highway department $71,219.47. The July 1948 flood, although higher, did not last so long, but its cost was also high. These highway losses do not include damage to county, township, and city roads. Neither do they include loss through delays, detours, etc., to those using the roads in floodtime. Nor is the loss of business, etc., counted.

The county engineer of Neosho County reports 125 miles of roads in the Neosho bottoms and that cost of maintenance of gravel roads in the bottom is double that in other sections of the county. The floods wash gravel off the grade and fill drainage ditches. Silt is deposited on road. Road bed is softened so it requires extra attention. Culverts washed out or damaged. He figures the extra cost at $93,750 a year in the bottoms. The Neosho zigzags diagonally across the county and has a fall of about 14 foot to the mile.

The Neosho River runs approximately 35 miles through Labette and Cherokee County, Kans., with a flood area averaging 5 miles wide through the entire area, comprising a total acreage of 108,500 acres that were completely inundated during the 1948 flood. This flood had a direct bearing on 1,000 or more families living in this particular area, and covered and closed 3 national highways in Cherokee and Labette Counties. The main artery of traffic across southern Kansas, Highway No. 166 was closed during the 1948 flood for 7 days and in the Cherokee and Labette County area there were over 50 families who were forced to leave their farms taking with them their livestock and other personal property as best they could.

The CHAIRMAN. Colonel, while the next witness is coming around, in this Grand Neosho River and its tributaries project, Eightieth Congress, House Document No. 442, the estimated cost of these four reservoirs was given at $18,977,000. What did you give as the total estimated cost today?

Colonel GEE. $36,200,000 total cost.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, that is the estimated cost as of this date.

Colonel GEE. Yes, sir, 1948.

The CHAIRMAN. And if you have the same decline in the cost of construction from now until the time these reservoirs and dams are built, why, it would get to more nearly the estimate, the original estimate.

Colonel GEE. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. You didn't make reference to the original cost at the time of the report in the statement this morning, did you? Colonel GEE. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. We would like for you to do that. That will help us out. Put them together and give us the reasons of why the difference.

Mr. McGREGOR. Colonel, how long do you think it will take before the decline could be effective to go from $32,000,000 construction costs down to $18,000,000?

Colonel GEE. I can give you my own personal opinion on that. I don't think anyone in this room will live long enough to see that time [laughter].

Mr. McGREGOR. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Your next witness, Mr. Redmond.

Mr. REDMOND. The next statement will be from Mayor Jacobs of Council Grove.

While he is coming around, I would like to say that in 1908, the Department of Agriculture made a survey of the Neosho and discussed levees, and in the 308 report, levees were suggested for, I think, 14 towns along the river. Those have been the only surveys in the last 50 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF HON. EDMOND T. JACOBS, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF COUNCIL GROVE, KANS.

The CHAIRMAN. Give us your name, place of residence, and the interests you represent.

Mr. JACOBS. My name is E. T. Jacobs. I live at Council Grove, Kans.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is that with respect to these dams?

Mr. JACOBS. It is the upper dam, and our town is 1 mile from the proposed location of the upper dam.

The CHAIRMAN. Below it or above it?

Mr. JACOBS. Below it.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well, sir, you may proceed.

Mr. JACOBS. We are 1 mile from the junction of the Neosho and Mungers Creek. We are subject to "flash" floods, and that is our trouble.

The river divides our town. Part of it is on one side, part on the other. One hundred percent of our business buildings are in the flood area and have been flooded many, many times from 1903 up to the present time.

I have lived there all my life. I have seen the floods. I have personal knowledge of the loss of life and the hundreds of thousands of dollars loss in property. The notice that we get from these streams when they are going to run over is very small. Sometimes we have the fire-alarm system in our town, the same as in Mr. Carpenter's

town.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you just a question which, I think, might help us. What is the normal low-water discharge of the Neosho River in the town where you live?

Mr. JACOBS. The normal low water?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. How wide and deep is it?

Mr. JACOBS. I would say sometimes it is 2 feet, sometimes it is 40 feet or more.

The CHAIRMAN. Sometimes 2 feet deep and sometimes 40 feet deep?

