past few years the water table has lowered so much that this just has not come into being. The CHAIRMAN. When Senator Aiken introduced this bill I told him that in my parish, county to you, we have a central water system that we ourselves established, and water comes from Houma, the city, and it is sent all over the parish through a system of pipes constructed with funds provided by the local people themselves. Governor HOFF. Well, of course, I don't know your particular situation, Senator, but the cost for our people, and I remind you that 55 percent of the people who live in the areas where this is so badly needed have incomes ranging from nothing to $4,000, and the cost in our area of the country, I know it is a little difficult to compare Vermont with some other areas of the country, don't forget we have very severe winters, too, and this must be protected against, is just out of sight in terms of their doing it themselves. They are willing to do what they can; we always have in Vermont. But I think this program would give them the The CHAIRMAN. As I understand the proposal, it would be a cooperative effort. Senator AIKEN. Among the three towns. Governor HOFF. That is correct. The CHAIRMAN. Among the towns, the Federal Government and the State. Governor HoFF. This is correct. This is 75 miles of piping with 3,000 people. Senator AIKEN. I am very familiar with the three towns; they are three of the best agricultural towns in the Northeast. They are also a few miles from a college town, and a town where a new industry employing 400 or 500 people is being installed to start business this fall. These towns are not only fine agricultural towns but the villages are splendid residential areas and people would be moving in there immediately if they had water. The Federal Government, as you recall, contributed $128,000 a year for hauling water, paid the National Guard for hauling water so these dairymen could keep in business. Now about 50 dairymen have been threatened with the loss of the market. There is a little too much sulfur in what water they do have, and they are very short all around. I have got letters from all over the United States setting out similar conditions where rural towns and communities would expand very much provided they could get water. But in this particular case, I think it would cost them about $20 a month for water and there are not enough of them who could pay that price. Governor HOFF. I have been over this area myself intimately, too. I can well recall during that period of time I talked to a farmer who had drilled 400 feet and got a cupful of water. Senator AIKEN. It is a heavy clay soil there and it doesn't make any difference how far down they go they don't get any water and if they get the water they are not permitted to use it. It is not recommended that they use it for livestock. They can use it for the people, and they live to be anywhere from 90 to 110 years in that county and have been drinking that water all the time. But the Surgeon General and the Boston health authorities frown on its use for cows. Governor HOFF. In short, what we are doing is treating our cows better than we do our people. Senator AIKEN. Much stricter. The CHAIRMAN. I guess you get it anyhow through the milk you drink. All right. Governor HoFF. Thank you very much. I would like to add one other remark if I could. I know under the omnibus bill there has been some talk of extending that to rural areas, too. We don't think it is applicable to rural America. I am sure it is fine for suburban areas and urban areas but it is not particularly applicable to rural areas particularly that part that calls for extensive planning and so forth and I might add we would like to have such program administered by an administration geared to a rural economy. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you very much, Governor, we are glad to have your state ment. (Governor Hoff's prepared statement follows:) Mr. Chairman, it is a distinct honor for me to join with the primary sponsor of this bill, the Honorable George D. Aiken, senior U.S. Senator of Vermont, in presenting to you the reasons we in rural America urgently need Senate bill 1766. The urgent need of all Americans for pure water cannot be overemphasized. Within the past few years, per capita daily consumption has increased from 30 to 145 gallons. This increased demand is by no means limited to urban America. New Yorker magazine cartoons to the contrary, our rural Americans, including or perhaps especially Vermonters, enjoy the privileges of interior plumbing, the stimulus of a daily shower, the release from drudgery via automatic home laundries, the increase in beautification of our homes through careful watering of our lawns and gardens. The demand is not based on created desire for greater convenience; it is based upon the necessity for adequate health, safety, and sanitary requirements. I need not remind this Senate of the farm to city movement. Nor do I need dwell on the facts of population movement within our farm areas; we have seen the family farm diminish; the remote farmer move to the village: the village dweller move to the town; the farm laborer no longer resident in the "tenant house" but residing now in the nearest large community. The abandoned farm well which slaked the thirst of many now serves no one. A few decades ago, these population movements created justifiable concern for the problems of our cities and larger communities. Nor have the urban problems been fully overcome. Parenthetically, I note with interest and I applaud the efforts for adequate water supply being made for urban and suburban America in the omnibus Housing and Urban Development Act (H.R. 7984). I trust that this Congress will pass that bill and provide for adequate appropriations to bring its fine intentions to early success. I know that amendments to that bill have been offered which if approved will permit more of rural America to benefit. I do not believe, however, that the