. C. SIMPSON, Secretary and Treasurer. OZAWKIE, KANS. To the Corps of Engineers, United States Army: We, the Delaware River Drainage Board, believe that a thorough job of terracing, and contour farming and farm pounds properly constructed, will hold the water where it belongs. C. H. THOMPSON, Secretary. LEAVENWORTH-JEFFERSON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC., To Whom It May Concern: During the past few months we have watched with interest the developments of the so-called Perry Dam in the Delaware River Basin. It is our understanding that a large number of farms will be inundated as a result of this project, which will cause this company considerable expense and loss of revenue. Any flood-control project that would be carried out in this area will cause this company to make major revisions in its feeder lines as well as distribution lines. We realize that the dam project was contemplated before electricity was extended to this area, but we wish to point out to all parties that service has been extended to about 95 percent of the farms in this area. This statement is respectfully submitted for consideration in analyzing the over-all project. Very truly yours, LEAVENWORTH-JEFFERSON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC., THE STATE BANK OF OZAWKIE, To the CONGRESSIONAL WORKS COMMITTEE, Washington, D. C. GENTLEMEN: As cashier and managing officer of the State Bank of Ozawkie, located in the town of Ozawkie, Kans., I want to register a protest, in behalf of the board of directors of our bank, against the construction of the Perry Reservoir. The damages which will be done by this project will be much greater than benefits derived, and a saner project would be to spend some of the taxes to be used in building this lake to do something constructive to save soil erosion and coil conservation upstream, which can be done at a less cost and do more people more good. It is a selfish proposed move by boys below the dam site, and it is economically unsound, when such greater opportunities are possible now to accomplish more benefits through practices as mentioned above. Yours very truly, GLEN R. LEHMAN, OZAWKIE, KANS., May 14, 1949. To Whom It May Concern: This is to certify that I am the owner and operator of the Priddy Mercantile Co., at Ozawkie, Kans., engaged in the general merchandise business, and that does a gross business to exceed $50,000 annually. The proposed Perry Reservoir will ruin my business as well as the town of Ozawkie, and it is positively wrong in principle, since a more constructive program can be followed through soil-conservation practices and the erection of numerous farm ponds on farms upstream, which will do far more good in a constructive program at less cost and destruction. PRIDDY MERCANTILE CO., C. A. SMITH & SON IMPLEMENT, INC., I do not believe the proposed reservoir on the Delaware River will serve the people and surrounding territory anywhere in comparison to the cost of the tax payer or their many other interests. First. Large dams do not mean proper water errosion control. The proper control of water run-off for any agricultural community should be done by grass seedings, terracing, and series of small ponds to keep rain water where it falls as nearly as possible. A large dam and lake created by it will not make any farm produce one more bushel of grain if the rain fall is allowed to run off and contained farther downstream is some large reservoir. Second. Large dams nearly, always create lakes which cover the best farm lands and remove much rich productive land from cultivation, takes people's homes away from them, removes much valuable property from tax rolls, thereby adding the burden of local taxation on less productive property and on fewer people. Dams built to stop water erosion generally silt full in a few years and then become worthless so far as the purpose they were built for. The only proper water-erosion control for any large segment of farm land is to control soil erosion and water erosion where it falls on the farm, which has been fully demonstrated can be done if it is fully organized and handled properly in any large watershed. Any large dam does not control any water or soil erosion above the dam and only control-flooding below. The great need is to control both soil erosion and water run-off on the individual farm. I have farmed all my life and know this side of the farm picture, therefore, feel I know at least a few of the fundamentals of this problem. C. A. SMITH. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sanders, do you desire to make a statement, sir? Mr. SANDERS. Yes, sir. STATEMENT OF J. T. SANDERS, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL, NATIONAL GRANGE Mr. SANDERS. I am J. T. Sanders, legislative counsel, National Grange. The CHAIRMAN. Where do you live? Mr. SANDERS. I live here in Washington, Mr. Chairman. |