that have organized and are now preparing a project plan. I am sure that they will find the same problem that I have described in Brown County.

I hope the subcommittee will give this matter a careful analysis, and I feel sure that such an analysis would clearly establish the meritorious nature of this legislation.

Congressman WILLIAM AVERY,

BROWN COUNTY SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT,

Hiawatha, Kans., March 28, 1957.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. AVERY: In Brown County Kans., we have an organized watershed and have applied for assistance under the Hope-Aiken watershed law, at the present time acceptance of the plan by the people is stalled due to the need of structures of which some are more costly than the county ASC program which has a limit of $1,500 per farm.

We are completing construction in the Little Delaware-Mission Creek pilot watershed which is also in Brown County. The structures of which were paid for 100 percent by Federal funds. This watershed plan included stabilization structures which are essentially the same as the soil and water management structures needed in the Walnut watershed plan. There is a definite need in the Walnut watershed plan, or for that matter in any watershed plan, for soil and water management structures that are smaller than the proposed floodwater retention structures and yet larger than the structures permitted under the going ACP program on individual farms.

We feel that until a program is designed that will provide structures to fill this gap that there will be very little watershed development. There is no provision under the present program except for an individual to bear the entire cost of such a structure. The structures are of such size that they cannot be economically justified by an individual landowner.

We who have worked for the development of the Walnut watershed have come to the realization that development will be retarded, if not stopped all together, by the lack of soil and water management structures above the detention structure, which are essential to good soil and water management in the development of watersheds. The people in the Walnut are familiar with the Delarware-Mission Creek pilot watershed which has proven, in this area and other like areas, that these structures are a most important part of the project. The majority of the soil and water management structures of the multipurpose or grade stabilization type in the Little Delaware-Mission Creek pilot watershed are of such size that they are beyond the limits of any present ACP program.

We urge your support of House bill H. R. 5547 which we understand would include this type of structure in the Watershed Treatment and Flood Prevention Act. Yours truly,

Mr. WM. H. AVERY,

C. W. BEBERMEYER, Secretary and Treasury.

HIAWATHA, KANS., April 18, 1957.

1

Member of Congress, Washington, D. C. DEAR BILL: I have your letter of April 12. I thank you very much for giving me the information about the soil and water management structures which are giving us so much trouble.

The proposed plan for the Walnut includes 155 drop-inlet structures and 51 drop-spillway structures. The non-Federal cost is estimated at $100,650 for both type of structures. However, this information does not mean a whole lot as it is not broken down as per cost per structure. Also, it is an estimate rather than actual cost.

It seems to me since the Delaware-Mission Creek pilot watershed is about completed, we have actual figures as to the cost of these structures and since the two watersheds are less than 20 miles apart and the terrain is very much the same, we could give you a rather accurate idea as to cost.

In the Little Delaware there are 20 dams which we have divided into 2 categories. Those under 200 acres drainage and those over 200 acres. The range in price for the smaller structures is $1,801.04 to $3,620.10. There are four

of these structures. The average cost is $3,040.20. Those draining more than 200 acres are 16 in number and range in price from $3,144.61 to $12,861.90 or an average for the 16 structures of $7,531.27.

It must be remembered that the cost of construction at the time the pilot watershed was started is much less than the cost of construction now. Some of the early structures were contracted for on the basis of 14 cents per cubic yard. The last contracts let a few days ago were on a basis of 24 cents per cubic yard. I agree with your thinking that the $3,500 limit, which has been suggested by Senator Johnson in the House Appropriation Subcommittee, is not the proper approach to the solution of this problem. The land treatment measures must be 50 percent completed before Hope-Aiken is available to a watershed. It takes all of farmers' resources and all of the funds available for land treatment to get this work done. Also under the ASC program these structures would have to benefit more than one person and would come under a pooling agreement which is very hard to handle. It appears to us that the funds now available for land treatment should be retained for that purpose rather than spread all over a watershed for flood-prevention measure.

Mr. Bebemeyer, of our Board, has a letter from Senator Carlson stating that Mr. Johnson's bill H. R. 5547 was turned down in the House. Your letter indicated that hearings are still being held on it. We hope Senator Carlson is wrong. We thank you very much for your assistance in this work which you are doing, which is probably as important as anything else to this congressional district at this time.

