jurisdiction that presently exists between the Federal Bureau of M and the State bureau of mines would be continued?

Mr. FLOOD. It cannot be done otherwise. Pennsylvania cannot anything unless the Federal Bureau of Mines agrees. There be complete unity and harmony in the matching operation. The l guage of the bills must coincide and the agreement must be comp between both governments. Must be. You have so dictated in t original bill. What is being done here today does not change dictates of the Congress or the General Assembly when they passed original bill. Not at all.

Mr. SAYLOR. As far as the scars on the surface, we have them only in eastern Pennsylvania in your district, but we have the throughout the length and breadth of Pennsylvania wherever we hav miners, and throughout West Virginia and these other areas. The is no purpose in this bill or there is no intention that this bill be use for the elimination of these blemishes that have occurred on the fas of the earth. Is that correct?

Mr. FLOOD. No, that is not true at all. The original intention of the original bill was to do that where it was necessarily essential to keep the surface water from going into the mines.

Mr. SAYLOR. To keep the water from going in.

Mr. FLOOD. And I still contend I do not want more surface water going in. That is the big thing, to keep it out. Then we save money on pumping.

Mr. SAYLOR. That is right, but we do not intend to go out and try to make sure

Mr. FLOOD. Every dog hole and cave hole in Pennsylvania is filled. No, certainly not. Certainly not. That would not be the purpose here at all.

The original intention was, if we can keep the water out of the mines. it follows, Q.E.D., we will have less of a pumping burden. The only reason we have the bad pumping burden we have now, which is almost indescribable, is because of the great disaster, which you are entirely aware of, when the river as a result went in.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Are there any further questions of the witness?
Mrs. PrOST. I have no questions.

Mr. EDMONDSON. If not, we want to thank you, Mr. Flood, for your eloquence and your persuasiveness on this subject.

We have another distinguished colleague here with us who is author of legislation in this field. I would like to ask the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, Hon. William W. Scranton, author of H.R. 5356, to come forward. We will be glad to hear you at this time.

Mr. SCRANTON. If it would facilitate your hearing any, sir, I am perfectly willing to wait if you would prefer to hear from Mr. Connally, who can give in some detail some elucidation of the points that my distinguished colleague has brought out. That might save time.

Mr. EDMONDSON. I am calling you at this point primarily as a convenience to you. If you intend to remain on through the hearing and prefer it that way, we would be very glad to follow that procedure. Mr. SCRANTON. I think we can clear up some of the questions that have arisen. I will wait.

Mr. EDMONDSON. The next witness we have scheduled to be heard re is the Director of the Bureau of Mines, Hon. Marling J. Ankeny, ill you come forward? Do you want Mr. Corgan to come forward ith you?

Mr. ANKENY. Yes. Joseph Corgan is Chief of the Anthracite ivision.

Mr. EDMONDSON. That is fine. We will be pleased to have both f you.

The staff has just informed me, Mr. Ankeny, that the requirement or reports under the 1955 act terminated with the report on the 1959 perations and that we do not have any formally submitted report or the period since that time. I wonder if you would, as part of our presentation here, give the committee a rundown of what has een done under the Anthracite Conservation Act before we get into our discussion of the proposed amendment.

STATEMENT OF MARLING J. ANKENY, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF MINES, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED BY JOSEPH CORGAN, CHIEF, DIVISION OF ANTHRACITE, BUREAU OF MINES, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Mr. ANKENY. Mr. Chairman, we have a report up to date even though it is not required by Congress. It is quite a lengthy thing. I can say this: There has not been a great deal of work done under this act since the report was made that was required by the Congress. If you would like some detail on the work that has been done since that time, I think Mr. Corgan is more familiar with the details, and I would be glad to have him discuss that which was done under the act since the last report to Congress.

Mr. EDMONDSON. I see, in looking over your statement, you have gone into a good part of the experience under this program. I believe it will be useful, probably, to proceed with your statement at this time and then we can go on to the other matter.

Mr. CORGAN. I would say since the 1959 report that was submitted officially, Mr. Ankeny has covered in his general statement here the situation or through the calendar year 1960.