Mr. JACOBS. Yes. Sometimes it depends on the rainfall we have. We depend on that for our water supply. We built a lake because the water was not adequate for our city. We have a city of 3,000, approximately, and we couldn't depend on that low water there to supply the town, and we spent $300,000 to build a dam, a lake, about 4 miles from our city, and that was at the taxpayers' expense-I mean bond issue from that little community. That was completed 7 years ago. In the 7 years since its completion, we have spent $30.000 more making repairs to that dam, which is sort of a burden on our little community.

The CHAIRMAN. That is for water supply purposes.
Mr. JACOBS. Water supply.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir.

Mr. JACOBS. We also spent $125,000 constructing a series of dikes through our town. The dikes are inadequate to carry rain. We have a volume of water to carry, because it comes so fast and on such short notice. Well, we took this water through the town. Then they dump it on all these farmers down below, and it has been quite a terrific

thing to them. It has caused them floods when we really didn't have a flood in our town.

The CHAIRMAN. Are your dikes maintained at present through your town?

Mr. JACOBS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How high are they, the average height?

Mr. JACOBS. I would say 25 feet.

The CHAIRMAN. Twenty-five feet high on each side?

Mr. JACOBS. Yes; maybe 30 feet.

The CHAIRMAN. How long?

Mr. JACOBS. They run clear through the town, from the north end of our town to the south part of our town, the south edge.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you get into a gorge or something where the water converges between those or goes behind?

Mr. JACOBS. No. Any time the water goes over the dike, then we have a flood.

The CHAIRMAN. I imagine if it went over a 25- or 30-foot dike, you would have floods.

Mr. JACOBS. I guess the flood stage must be 35 feet.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am asking you, sir: You say they just extend through your town.

Mr. JACOBS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How do you get the water to come into those dikes if there are no dikes above your town?

Mr. JACOBS. We built them right at the north edge of the town, and we start constructing dikes where the river comes into our town. The CHAIRMAN. Now, what prevents your water from going behind

it?

Mr. JACOBS. Nothing.

The CHAIRMAN. And it goes

Mr. JACOBS. It goes out behind the dikes lots of times.

The CHAIRMAN. Does it come down through your town?

Mr. JACOBS. That is right. That is when we have the floods; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I see. Go ahead.

Mr. JACOBS. That is as near as I can explain it to you.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it isn't very clear, but go right ahead.

Mr. JACOBS. It cost us about $125,000 to build, and we enjoy about the highest tax rate of any little community in the State of Kansas. I don't think any other community has a higher tax rate than we have, on account of the bond issue that we have had.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, what you are trying to say is you have done your level best to protect yourself against floods.

Mr. JACOBS. And we are out of money.

The CHAIRMAN. And you want some protection and you favor this project?

Mr. JACOBS. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Anything else?

Mr. JACOBS. I think that is all; only this statement that I will leave here.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to have your statement. (Statement submitted by Mr. Jacobs follows:)

The city of Council Grove is the county seat of Morris County and has a population of more than 3,000. The populous has lived in a horror since it was first visited by a devastating flood on June 4, 1903. During the intervening period

there have been many flash floods without warning, but the worst occurred in 1906, 1929, 1938, and 1941. The major catastrophes have occurred at intervals of an average of 8 years; however, the fear, worry, and dread has perhaps, over the period of 46 years, caused as much suffering as the floods themselves, as with floods, the same as earthquakes, there is definitely no apparent regularity nor forewarning.

The facts are that 100 percent of the business district of the city is in the flood area, and 75 percent of the homes. The property loss alone has at times reached an excess of $150,000 in one flood.

The thing that particularly and significantly worries the families is that the city was not flooded until 1903, and that the worst flood of all occurred in 1941. There has been a continuous progressive severity and intensity of the floods over the period of years.

Property loss is, to a degree, measurable, but the loss of life is not, and in one of the floods three lives were lost in the night and one father lost his life in attempting to save his daughter. Therefore, the concern and dread of the people is not a myth but is truly an actuality. Over the period of years many families have spent days and nights on their housetops after crawling through their attics and cutting holes in their roofs. Others have been in trees and whatever other places of temporary safety that may have been available.

