Our report is very brief and in the form of a letter to Governor Hodges. There has been no meeting of this commission since receipt of your letter of September 20 concerning water resources. However, I feel that the sentiment of this commission would be as outlined below. The object of this commission, insofar as water resources are concerned, are development for public use of the John H. Kerr Reservoir for recreation, boating, swimming, hunting, and fishing. In regard to the recommendations made by the Hoover Commission, we would advise as follows: Recommendation No. 1: Agreed. We cannot place too much emphasis on the necessity and value of both inland and coastal water resources. These should be preserved and developed to the fullest, contamination prevented, and the public made fully conscious of the value of same. Recommendation No. 2: Agreed, provided the proposed Water Resources Board act as a coordinating agency, especially where the interests of two or more States are involved in the same project. Recommendation No. 3: Agreed; same comment as recommendation No. 2. Recommendation No. 4: Agreed; same comment as recommendation No. 2. Recommendation No. 5: No comment. As to recommendation No. 6, it would seem that the gist of this recommendation is that the Soil Conservation Service use the water before the engineering facilities of the Corps of Engineers, rather than providing in itself a separate engineering board. Recommendation No. 7: No comment. As to recommendation No. 8: Agreed; provided the proposed charge applied to regular commercial users such as tugs and barges, but not to apply to transit of local pleasure craft. SUMMARY 1. That the general recommendations as to a national water policy be adopted, the Federal Board to act as an advisory and coordinating agency. 2. That the rights of individual States be not restricted as to their policy and initiative on projects within the State. 3. That the Federal Board act as a coordinating agency in cases where the interests of two or more States are concerned. Mr. JONES. You are in agreement that there should be tolls placed, such as proposed in recommendation No. 8, I believe? Mr. COOPER. No. 8. Mr. JONES. Tolls should be charged on commercial water transportation on the inland waterway system? Mr. COOPER. Yes, sir. Feeling that there are certain facilities provided by the State government which are beneficial and useful to those agencies in the case of drawbridges and tieup places and things of that kind. Mr. JONES. And you agree it would be in order for the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix such charges? Mr. COOPER. Yes, sir. Mr. JONES. Suppose that the rates are to be charged on the water carriers in the John H. Kerr Dam. How would you ascertain a reasonable charge for the use of that waterway by a commercial carrier? How would you mathematically ascertain the toll? Mr. COOPER. In the case of the John H. Kerr we don't have any such at present. Mr. JONES. How about the Ohio River? Mr. COOPER. In regard to the coastal waterway, the operation is in the nature of having tieup points and things of that kind which are provided by the Federal Government. It can be done as simply as the highway tax is, with a certain mileage or tonnage. Mr. JONES. Suppose we have a dam on the Ohio River. That dam on the Ohio River has been justified and authorized by the Congress, and the division of costs on the dam is 20 percent for flood control, 60 percent for hydroelectric power, and the remaining 20 percent on navigation. You would have to compute the toll based on the total amount invested in navigation for the individual project; would you not? Mr. COOPER. Yes, sir; but I don't think it would be too difficult, because in the case of the Kerr Dam the primary object of that is: First, flood control; second, waterpower; and third, recreation. I believe they are in that order. They have determined in that case a rate to be charged for power. Mr. JONES. They would have to be charged first on the existing waterway with the cost of maintenance and operation of the project; is that right? Mr. COOPER. Yes. Mr. JONES. So the maintenance and operation of a project would also have to take into account the amounts that are still remaining to be amortized over the life of the project. Therefore, you would have a cost on one project of $50 to go through and on the next $10. How would you ever accomplish your uniform rate which would reflect with any degree of consistency any such rate? Mr. COOPER. Of course, I have not gone into the matter of how much you would charge a certain sized barge to go through a certain drawbridge. But you can determine that on an actual basis because they have determined at each of the hydroelectric projects how much you charge an agency. They have determined in each State the amount of highway taxes. Mr. JONES. On all new projects which have gone up, in the construction amounts you would have to take into account also, in addition to the construction costs, the operation and maintenance of the project. Do you advocate also, Colonel Cooper, that all highways in the United States be made toll roads? Mr. COOPER. No, sir; but I think we have a pretty universal gasoline tax for the maintenance and construction of those highways. Mr. JONES. But it is a universal tax? Mr. COOPER. Yes. And of course this should be a nationwide tax or charge if it is ever put in. I don't know whether we are going to put it in in North Carolina. Mr. JONES. You disagree with George Washington; don't you? Mr. JONES. I wish you would refer to it because he advocated both to the Continental Congress and in the Improvements Act that there be the construction of navigation projects to aid and assist in trade and commerce. Until this report has come up I have never seen consistent agitation for the charging of tolls on the inland waterway system. It seems to me we ought to encourage the use of our inland waterways rather than suppress them, because they add to the general welfare of the country and our ecoonmic life. Are there any other questions? Mr. LIPSCOMB. Mr. Chairman, you are questioning the witness along the lines that this was a certain rate to be developed. Is that what you have in mind? Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. It will have to be developed because you have to take into account the cost of the project. Mr. LIPSCOMB. The way the recommendation is: That Congress authorize a user charge on inland waterways, except for smaller pleasure craft, sufficient to cover maintenance and operation * * * Those would be the two things that come into question, the costs of maintenance and operation. Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. And I believe to take each dam and compare its relationship to the total cost of navigation and have any uniform policy on charges would be simply impossible. In the future you would have to justify the cost allocated to navigation and that would be arrived at from the revenue source from which it would be produced in order to make it a solvent operation. We have made many and many investments when the justification in the first instance was not sufficient to warrant the investment in navigation on a given stream. Yet in less than a few short years. the expectations of the waterborne traffic had exceeded many times that which was anticipated. So this would put the Congress and it would put the Corps of Engineers into the field of the most remote speculation as to how much commerce would be generated in a given area on a stream. Mr. LIPSCOMB. But Congress has done that with respect to the St. Lawrence seaway and the Panama Canal. Mr. JONES. Yes, but that is an international water route. Now, the Panama Canal is an international water system. Also, the Suez Canal is an international route. However, on those within the confines of the continental limits of the United States, I think up to here we have not had charges placed on their use. If now we have come to the point of placing a users' charge on them that would mean that the use would be stifled and therefore the users on the Intracoastal Canal, for instance, if they were forced to pay charges for the maintenance of it, then would be stifled also and we would reduce the Federal responsibility. Of course, the Government would be impotent to help encourage trade and commerce, which is a Federal responsibility and is vested in us by the Constitution itself. It is certainly foreign thinking which has entered into the economic picture. Thank you very much, Colonel. Our next witness will be Mr. William H. Potter, of the North Carolina Fisheries Association. STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. POTTER, REPRESENTING THE NORTH CAROLINA FISHERIES ASSOCIATION Mr. POTTER. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for allowing us to testify earlier than originally scheduled. My name is W. H. Potter and I am appearing here instead of the president of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, Mr. Earl Holden, who, as a result of these hurricanes you have referred to today, has been battered down to the extent that he is a little bit too preoccupied to appear here for those reasons. If I may, I would like to read a letter which I erroneously addressed to the Governor's office to make it a matter of record, and make a very brief statement from some notes I have compiled, in appearing here today. This letter is from the North Carolina Fisheries Association, addressed to the Governor's office, since the letter of request came from his office. The North Carolina Fisheries Association recognizes the vast potentials of a program to adequately utilize the water resources of our State. Our organization concurs in all three of the recommendations specifically concerned with (1) a national water policy; (2) the creation of a Water Resources Board; and (3) the creation of adequate staff of personnel, properly trained, to evaluate water development and conservation projects. We of the Fisheries Association probably recognize more readily the commercial value of water resources. Our daily livelihood must be derived from the river, sound, bay or ocean. Improper drainage, inadequate connecting channels, insufficient depths, effects of erosion and pollution all limit the operations of the fisherman. Any serious. effect on the fisherman affects the economy of the State's fourth largest industry. We of the Fisheries Association are ever aware that some hurried regulation of the use of water facilities might penalize the commercial fisherman in a manner unfair to the scope of his stature. Approximately one-third of North Carolina is served in one way or another with surface water. All industry in our State considers surface or underground water supplies as the first requirement for successful operation. As the State stream sanitation committee so properly stated the facts for generations we have been wasting our most valuable asset; it is well past time for us to recognize the worth of water resources and do something to conserve them. It has been said that "bread is the staff of life." Now we recognize the need for water. Since this was forwarded to the Governor's office, I would like to make it a part of the association record. I would like to take exception, if I may, to Commissioner Ballentine's remarks that one-third of the population of North Carolina is farming and one-third is rural and one-third is urban. You would think in North Carolina when you come to Raleigh that no one in North Carolina is a fisherman. I would like to call the attention of this committee and also the State of North Carolina to the fact that from the coast to Raleigh over one-half of the acreage is under water. There are vast potentials in the development of this area through a study of oceanography to develop resources of untold value not only to our State but to the Federal Government. We feel that the 70,000 people who are actively engaged in commercial fishing in eastern North Carolina and who have been battered in the face the past 11 months with 4 hurricanes, the names of which you have heard on everyone's lips-we feel that we people are better able to ask for and possibly to recommend a general overall program that will perhaps alleviate some of the future costs of these hurricanes. I would like to say amen to the chairman's remarks just a few moments ago about the tolls on the water system. We are not dealing with a foreign country, but with the United States of America, and we are all a part of it. Most of the waterways were there before we ever came here. We are utilizing them and if there is a toll to be charged we should charge it to those transportation facilities that are usurping those uses; like the highwaymen pay a toll to go over them, but not the fishermen. The fisherman does not pay a toll on the waterways on which he earns his livelihood. It would be similar to charging us a nickel to cross an intersection of the street where there is a stop light. A large part of these waterways are national in scope and we have utilized the services of in my opinion the greatest engineering service in the world, the United States Corps of Army Engineers. We have a plan for eastern North Carolina which our highway commissioner, Mr. Graham, is familiar with. They have heard it extolled a dozen times. I first heard of it from Colonel Gillett, the district engineer. Possibly that is not the correct answer, but it is a part of it. At some time we will realize the people on the coast not only have their problems, but also the problems of the water from the uplands after the central and western part of North Carolina is through with it. The most important thing to us people in the fishing business is the temperature of water and salinity. The salinity of our water along the coast of North Carolina today is practically nil. Until such time as we are rid of the water problems of up-State, we will not have any commercial fishing of a scope in which we would normally expect to have it in the eastern part of our State. Those up-State water problems are primarily due to floods from high rivers. It is true that just recently most of that water was hurricane-born. As I said in the letter, we recognize the value of water resources. Probably through our representatives we have appeared and banged on more tables in Washington and Raleigh and our local communities in order to attempt to get some concentrated effort and get an answer to the problem of navigation and the improvement of channels, and something done for our fishermen. If I may, I would like to mention something a little foreign from the fishing field, but in respect to eastern North Carolina. There is an opportunity for flood control in eastern North Carolina of such scope that you would consider it possibly flood control for some of our Midwestern States. As I mentioned a moment ago, one-half of the tillable acreage of eastern North Carolina is under water. That water rises and falls twice a day. There is a tremendous flow of water under natural causes. It is inconceivable the tonnage of water that piles in and out of the inlets and sounds of our coastal areas. When there are |