Yours very truly,

M. V. HALL.

Mr. MAASSEN. In relation to what the gentleman just testified to, I would like to go back to the matter of the progress that we have arrived at with the Mill Creek shed with the approval on the basis of the present plans; I am quoting from memory which may be a few percentage points off. But the ground survey party has established a benefit with relationship to cost of 7.74 to 1; that is interesting.

If we could have had a determination of the benefits that have been practiced on this land prior to this time we would have had a 1-to-1 ratio which is the minimum requirement for a farm recommendation for approval.

I wanted to point out that you could perhaps by a definition of the law in that respect make it optional and not open the floodgates, as you suggest, an impractical situation where you would be trying to reclaim land of no, or low, value.

Mr. POAGE. I think that is a fair practical suggestion. Are there any other questions?

Mr. McINTIRE. I would like to ask a question in relation particularly to some of the first pictures which you showed us. Of course it would be rather obvious that to control some of this water there would be a need for structures in various places within these gulleys. But to what extent is the management of that water involved in your wood coverage on some of these hills? It looks to me as though they have been pretty well skinned off. Reforestation might play a good part in water management in order to close some of these gulleys.

Mr. MAASSEN. I would like to point out to you, while I do not have the statistics, that on all of these farms, the wooded lots are fenced. cattle no longer graze those hills, and many thousands of trees have been planted and many others; there is extensive work which is part of the plan. I have a copy of my own individual farm plan with me, if you would like to see it. The farm planners establish the numbers of trees that are to be planted year after year on the steep hillsides, which are to be taken out of pasture and other use, and that has helped. I would like to digress just a minute further to show you the effec

tiveness of this thing we have done. On Friday night of this past week we had a rainfall of 2.58 inches which is substantial for our topography, and the next morning I talked to the conservationists and they told us in the areas where we have had, as was suggested in the Mill Creek area, where 85 percent of the farmland is under a farm plan that the runoff water, that is the water that came out of the terraces, came off from these fields, was virtually clear, lacking of soil silt; that in the areas in my county where they do not have a watershed, and where they have not cooperated, heavy silting resulted.

That drives home the point that I tried to make that through these watershed associations we are accomplishing a lot of that upstream, or work that has to be done to prevent that erosion. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that you can, with such restrictions, with the suggestions we made, do it effectively. I certainly would not be able to arrive at a dollar figure because I do not know. But I do know that if we do not make a more progressive start than we have made, we are going to lose in the area in which I live much of our fertile soil. Does that answer your question?

Mr. McINTIRE. Yes.

Mr. JOHNSON. In line with what you said, Mr. McIntire, I gave in my report what the engineer stated, and I mentioned stream banks in 1951 showed wooded on the outside of it. There were large bare areas on the steep hillsides; most of the slopes show brush or trees in 1951, so there has been some work done.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. I would like to follow up, if I might, on a subject you mentioned a few minutes ago. You said that if it had not been for the work already done by the farmers in the area that your project would have been approved. Would you go into that a little further? Just what do you mean by that?

Mr. MAASSEN. By that I mean that had we not used strip contour stripping, but followed the general practices with large amounts of corn in our section, and perhaps other tillable crops, not following contour around the hills to prevent runoff, we would have had substantially larger amounts of water flowing rapidly off from these steep hills, and that would have consequently meant faster cutbacks of these gulleys which consequently would have meant larger fingering ditches and much larger amounts of silting.

On my own farm, as I stated, I have a valley farm, and I can testify to you gentlemen that there is a valley-it branches-it comes past my buildings. As a boy, when we had substantial rainfall we had large amounts of water coming through. Last Friday night no water came through, because my neighbor on the bluff has terraced, he has stripped, he has gone to grass farming, and as a result the cutting back of our gulley has been reduced materially. Consequently, the fact is that it does cut back more slowly, because we have planted June grass and Kentucky blue grass, and plantings of locust trees which have a tendency to hold these back. I think the point is important.

I would like to extend this invitation to the subcommittee: I know you are invited to many sections of the country, Mr. Chairman, but if in your itinerary it were possible for you to come to western Wisconsin-I do not know if Congressman Johnson will authorize me to say that we will be most happy to take you into the area, so that you could see at first hand where the farmers have actually practiced conserva

tion, and we can take you to a neighboring valley, if you please, where they have not, and see by contrast what we are trying to show. Mr. HEIMBURGER. Let me see if I understand it now. One of the measurements of benefits derived, I assume, is the amount of siltation in the valley that the project will prevent.