The floods creep upon the city without warning, the same as a beast or a monster in the night, and the flash floods have trapped people in their homes without even as much as 5 minutes warning. Walls of water have moved upon the city caused by excessive rains that have occurred several miles to the north, west, and east.

The severity of the flash floods actually occur at points south of the junction of the Neosho River and Munkres Creek. This total drainage being from 250 square miles. The waters culminating from the two is far in excess of control and even realization unless one has actually encountered it. The city of Council Grove is located approximately 1 mile south of the junction of the two streams.

The city and its people have done everything possible to control and lessen the flood menace, but naturally has found itself limited to its corporate jurisdiction and the extent of its own finances, and is faced with the fact that major control remedies are essential. A fire will confine itself to an area, or at least a city, but floodwaters such as we have here move on and on with the same horrors and devastating dreadful results to the communities below. Therefore, the city of Council Grove cannot be considered entirely selfish because it fully realizes that the measures that alleviate our worries will do the same thing for the communities and cities below us in the Neosho Valley. Respectfully submitted.

EDMOND T. JACOBS,

Mayor, for the City of Council Grove.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Redmond, your next witness, please. Mr. REDMOND. The next witness is Frank Stillman, a railroad man, from Council Grove.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the same Council Grove?

Mr. REDMOND. Yes, sir; it is the same town.

STATEMENT OF FRANK P. STILLMAN, EMPLOYEE OF THE
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD

Mr. STILLMAN. My name is Frank P. Stillman. I am an employee of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you in favor of this project?

Mr. STILLMAN. I certainly am, and I am here to represent some 220 employees and their families, and 72 percent of them own their homes. As Mr. Jacobs explained to you, the river runs through our town, and when this water breaks over the dikes up above the town, it floods our eastern section of the town.

The CHAIRMAN. I knew it did something like that. I tried to get him to tell me, but he wouldn't do it, it went right straight through the town.

Mr. STILLMAN. I am a property owner myself.

I will relate a little bit of personal history. I was lost in the 1903 flood in Council Grove. I was 4 years old. I was lost from my parents for some 18 hours, and I don't want that to happen to any other child. That is all I have to say.

I have a letter here, which I would like to have inserted into the record, from a very good farmer friend of mine who lives below the Council Grove Dam, and it expresses the sentiments of other people in that community, thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, sir. You have made an excellent statement.

Mr. REDMOND. The next witness is W. L. Young, former mayor of Council Grove, and farmer, stockman, banker.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM L. YOUNG, FORMER MAYOR OF THE CITY OF COUNCIL GROVE

The CHAIRMAN. Do you favor this project?

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir; you may proceed.

Mr. YOUNG. Let me make just a little correction. I know Mr. Jacobs' intention was right. The dikes were built to take care of water

33 feet deep, and, of course, the dikes are not that high..

The CHAIRMAN. I just want to tell you, you have got some dikes if they are 33 feet high. [Laughter.]

Mr. YOUNG. However, our floods generally run 32 to 33 feet high. That is the depth of the water.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean that is the flood heights. I didn't ask you about the flood heights. I asked you about levee heights. Mr. YOUNG. About 7 to 8 feet above.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; go ahead.

Mr. YOUNG. My name is W. L. Young. My home is in Council Grove, Kans., a city of nearly 3,000 population, where I own considerable property, including 30 rental homes and several rental business buildings. I also own about 1,200 acres of land in the Neosho bottoms which have been almost ruined by the continuing floods. Now that is below Council Grove.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it below the dam?

Mr. YOUNG. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; go ahead.

Mr. YOUNG. I served as mayor of Council Grove for 10 years and have always been especially active in the effort to prevent floods on the Neosho which have hit Council Grove so often and so hard.

The governing body of the city of Council Grove, the chamber of commerce, and other organizations urgently pray for the prompt authorization and construction of the Council Grove Dam.

The CHAIRMAN. What points do you want to make, if I may help you-you are in favor of this project-so we will remember them? Mr. YOUNG. We favor the big flood project; that is what we favor.