as a source for providing the funds necessary, which are in themselves larger than even the States involved can budget on an annual basis without jeopardizing their overall economy.

If this is the case with the 3 States involved in this instance, 3 of the wealthiest States in our Union, in heaven's name how can anybody contend that such problems can be solved on a local participation basis as the Hoover Commission task force reports recommend?

One has only to study the history and reports of INCODEL to realize that the solution to the problems of this area have been attempted with great diligence by a group prededicated to the philosophy that States and communities, left to their own resources, could solve such problems.

I believe that their variant contentiousness has proved even to them that the results can only be achieved by greater, not less, Federal participation.

I am so completely in accord with the idea of Federal participation in this program that I will introduce in the next session of the Congress a resolution to establish a special commission to investigate and study the problems of flood control and hurricane warning systems.

In view of the tremendous destruction which the eastern seaboard has suffered in hurricanes in the last 2 years with resultant flood, it is urgent that the Congress study all aspects of these problems, looking toward finding practical means to reduce property damage and the loss of human life.

Specifically, particular attention should be given to the following vital factors: 1. The feasibility of extending scientific research into artificial means of controlling the course of hurricanes;

2. The need for additional flood-control measures along the eastern seaboard;

3. The adequacy of the present warning system and all possible methods for increasing its effectiveness;

4. The adequacy of civil-defense activities during recent hurricanes and floods and the possible methods for increasing their effectiveness;

5. The problem of financial loss suffered by small homeowners and business concerns as a result of hurricanes and flood damage, and the feasibility of establishing a Federal program under which they could be insured against such loss by a Government insurance agency or through a Federal plan for the reinsurance of private insurance firms.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for your kind invitation to permit me to express my feelings and suggestions on this most vital and urgent problem. I trust that my statement will prove of some value and assistance to you and your committee.

Mr. JONES. Now, where do you want us, Mr. Hoff? In here?

Mr. HOFF. Mr. Chairman, may I make two suggestions? One, you sent me some very definite leading questions. I would welcome questions after I have presented my testimony pictorially.

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOFF. The second is, we might adjourn for 2 minutes while I set up the projector and screen.

(Whereupon a short recess was taken, after which a series of slides was shown, accompanied by the following commentary :)

STATEMENT OF CLAYTON M. HOFF, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, BRANDYWINE VALLEY ASSOCIATION, WILMINGTON, DEL.

Mr. HOFF. The Brandywine-a watershed at work.

Conservation of natural resources is an old subject. It has long been regarded as something that concerned only the farmer, the lumberman, or those who lived close to the soil.

More recently we began to realize that our business, industry, recreation, community life, in fact, our national welfare depended largely on how we handled our soil, forest, water, and other natural resources. With this realization it became obvious that organizations that

served but one interest alone, such as agriculture or forestry or water supply might not be as able to serve the complex needs of a community in which many factors, such as recreation, transportation, industry, water supply, in addition to agriculture and forestry, were inovlved. What, then, was the answer?

A watershed organization was suggested as one logical solution to this problem. Based on the assumption that people in the watershed would have more in common than those simply in a township or county, it was suggested that an organization of all the various interests in such a watershed, in which the people themselves would have the opportunity of developing their own program of work on all resources for the benefit of all interests in that area might have great merit.

It was expected that the people of the watershed through their organization would secure assistance from all available local, State, or national agencies, or organize new ones if needed, but above all, assure that the work of all these agencies was coordinated in a whole valleywide plan, thus avoiding duplication or conflict.

That this suggestion had merit is indicated by the hundreds of watershed organizations that are in existence today. Let's see how they operate. Let's take a detailed look at one of them, the Brandywine Valley Association, one that has implemented, perhaps more so than most, the basic principles of watershed organization.

It was on March 20, 1945, that 35 interested citizens of the Brandywine Valley met at the Mansion House Hotel, West Chester, Pa., to discuss their problems.

These people represented fairly well the varied interests of the 200,000 people who lived in the 330 square miles of the Brandywine Valley.

These were well-informed people. They knew the interesting history of this area and cherished many of the old landmarks such as the fast-disappearing covered bridges and the Birmingham Friends Meeting House which was used as a hospital during the Revolutionary

War.