Mr. MAASSEN. Yes.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. And because the farmers in a given area have done on their own land a substantial amount of water retarding work, the benefits from further work to prevent siltation will be substantially lessened in that the amount of silt coming down in the valley is much less than it would otherwise be, is that the situation?

Mr. MAASSEN. That is partly right. You said water conservation. It is soil conservation as well. By that I mean the type of tilling that we do on the soil. I may have misunderstood you in the term of withholding dams, which may mean reservoirs of small nature. That is, your basis is right; but the thing that is happening is that these large gulleys, as demonstrated by the pictures, are going back despite what the farmer can do.

He individually cannot afford to build the type of structure that is necessary to stop that, and do the job.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. I think I understand what you are referring to. Let me ask the question that I had in mind. Do you think it might be a solution to this problem that faces you and other similar areas if, in computing the benefit-cost ratio, the Soil Conservation Service were to go back, let us say, to the beginning of organized and extensive soil conservation work on the local farms, and to the extent possible make cost versus benefit computations from that point, instead of from the point where they now find conditions to exist.

Mr. MAASSEN. Yes, sir. That would be it.

Mr. JOHNSON. What you are saying now-I do not know whether it is plain or not-is that where a gulley might go back, say 10, 20 feet in the year before, maybe it goes back 2 or 3 feet now.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. I understand that.

Mr. POAGE. We are very much obligated to you for your interest and helpful statements. We do not know just what is going to happen on the floor, but since we have not had a quorum call I am going to ask Mr. Young, Deputy Administrator of the Soil Conservation Service, if he would come up and make a statement. Mr. Brown can come with you, Mr. Young.

I should like for you gentlemen to be here while they present their view on that matter.

STATEMENT OF GLADWIN YOUNG, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE; ACCOMPANIED BY CARL B. BROWN, DIRECTOR, PLANNING DIVISION, SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we appreciate this opportunity to testify on H. R. 5547, a bill to amend the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act with respect to measures for erosion control.

Section 3 (3) of the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, as amended, authorizes the Secretary "to make allocations and to determine whether benefits exceed costs." Section 5 provides that— such time as the Secretary and the interested local organization have agreed on a plan for works of improvement, and the Secretary has determined that the benefits exceed the costs, and the local organization has met the requirments for participation in carrying out the works of improvement * * *

the Secretary may provide assistance in installation of works of improvement.

This provision that benefits shall exceed costs in the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, as amended, is consistent with other Federal legislation, such as the flood control acts and reclamation acts.

H. R. 5547 would amend the provisions of section 3 and section 5 previously quoted by excepting those measures that are primarily for erosion control from the requirement that the Secretary must determine that benefits exceed the costs.

The Department of Agriculture has recommended to the chairman. of the Agricultural Committee that this bill not be enacted.

In carrying out the program authorized by Public Law 566, as amended, the Department interprets the act to mean that before funds appropriated under authority of this act are used for construction, a determination must be made that the measures are economically justified.

This applies to structural or land-treatment measures for flood prevention or for agricultural water management, including drainage and irrigation. The Department does not require any economic justification for land-treatment measures which are a part of a watershed project but which are applied on the land by landowners and operators drainage ditches and accumulating in the fertile bottom lands.

Also, the Department does not require a benefit-cost determination for nonagricultural water management measures, such as municipal water supply, recreation, or fish and wildlife, since no Federal funds are contributed to the cost of constructing such measures.

Those structures primarily for erosion control, such as those needed to stabilize major gullies and eroding stream banks, and for which Public Law 566 funds are used, are evaluated in the same manner as structural and land-treatment measures primarily for flood prevention. In fact, it is often difficult to separate the purposes of such

measures.

Our experience in carrying out the flood prevention project on the Little Sioux watershed in Iowa, for example, has shown that the structures needed to stabilize the major gullies in that watershed also serve to retard the runoff and prevent the sediment from clogging drainage ditches and accumulating in the fertile bottom lands.

The structures, in this case, are combination erosion control and flood water-retarding structures. Similarly, measures to stabilize stream banks are often associated with channel improvements made to increase the capacity of the channels and thereby reduce flood overflows.

For these reasons, major structures for erosion control or for land stabilization have been considered to be in the same category as structures for flood prevention. Under the provision of Public Law 566, as