I could just add that, since the report of 1959 there have been only, I believe, two projects that came in from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during 1960. In other words, that really brings it up to date, and we mention that in Mr. Ankeny's statement. Mr. EDMONDSON. All right. Go ahead, Mr. Ankeny.

Mr. ANKENY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, inasmuch as the Department's report on this legislation has not cleared the Bureau of the Budget, I will not be able to express the views of the Department on this bill. The report will be forthcoming very shortly, I am sure. We are here to give you and the members of this committee any factual information that might be helpful to you in the consideration of this legislation.

Mr. EDMONDSON. We understand.

Mr. ANKENY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Marling J. Ankeny and I am Director of the Bureau of Mines, U.S. Department of the Interior. I am glad to have the opportunity of appearing before you to give our views on H.R. 4094, which proposes amending the act of July 15, 1955, relating to the conservation of

anthracite coal resources, by providing for the sealing of abando coal mines and to fill voids in abandoned coal mines, in those instare where such work is in the interest of the public welfare.

Before discussing H.R. 4094, I believe it prudent to review condition of the currently operating joint Federal-State program for the cour of mine water in the anthracite producing region of Pennsylvan This program was established for the Federal Government by the s approved July 15, 1955 (30 U.S.C. 572), and for the Commonweal of Pennsylvania by the Act of the General Assembly No. 82, date July 7, 1955.

The program conforms with the national policy to conserve natur resources, promote national security, prevent injuries and loss of L and preserve public and private property. The Secretary of Interior is authorized by the law to contribute an amount not t exceed $8,500,000 to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for projec designed for the control and drainage of water to prevent it fro flooding anthracite reserves. The amounts authorized by the Secre tary are matched equally by the Commonwealth. The funds provide are used by the Commonwealth for projects involving the construction of ditches and flumes, backfilling strip pits, improving streambes to prevent the flow of water into mines, and to purchase and instal pumps and related equipment for pumping water from abandonei mines.

The legislation of both the Federal and State Governments specife that none of the public funds made available for the program shal be used for operating and maintenance costs of the projects. Hence. the Commonwealth arranges for the coal company benefiting from each project to operate and maintain the facilities at the company's

expense.

In sponsoring the joint mine-water control program, the anthracite industry and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania indicated that the projects, both pumping plants and surface drainage improvements, would be installed rapidly and that the entire $17 million would be expended in a relatively short time. This has not occurred, owing to the severe retrenchment of activities forced upon the industry by the decline in the demand for anthracite and the closing of many mines. When the act of July 15, 1955, was approved, annual anthracite production was 26.2 million tons and employment 33,500 men, compared with an estimated output in 1960 of 18 million tons and employment of 20,000 men. Peak production of 100 million tons was reached in 1917, when 180,000 men were employed. As a result of the decline in production, the economy of the entire anthracite region has been disrupted. Also, a serious setback to the program occurred in January 1959 when the Susquehanna River broke through into underground workings in the Wyoming region. The inrushing waters drowned 12 mineworkers, flooded millions of tons of coal reserves destroyed mines, and forced other mines to close because of the high head of water in adjoining workings. This serious blow to the minewater control program affected many of the active projects and some proposed projects for which detailed plans had been drawn.

By the close of the 1960 calendar year, the Secretary had approved 28 projects which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had submitted for consideration. Only two projects were submitted for approval in

1960. Four of the projects were canceled before the expenditure of any public funds because the mines in which the reserves were to be protected had been closed for economic reasons. The total cost of the 24 remaining projects, to which the Federal Government contributed funds, is $6,940,821. One-half of this, or $3,470,411, is the Federal share. Eleven of the projects specified large-capacity, turbine-type pumps to control the levels of water pools in underground workings. The remaining 13 projects provided improvements in surface drainage such as constructing ditches and flumes designed to prevent water from seeping into underlying mine workings.

Although some new projects will be submitted for approval, it is not expected that an appreciable part of the remaining $5 million of Federal funds will be expended under the existing legislation.