They were acquainted with the industrial development of this valley, tracing its growth from the charcoal iron furnaces, operating until the late nineties from local iron ore, charcoal from nearby forests, limestone and quartz from the adjacent hills and waterpower from the small streams flowing past it, to the tremendous, large industry, the Lukens Steel Co., the world's largest platemill, located on the Brandywine at Coatesville, Pa. They knew, too, of the growth of the chemical industry from the small powder mills built on the Brandywine in 1802 by Eleuthere Irenee du Pont just above Wilmington and how this powder business has grown into a tremendous chemical industry, carrying the founder's name.

They were proud of the wonderful farms in the valley, whether they lay on the fertile flood plain of the stream or spread out over the rolling hills of the uplands.

They were, for the most part, aware that the Brandywine originated in the wooded Welsh Mountains of northern Chester County, starting in the form of small springs at their base and meandering for many miles through open meadows and along wooded hillsides serving many small communities for water supply, process water and power, channeling down between steep hillsides into Wilmington where it served

the city water supply and in addition to other uses, for transportation at the Wilmington Marine Terminal, then ending its travel where it emptied into the Delaware River about 2 miles above the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

Yes, these were well-informed people, but some of them found out things they had not known before. They learned that, at the city of Coatesville, population 17,000, raw untreated sewage was being discharged into the Brandywine, containing all the filth and pollution one would expect to find in raw, untreated sewage. Some of the people from Wilmington did not even realize until that moment that this was their drinking water. They learned, too, that the sewage treatment plant at Dowingtown had been practically out of commission for several years and allowed the waste of that community to enter the east branch of the Brandywine untreated.

Evidence was presented showing that large quantities of rust, scale, grease, and oil were entering the Brandywine from industry upstream, and that so much of this type of waste was entering the stream at various points below that nearly all the fish were being killed and sport fishing was becoming a thing of the past.

They knew, of course, that there was a beautiful park in Wilmington on the banks of the Brandywine and that beautiful flowering shrubs and trees and grassy lawns were attracting thousands of youngsters there for recreation, but they were surprised to find that not 50 feet away they were exposing these same youngsters to the filth and disease of an open sewer, containing both industrial waste and sewage from many thousands of homes. Signs erected by the department of health, of course, had closed this stream to fishing, swimming, and wading for some time past.

They learned that sometimes the Brandywine was so low that the bottom was showing through the top and that the water had become so stagnant, filled with algae, that its taste for drinking water was obnoxious. But at other times the water was at flood height-a raging torrent, carrying tons and tons of our good topsoil downstream, leaving erosion and devastation in its wake.

Evidence was presented showing that many of our wood lots were heavily grazed, the cattle destroying all the young trees that came up by seed, nature's method of reforestation, and were also damaging the roots of the trees so that they were infected and the tops were dying. Furthermore many hundreds of acres were being destroyed by careless fires. In many cases fires were started intentionally to burn off dead grass, the owners not realizing that they were destroying approximately 50 pounds of nitrogen for every acre burned, were leaving the ground bare and subject to erosion; contributing to flood damage; also were destroying the food and shelter for many kinds of wildlife and game, which procedure, along with that of keeping our fence-rows trim, neat but barren, were decreasing our game supply until hunting was no longer worth the effort.

One of our garden club members said, "I thought the Brandywine was a beautiful stream, with shaded, grassy banks, cattle grazing thereon, presenting a beautiful pastoral scene." "Yes," said another member, "that's true in spots, but look 500 feet upstream and you'll find a rubbish dump, mixtures of garbage and rubbish, breeding places for flies, mosquitoes, rats-a source of danger and disease."

Another very important fact they learned was that after every moderately heavy rain, much of the water was running off improperly farmed fields, carrying with it large quantities of silt, our topsoil, and leaving the fields furrowed and gullied. In some cases where this erosion was not checked the gullies had grown so large that one could even hide an automobile therein. Erosion and other factors had greatly reduced the production capacity of our farms. Statistics showed that even though we were using new hybrid grains, corn, wheat, or rye, and even though we were using tremendous quantities of lime and fertilizer, our yields per acre were not less than they were 50 years ago.

Finally, this group discovered that due largely to erosion, the Wilmington Marine Terminal filled with silt at the rate of 12 inches per month, 12 feet per year, and that we as taxpayers were spending $350,000 per year for the use of the Army engineers' dredge to keep this harbor open for shipping by annually removing 22 million cubic yards of silt and mud, the best topsoil of our farms.