genuine needs of our sparsely settled areas will be met as well through that mechanism as through the Rural Water Supply Act. That movement, I spoke of, to the rural community from the farms, has gained less attention. Also unnoticed is the movement of just the past few years when more retired persons sought the refuge of our peaceful villages; when the college professors discovered that they could continue to teach at the now enlarged institutions of higher education and they could also have the benefits of living outside the urban sprawl. Top management and middle management industry leaders have rediscovered the charm of the countryside. Percentage increase in demand for needed services in the small communities stagger the imagination. Unlike urban America, the tax base did not increase proportionately. Yet these demands must be met-for small in numbers though they be. these are people in need. Today, according to a report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, entitled "Needs for Rural Living," dated June 12, 1964, over 15,000 communities in our rural areas do not have an adequate community water system. In some of our States less than half of the rural homes have running water. In many of our States there is a total lack of a suitable source of water to meet minimum health, fire protection, and other requirements. This need is equally well documented in the 1963 Inventory of Municipal Water Facilities, a cooperative State-Federal report, issued by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Although restricted to the New England States, I am sure that the need of rural America exemplified in that report can be repeated time and time again. Over 30 years ago, Mr. Chairman, a spirited battle came to successful culmination with the emergence of the Rural Electrification Administration. In the intervening years, rural America has been served with that wonderful addition to the working farm and the rural home, electric power. No one can doubt the vast benefits electricity brought to agriculture and to human welfare. The problems of electricity and water are not so isolated as might appear. The cost problems are very similar. Once the source has been determined, the major cost items are in the installation of conduit lines and continuing transmission costs. In the case of water, when population density is low, the unit cost to serve an individual rural consumer is estimated to be 300 or 400 percent the cost to serve that same consumer in an urban or suburban complex. Permit me to cite with some detail a case in point. In 1963, shortly before the tragic death of President Kennedy, I discussed with him the drought disaster which had afflicted Addison County in Vermont. The President immediately dispatched Edward A. McDermott, his Director of Emergency Planning. We toured the area by plane and by foot. The severe drought, which continues to this day, had dried up farm ponds; made unusable the few streams which meander through the countryside; caused once productive wells to be mere empty holes in the ground. Over 2,000 people were reduced to collecting drinking water by the ancient system of cisterns-which is nothing more or less than capturing rain water from the rooftops, permitting it to flow down roof gutters to a large hole in the ground-where with dirt, bird droppings, leaves, and miscellaneous litter it is stored for human consumption. Over 12,000 dairy cattle were becoming unproductive and the entire farm economy, the mainstay of the area, was on the verge of collapse. A plan of action was agreed upon. Some sources tell me that one of the first official actions of President Johnson was his approval of the project. Operation Waterwagon, which we called the project, brought emergency effort from all State and Federal agencies. We used State police, National Guardsmen, prison inmates, county extension agents, and all available personnel. We brought in water by means of miles-long temporary piping, tank trucks, and in some cases, maple sap gathering tanks. We saved the cows; freshened the water supplies of the communities; and spent over $118,000 in the process. That was in 1963. In 1964 we met a similar problem with a modified project and between October 23 and December 14, finishing in subzero weather, we pumped more than 20 million gallons of water. In 1965, with a continuing lack of rainfall, we face the reality that drought conditions must again be met. During this time, the people of Addison County and particularly the towns of Addison, Bridport, and Shoreham, have not taken Horace Greeley's advice to go west. But there has been some human attrition. As Father Wysolmerski, of St. Bernadette's Rectory, told me, of 15 weddings he performed, only 1 couple remained in the community-the other young people moving to nearby larger towns which had water. Most of the residents stood firm and joined forces to seek a permanent solution. On October 22, 1963, they applied for engineering assistance from the Community Facilities Administration; in November 1963 they received approval; by January 1964 they asked for approval under the Accelerated Public Works Act. I believe we all know that programs under that act have been curtailed--and I will not comment now on the seriously adverse effect the untimely demise of assistance under that act has been to Vermont. Parenthetically, over 111 towns, villages, and fire-problem districts have indicated interest in receiving assistance on their water to our very active and efficient Federal community development officer, James Wood. A summary of his recent work is attached hereto (exhibit A). Returning to my case history, Mr. Chairman, having the Addison case well in mind, in early 1964 I caused introduction of a bill calling for State engineering and consultation on water problems. Within a 12-month period 28 communities participated (Addison, Bridport, Shoreham being among the first). As of now, 20 communities are prepared to move when and if adequate financing is