SILTATION AND FLOOD CONTROL

Encourage extension of soil and water conservation practices throughout the basin to retard rapid runoff and hold soil out of the river. Support essential flood-control levees on a limited basis to supplement basinwide control. Oppose encroachment; extend flood plains with adequate zoning.

HIGHWAYS AND ACCESS

Urge river highway planners to provide adequate slow-lanes for camping vehicles, boat trailers, and sightseers; safe scenic overlooks; and well-marked, safe, and frequent access to camping areas and launching sites.

RECREATION, GAME AND FISH MANAGEMENT

Urge that recreation, fish, and wildlife management, be supervised and extended by pertinent agencies of the various States with coordinated administration by the Department of the Interior.

BOATING AND SAFETY

Encourage regulations for greater safety to operators of small boats and houseboats, and to water skiers.

RESEARCH

Ask for adequate funds for continuing studies and research in all phases of river-related ecology; urge comprehensive monitoring for protection of water supplies.

RESTORE BACKWATERS

We propose that Federal agencies be directed to make a detailed study and recommendations aimed at restoring and maintaining water depth and ecology most favorable to recreation and management of fish and wildlife in the backwaters of all navigation pools on the river.

COMMERCIAL BARGE TRAFFIC

In the opinion of the Izaak Walton League River Survey Committee, management of the river in the past has been unfairly directed. to give barge transportation priority over all other interests. Wing dams, obstruction of side channels, diversion of dredged silt to backwaters, proposals for flood-control levees several feet higher than any recorded flood, seem to add up to an attempt to shift the available water to the barge channel-while off-channel sloughs and backwaters are made more shallow and less suitable for recreation and fish and wildlife habitat.

We oppose further deepening of the barge channel (a 12-foot depth is being planned) for these reasons:

Barge tows now are a constant hazard to small boats and to banks because of execessive wakes. Barge-related accidents including massive

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spills of oil and other pollutants, and runaway barges striking struc

tures are not uncommon.

Deepening of the channel could invite larger tows, more power, and increased risk. Cost? Hundreds of millions of dollars paid by taxes (unless procedures change). We strongly urge attention be given to updating rail systems, and to spreading transportation loads to taxpaying truck lines, railways, and pipelines.

Now, back to the proposal for the national recreation area. We commend the author of the bill on his perception of one of the most vexing problems of the river, which involves land not included in the recreation area. This problem is siltation and runoff.

Paragraph (h) of section 3 titled "Master Plan," and paragraph (b) of section 9 titled "Complementary Action," take note of these problems by offering guidelines, encouragement, formulation of programs, and technical assistance to State, county, and municipal agencies in developing comprehensive plans to control practices which would degrade the quality of the river and the recreation area.

Our between-the-lines interpretation of such wording is that NRA management would be a strong ally in the much-needed slowdown of erosion and rapid runoff which account for fast-peaking floods and the appalling rapid eutrophication of river backwaters.

For these reasons, the Izaak Walton League of America urges that Congress enact H.R. 10529 in essentially the present form.

Mr. TAYLOR. I commend you on a very fine, thought-provoking statement. It is almost a code for river development and river operations in future planning, and I note that you are supporting the bill H.R. 10529 essentially as it is.

Mr. SMITH. That is right.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Iowa?

Mr. KYL. Yes, Mr. Chairman; I, too, want to thank Ken for a balanced statement.

Your statement mentioned the business of safety. There are a lot of people who use this river today in an unsupervised fashion or an almost unsupervised manner. And this creates a hazard which we can take care of through a planned recreational use of the river. We can provide safety which we do not have at the present time.

Finally, I appreciate your inclusion of some matters like this 12-foot channel, for instance, but this bill that we are considering here is in no way related to a 12-foot channel or any of these other commercial developments except that we would get a new emphasis of preservation and conservation that we have not had to this point.

Thank you again, Ken, for your statement.

Mr. SMITH. May I add one more point?

Mr. KYL. Yes, sir.

Mr. SMITH. I think this may be somewhat to the point which Dr. Curtis brought out in which he referred to the need of going to the Secretary of the Army. I would like to call attention to the last paragraph of section 10 which says in effect that any Federal agency which has an all-inclusive list of projects must come to the Secretary of the Interior concerning any contemplated programs and projects, so that the Secretary may present his views within a matter of 60 days, which I think allows an area of time and an orderly procedure by which

those of us who have reason to be for or against such a project may express those views, and particularly the council which administers this area can go to the Secretary and say, look, we want this, we do not want it, and here is why.

Mr. KYL. Thank you, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Sebelius.

Mr. SEBELIUS. I just appreciate Mr. Smith's remarks, Mr. Chairman. I would like to associate myself with your remarks and those of Mr. Kyl's, especially about the subject of soil conservation.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. John Nagle, attorney for W. G. Block Co.

STATEMENT OF JOHN NAGLE, ATTORNEY FOR W. G. BLOCK CO.

Mr. NAGLE. Chairman Taylor, Congressman Kyl, Congressman Sebelius, I am very happy to have this opportunity to appear at this hearing. I can echo the comments of previous speakers from personal experience of a lifetime residing on the shores of the Mississippi and many experiences of canoeing and hiking and boating on the Mississippi River, that I am well aware of the importance of the recreational development and protection of the Mississippi.

I am here appearing on behalf of W. G. Block Co. who are engaged in the production of sand and gravel on their properties near the Mississippi River at Muscatine and Clinton, Iowa. W. G. Block Co. is engaged in the sale and consumption of sand and gravel along a major portion of the Mississippi River adjacent to Iowa extending from Clinton on the north, then down through the cities of Davenport, Muscatine, and Burlington, Iowa.

