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park issue. The Newton County citizens spoke recently when 97% of the voters voted against a Buffalo National River.

STATEMENT OF JOE F. CULVER, CATOOSA, OKLA.

I am a land owner in the concerned area and I am opposed to the passage of this legislation for the following reasons:

(1) Buffalo River Area residents and land owners are almost solidly opposed to a National River. Ninety-seven percent of the voters in Newton County voted against the proposed park when the issue was placed on the 1968 ballot. In June of 1971, I visited Marshall in Searcy County and Yellville in Marion County, and had conversations with local politicians, farmers, store owners, realtors, laborers, housewives, and I found not one person who was in favor of a National River— all were opposed.

(2) This legislation will remove lands from tax rolls in already financially distressed counties. The Marshall Mountain Wave, a local newspaper, reports that in Newton County, the additional lands removed by nationalization of the Buffalo, would leave only 48% of the county on the tax rolls. The local county government would suffer greatly from lack of funds caused by this cut-back. Searcy County officials also indicate that appreciable tax income will be lost due to the nationalization of the river.

(3) Nationalization limits future use and development of the area.

(a) There is already underway development of land into home sites of 1-6 acres each, with the river frontage being retained for access to the river by the whole area. With nationalization, and subsequent limited access to the river, these off-river acres are not attractive to prospective owners, and their value is sharply cut. This in turn reduces the potential evaluation of tax rolls in the affected areas.

(b) In development of this kind, scenic qualities of the river could be controlled by enforceable development guide lines to prevent improper development and pollution. This can be accomplished without nationalization of the river.

(c) Electric power, usage of which is on a sharp up-swing in the Buffalo area as well as the country as a whole, could be generated by a dam on the lower Buffalo, which would extend impounded water up-river about 25 miles according to the Army Engineers, still leaving more than 109 miles of free-flowing river to be kept in its natural wild state. The Army Corps of Engineers originally was in favor of such a dam on the lower Buffalo, but have changed their recommendation. It would appear that this occurred as a trade-off with other government agencies. The people of this country should not be subjected to such tactics, and local peoples should have a strong voice in the development of their area.

(4) This under-developed area of Arkansas can become self supporting if allowed to do so. With nationalization, its main asset is removed from its use and control, and the area may revert to not much more than a ward of the government.

(5) Ecology buffs are making an undue example of preserving this river, giving no concern to the inhabitants of the area. It may be possible that the 14 federal agencies who developed this plan are overzealous in developing areas that will be under their control. I feel that Congress should assure that expansion of the agencies is not the prime concern, but that the concern is for the welfare of the people in the involved area. It would seem to me that preservation of these people is as important as (perhaps more important than) preservation of the river in its pristine state.

As an alternate plan to the one now being considered, I would like to propose that a set of guide lines, for the preservation of the natural state of the Buffalo River and for the development of the adjoining lands, be set up under the control of local agencies with the federal government acting only to insure adherence to the established guide lines. Local people should have a strong voice in the establishment of these guide lines. Development of off-river lands could still occur without detriment to the natural beauty of the area. A suitably located dam on the lower Buffalo would supply power and conserve the pure, unpolluted water, and still preserve 100 miles of free-flowing river.

The only thing that would be changed in this plan is that federal agencies would not be forced to expand, for this plan could and would work under local control. The Federal Parks and Recreation Subcommittee of the Interior and

Insular Affairs Committee could serve great assistance in setting up the guide lines to work with. The Corps of Army Engineers could greatly assist by laying out and constructing a properly situated dam. But in general, control of their area and their destiny would and should be left to the local people.

STATEMENT OF MRS. FRANK A. KOERNER, CHICAGO, ILL.

1. Within 50 miles of the proposed park there are six large lakes: Beaver Lake, Table Rock Lake, Lake Taneycomo, Bull Shoals Lake, Lake Norfolk and Greers Ferry Reservoir. These recreational areas provide public and private campsites and accommodations, with facilities for year-round boating, fishing and other recreational activities.