available. I attach a summary of these efforts for review by this committee (exhibit B). By now the permanent remedy for drought-stricken and perenially water-shy Addison-Bridport-Shoreham was well known. To serve the minimum needs of today and tomorrow, we would need to run about 75 miles of water mains to serve only 3,000 individuals. The costs are phenomenal: $2,600,000—and this with no increased tax base to rely upon. The community leaders are convinced they can fund 50 percent of the costs-although the user costs even then will be high. It is impossible for them to do more. Recent statistics show there are 20,000 people in Addison County, 2,000 now live in the tritown area, 55.7 percent are within an income range of $0 to $3,999. Need I say more? Mr. Chairman, this case history is not unique. The General Assembly of the State of Vermont by joint resolution has asked the Congress to recognize this (exhibit C). We recently surveyed our communities on their water needs. Almost two-thirds have no central water supply system; over half of those which do, have systems which are now inadequate (exhibit D). The case history is not yet over. The Vermont General Assembly is still considering a bill I introduced this year calling for the State to participate in funding community water systems on a pilot program basis. I sincerely hope that bill will pass; and I trust that the pending U.S. Senate bill will pass. We ask for passage of this bill not only for the people affected by our agricultural economy. We in Vermont are now experiencing the first pinches of the population squeeze as the sprawling megapolis edges northward from the eastern seaboard of the United States and southward from the Canadian complex of Montreal, Quebec. We in Vermont are enjoying industrial expansion to an extent undreamed of 3 years ago. We are welcoming more and more city folk to our recreational complexes; and we look forward to continuing growth of our fine colleges and universities. For many, Vermont is the preferred home of the two-home family where New York or Washington is home for the short workweek, Vermont is home for weekends. We are sure that the "back forty" of our hill farms may yet be used for something other than forest-and with water equitably provided for, all rural America can, as Senator Aiken has well said, "maintain a healthy national growth and prevent the undesirable features of congested human existence from getting worse." I respectfully submit that the loan-grant program envisioned by this bill will do the job. I understand that the Farmers Home Administration has a general increased insured loan authority already passed by the House but still in committee in the Senate. While this development would be of some assistance, the cry of thirst must be met now, with the resources at hand. The growth rural America has every right to expect cannot be funded-even with a generous loan program-with today's or even tomorrow's tax base. A grant program such as set forth in this bill is a must. Mr. Chairman, I sincerely suggest that the needs of America will be met by Senator Aiken's bill, S. 1766. Thank you. (The exhibits attached to Governor Hoff's statement are as follows:) (NOTE.-Exhibit A, listing 109 towns, villages, and fire problem districts expressing interest in receiving assistance on water from the Federal Community Facilities Administration, is on file with the committee.) EXHIBIT B MONTPELIER, VT., DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES Following is a list of communities which have been assisted by this Department in matters of water supply. (a) Communities which have had discussion or correspondence with this office regarding water supply. 1. Barre City 2. Charlotte 3. Chester Village 4. Huntington Center 5. Middletown Springs 6. Putney 7. Randolph Center 8. Sharon 9. Stowe Village 10. Thetford Hill 11. Williamstown 12. Washington (b) Communities for which preliminary engineering reports have been completed and approved. 13. Addison, Bridport and Shoreham (Tri-Town District) 14. Bennington Village 15. Castleton 16. Derby Center 17. Essex Town 18. Irasburg 19. Manchester Town 20. Northfield (distribution extension) 21. North Hartland 22. Springfield 23. Rutland 24. Vergennes (c) Communities for which construction plans and specifications have been completed and approved. 25. Alburg (distribution) 26. Colchester (F.D. No. 2) (distribution) 27. Essex Junction 28. Rutland Town (F.D. No. 1) (NOTE. See page 15 for Exhibit C, a joint resolution adopted by the Legislature of the State of Vermont.) EXHIBIT D RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SURVEY 1. Communities contacted_ 2. Communities responding-- 3. Communities with water systems__ 4. Communities in (3) with adequate systems_. 5. Communities in (3) with inadequate systems_ 6. Communities without water systems--. 7. Communities in (6) large enough to warrant new systems---. 306 284 92 56 36 192 55 (NOTE. The listing of the communities mentioned above is on file with the committee.) (Whereupon, at 12 noon, the committee recessed to proceed to other business.) (Proceedings at 4:25 p.m. continue as follows:) Senator HOLLAND. The comments that I would make have to do solely with the restated provisions of the earlier bill which I think was H.R. 5075 on which the hearings are already completed by one of the subcommittees of this committee. The raising of the limit of insurance loans in any one year from $200 million to $450 million it seemed to some members of that subcommittee was a very large and precipitate increase of the limitation on insured loans even for this worthy purpose. Do you have any comment to make on that? Senator AIKEN. As I understand it, application is pending now with the Farmers Home Administration so that if a reasonable proportion of them were granted, that that additional amount would be pretty well used up. I would say that they would probably need all of that. I am sure Mr. Bertsch can answer that question with greater |