These facts prompted action. This group of 35 citizens decided then and there to form an association, a watershed association, to correct these conditions. That was the beginning of Brandywine Valley Association. It was soon organized and incorporated in October 1945.

That was almost 10 years ago. Something should have happened in the meantime. Something has. Let's take another quick look over our valley and see what has been accomplished through the power of people working together.

At Coatesville all the domestic sewage is treated by a modern, efficient sewage-treatment plant, the effluent thereof being of such a quality that it is reused by Lukens Steel. At Downingtown there is a new sewage-treatment plant twice as large as the old one, complete with a greenhouse for drying the sludge so that it can be used by farmers and gardeners. At West Chester there are 2 new sewagetreatment plants, the north plant and the south plant, 1 being especially equipped for the handling of penicillin wastes. In Wilmington below the exact spot where you saw the open sewer, there lies buried a 5-foot concrete interceptor sewer and there are 4 more such large sewers collecting all the sewage from Wilmington, as well as that from upper New Castle County, pumping it under the Brandywine and out to Cherry Island Marsh where it is treated in a modern $18 million sewage-treatment plant before the clear effluent is discharged into the Delaware River.

At Lukens Steel there is installed a link-belt clarifier and other equipment at the cost of almost a half-million dollars for removing oil, grease, scale, rust, and sludge from their process water and in addition there is an aeration and settling basin where this effluent is further treated and purified before it is returned to the Brandywine. At the Downingtown Paper Co. an Infilco clarifier is used for removing impurities from their waste water, and if you walk along the Brandywine to the point where you saw the rubbish and garbage dump previously, you will now see a picnic spot. Safe and clean and attractive.

In place of these burned woods you will now see foresters cruising many of the forests, marking the trees that should be cut, and in addition you will see many hundreds of acres of reforested hillsides.

Many of our barren fence rows have been replaced with a living fence of multiflora rose, providing shelter for wildlife and game. Sixty miles of these fences along with many hundreds of acres of woodland borders of bicolor lespedeza have gone a long way toward increasing the wildlife and game of this area.

With sewage and industrial wastes greatly reduced, fishing is getting better and large-mouthed black bass as large as 61/2 pounds have been caught in the Brandywine. Fish are caught in farm ponds as well, as one of the interesting sights one sees, flying over this area, are the 140 new farm ponds constructed in the Brandywine Valley. In addition to fishing, these farm ponds provide excellent recreation in the form of swimming and are very popular, particularly if the farmer has an attractive daughter like this one. Incidentally, one of the boys in one of the schools recently said, upon seeing this picture, "Mr. Hoff, I'll give you a dollar to tell me where this farm pond is located." "I'm sorry," I said, "but the farmer has already paid me $5 to keep it a secret." These farm ponds also serve as a wildlife habitat and there are dozens of Canada geese as well as hundreds of mallards using these ponds or their banks for nesting sites at the present time. One extremely valuable use for farm ponds is supplying water for putting out farm fires. True, the barn burned down before the fire department could get on the site, but with plenty of water they saved all the rest of the farm buildings. A move is on for decreasing the insurance rates for farm owners where farm ponds are provided.

One of the most notable changes in the landscape of the valley is the great number of contour strips on our rolling farmland which one sees in flying over the area. Over one-half of the farms in the valley are now under conservation plans. Along with these strips are evidences of liming, fertilizing, and crop rotation, and another change has been in the tremendous increase in grassland farming which has done much to decrease erosion and runoff and produce the crop of beef which with favorable prices has been a more profitable crop than many others.

Has this paid off? Let's look at the dollars and cents alone. Glance at a report of the Bureau of the Census, indicating that the farm income of Chester County has been increased by about $8,500,000 per year over a 5-year period of accelerated application of conservation practices. The Brandywine Valley is about one-half the area of Chester County. This would mean an increase of the farm income of the Brandywine Valley along of about $5 million per year. The budget of the Brandywine Valley Association has been at its maximum $40,000. A return of $5 million on $40,000 is a mighty good investment; don't you think?

How did this happen, you ask? It's the result of a lot of planning many people. Work that might research, publicity, and service.

Well, it didn't exactly happen. and hard work on the part of be divided between education,

Research has been mentioned as an important part of the work of the people of the valley and this includes working with the United States Geological Survey measuring the rainfall at 12 different stations in the Brandywine Valley, measuring and recording the flow of the Brandywine by a flaw-gaging station located on the banks of the Brandywine opposite the DuPont experimental station and deter