This committee is dealing with long range planning for preservation and protection of natural resources, and the interest of this sand and gravel producer is also long range planning for the protection of the availability and economic development of the sand and gravel which nature has deposited near the Mississippi River.

Sand and gravel comprise a major portion if the "so-called construction aggregates," minerals whose principal use is in the construction and maintenance of all kinds of roads and structures. They are "lowvalue, short-haul" commodities; in many cases, the cost of transportation to the site of use exceeds its value at the point of origin. Because of these characteristics and because of the preponderance of construction activity in urban areas, extraction of sand and gravel is usually concentrated in or near urban areas. But as the cities expand, more and more sand and gravel bearing land is made unavailable for extraction. Movement of such a low value, high weight and bulk commodity can only be done over long distances by river barge or by rail. Nationwide, rail hauls of gravel have decreased annually for quite a period of years.

In 1955 the National Sand and Gravel Association began a program, which still continues, which was designed to convince both the industry and the land planning profession that the public interest requires: (1) The orderly, economic, and full development of sand and gravel resources, and (2) the restoration of worked-out lands to after-uses amenable and suitable to the surrounding environment.

The association has promoted the multiple-use concept of land planning-development of the mineral values followed by return of the land to uses such as recreation, residential, industrial, and institutional sites. I have attached to the statement a list of some of the major publications in this program.1

The Committee on Environmental Problems of the National Sand and Gravel Association has for a number of years sponsored a Fellowship program at the University of Illinois School of Landscape Architecture which has just recently published a report which stresses the compatibility of sand and gravel operations and recreation.

In conclusion I wish to stress two points:

1. Often in mining gravel a producer will remove a strata of sand and gravel close to the surface and at that time will not extract another deeper strata of sand and gravel. Since the deeper strata can also be pumped due to advanced technology, it is feasible to have a second operation at a later time to recover the remaining material. The area usually fills with water and there is a common misconception in the minds of the general public that the sand and gravel operation is completed when actually it is awaiting further mining production. 2. We suggest that your long-range planning of public ownership and control of lands include provision for leasing on a rental or royalty basis sand and gravel bearing lands in proximity to urban areas, which lands with proper planning and reclamation could be made available for permanent recreation land at the conclusion of the sand and gravel operations.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Does W. G. Block Co. secure sand and gravel from other sources in addition to the Mississippi River?

Mr. NAGLE. Well, they do not actually secure them out of the river. It is adjacent to the river, really on the banks of the river. There are other companies in this area who actually operate closer to the riverbed itself.

Mr. TAYLOR. Does the river often restore any esthetic damage that you have done to the area during flood periods?

Mr. NAGLE. There is, yes.

Mr. TAYLOR. Do you get part of your gravel off the river bottom? Mr. NAGLE. No, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. What if anything does the company do to restore an area once it is finished with it?

Mr. NAGLE. They develop it for fishing and recreational use. We have fishing permits for the gravel pits.

Mr. TAYLOR. In other words, you let it fill with water and make a fishing lake out of it.

Mr. NAGLE. That is right.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. KYL. Just one thing, Mr. Chairman.

You have gone into detail about the policy of your association and apparently of your individual company. I would like to say, too, in regard to this public policy dictation that we will shortly have a law on the books covering public lands, or national resources lands as

1 List will be found on p. 88.

they are called in the bill, which would formalize the policy which you now have and would require under law that a desirable environment be restored after operations in mining, and so forth.

I take it from your statement that you certainly would not object to such law since this is now your policy?

Mr. NAGLE. That is right. We recognize the validity of that.
Mr. KYL. Thank you very much.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Kansas.

Mr. SEBELIUS. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much, Mr. Nagle.

Mr. TAYLOR. Dr. Robert R. Mullally, representing the city of La Crosse and the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce.

STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT R. MULLALLY, REPRESENTING THE CITY OF LA CROSSE AND THE LA CROSSE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Dr. MULLALLY. Mr. Chairman, we, of course, had the pleasure of meeting with the committee yesterday, a very enjoyable experience. We came down today heading a delegation from La Crosse today just to be here for information purposes.

The river to us is an umbilical of life. The Mississippi River in this area, as we mentioned yesterday, has a charisma, a life style that can be found nowhere else in these United States. We are very, very much concerned about what happens to this river.

The citizens of the area of La Crosse, because of this concern, have done a great deal of study and a great deal of observation of what has happened and what is projected for the river.

I would like to present to you a very brief statement, a position statement that was taken by the chamber of commerce. I have already sent this to Representative Kyl. This was based on the original bill 5468. Several of the provisions have been changed in the new bill, 10529. Several have not. And for this reason I think the statement still is germane, and I will read.

The Greater La Crosse Chamber of Commerce is most interested in the continued recreational land use development of the upper Mississippi River, however, the chamber cannot support the passage of H.R. 5468, a bill which would authorize the establishment of the upper Mississippi National Recreation Area, as originally drafted. The chamber would whole-heartedly support such a project under the following conditions:

1. That the Department of the Interior manage the National Recreation Area, not the Corps of Engineers as is stated in the bill. The chamber would agree to: (a) One Corps of Engineers representative on the national recreation area Council rather than two, and (b) that the Secretary of the Interior be responsible to Congress for the management of the National Recreation Area.

2. The national recreation area land acquisition be the responsibility of the Secretary of Interior and not the Chief of Engineers.

This has been changed in the new bill to read the Secretary of the Army but again we feel it is a two-headed monster. There are still two Federal agencies involved and there is overlapping responsibility.