The accelerated rate of mine closures has rapidly aggravated the anthracite mine-water problem. Mines containing millions of tons of anthracite reserves have been flooded. Active producers are finding it necessary to bear the expense of pumping water from the abandoned mines of other coal companies in order to mine below the water level. Fourteen tons of mine water were pumped to the surface in 1944 for each ton of underground production, compared with the ratio of 50 to 1 in 1960. Pumping costs have reached a point beyond the economic capabilities of some operators and several large producers have stopped pumping because of the costs involved. On the other hand, there are some producers mining coal above the water level, or from strip pits, who have little or no pumping costs.

H.R. 4094 would amend the act of July 15, 1955, to permit the filling of voids in abandoned underground mines. This proposed expansion of purpose of the work would be beneficial to the area as a means of controlling or preventing subsidences affecting developed surface lands. Although surface damages from subsidence over underground workings has been a longtime problem in the anthracite region, there has been an aggravation of this problem in recent years. In some cases the provisions of the amendment would be in the interest of public welfare as it would prevent or alleviate damage to public and private property and would prevent injury and loss of life.

H.R. 4094 would permit the filling in of abandoned strip pit operations when in the interest of public welfare. Such work could provide sites for industrial and commercial building which would be an advantage in the economic rehabilitation of the area. The filling and sealing of strip pit areas also would reduce the pumping load on the remaining active mines and hence would aid in the conservation of immediately available reserves.

The provisions of the proposed amendment would also be in the interest of the public welfare in that the accomplished work in some degree would prevent uncontaminated surface water from entering the underground mines and becoming acid. Hence, the proposed amendment may be regarded as an antipollutant measure for surface water and streams in the anthracite region.

If the State act is amended similarly, the available $10 million of Federal and State funds would not be nearly sufficient to complete all of the projects for which approval would probably be requested. Several times this amount could be expended on projects over a period of 10 years.

The filling of underground mine voids by flushing is a high operation because of the complexity and size of the projects. I amendment probably would result in many requests for exper projects in which the costs would be appreciably higher than derived economic benefits to the improved surface lands of E lower value. The amendment should provide for economic justit tion of projects. Under such a provision the approved projects wo. be fewer but still costly.

With regard to backfilling of abandoned strip mines these oper tions also would require large sums of money because of the w extent of such work to be done in the interests of public welfar throughout the anthracite region. The proposed amendment shou provide that any rehabilitated land would not be restripped. Cosideration should be given to municipal groups obtaining pr possession of surface lands to be benefited by the work to be unde taken.

The amendment should state that none of the Federal contributes would be used to purchase any culm, silt, or spoil bank material f filling mine voids or strip pits. It is suggested that such materia should be contributed free of cost by municipal, civic, or other interested groups.

The proposed amendment probaly would favor the larger communties with well organized and financed civic development groups. Thes groups would promptly sumit proposals for projects which would rapidly obligate or exceed available funds.

Inasmuch as neither the act of July 15, 1955, nor the propose amendment H.R. 4094 provides for engineering and specification work on the projects to be submitted it is essential that the State assume responsibility for all engineering work relating to project submittals.

It is suggested that the amendment contain a provision requiring the Secretary of the Interior to submit to Congress an annual report on the progress and accomplishments of the program provided for by the act.

Final congressional action should be withheld until initial legisla tive steps have been made by the Commonwealth. I understand from Congressman Flood's statement this morning that such initial statements have been made by the Commonwealth for a companion bill. Only then can effective coordination be secured on such a joint program.

H.R. 4094 cannot be supported solely on the basis of prudent conservation of mineral resources because of the excessive costs involved. However, the measure may be supportable in the interests of public welfare, the prevention of stream pollution from acid minewater and the partial but temporary alleviation of unemployment in a depressed

area.

This concludes our formal statement. We would be happy to respond to any questions you may wish to ask.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Thank you, Mr. Ankeny. We are glad to have both you and Mr. Corgan before us and appreciate your views on the legislation and your comments about it.

The gentlewoman from Idaho, do you have any questions?
Mrs. ProST. I have no questions, not at the moment.

I