2. A close study of the terrain and general environment of the Buffalo River will show that the only good this bill will achieve is the prevention of dambuilding by the Army Corps of Engineers.

3. In its upper 70 miles, the Buffalo River is almost dry for six months of the year, during, in fact, the vacation season when it could be expected to have the largest number of visitors.

4. Throughout the year it does not have sufficient volume of water, or rapid enough flow, to handle the effluent from sanitary sewage from a large influx of visitors such as the million-and-a-half contemplated in the plan of the National Park Service. This plan contemplates only primitive sanitary facilities with no special sewage treatment.

5. The river can be floated in its upper 70 miles for only 6 to 8 weeks in the spring. The National Park Service says the best way to use the Park would be by floating the river.

6. The top soil in this area is fragile, and random hiking and camping would quickly destroy the ground cover, producing excessive erosion. Furthermore, during the summer period of greatest use, the area is dry and hot, and the possibility of forest fires is therefore greater.

7. The National Park Service says it will be unable to charge admission because of the number of access roads. By the same reasoning, it will be unable to control usage or prevent destruction, crime, and habitation by drug addicts, phenomena which the Director of the National Park Service has recently testified are increasing alarmingly in other National Parks.

8. At the present time the river is protected from despoliation by the landowners, but it is, and always has been, freely available to canoists and sports

men.

9. The terrain is not suitable for industrial development, so this poses no threat to the river.

10. There is a growing influx of retired people to this area, which brings outside money into the economy on a general basis. Park concessions and related activities would not necessarily help the local economy, but only the concessionaires, who might not be local people at all.

11. Creation of the Park will arbitrarily displace many hundreds of people from their homes against their will. While there is provision in the bill for some people to stay on their land for a limited time, which ones stay, and how much land they can keep, is solely at the discretion of the Director of the National Park Service. This dictatorial approach to private property is so far removed from our American traditions that this alone is reason enough to defeat the bill.

12. Removal of this much land from the county tax rolls will force curtailment or abandonment of many county services. While provision is made in the bill for "last assessed tax" payments from the U.S. Treasury for a period of five years, this only postpones the final problem, while making no provision for the normal increase in tax revenue both from increased tax rates and increased valuation due to property improvements. It can only have the effect of destroying the counties as political entities.

STATEMENT OF L. A. POTTER, MARSHALL, ARK.

House Resolution 8382-legislation to create a Buffalo National River-contains faults which are detrimental to the Nation.

As a farm lad playing at damming and channelizing a small spring branch I learned that it is watershed water which changed the charteristics of the 72-466-72-13

stream. My best efforts to alter the stream's bed were consistently erased by each single rain storm.

On a larger scale, so it is with the Buffalo River. I strongly maintain that to "save" the river as a natural stream you must control its entire basin. You just cannot turn people loose with their machines to clear land, to farm, to build roads, homes and towns or even to travel through or camp within the basin. Each new road, field and roof adds its bit to the ultimate destruction of the river's natural state.

If you are serious in your attempt to "save" the river you will include in your bill means for the removal of all people and their works from the basin. After all, when measured against the total population of the Nation, the number of people affected will be a very, very small portion of the whole. Since this provision for the final control of the entire water shed of the Buffalo River is not in your proposal I am sure that one of three conditions exist:

1. Authors of the bill are ignorant of the physical changes being rapidly brought onto the river by the alterations occurring daily in the water shed. 2. If they are aware of the changes affecting the river the authors lack the guts to write necessary preventative measures into the bill.

3. Or the authors, through vanity, wish to have their names attached to yet another Federal Land Grab scheme.

My next two points concern H.R. 8382 only as this legislation appears as a part of a fatal malady that is killing America.

H.R. 8382 is a class favoring bill. The park created by it, you claim, is to provide recreation but you do not say for whom. Will the ghetto kids use it? Will families who lack means for proper food and shelter find sport along the Buffalo? Or are the authors of the bill, well established themselves, simply wanting to selfishly create a diversion for other of their class who can afford to travel to the Buffalo?

Yes the bill favors people with income who are free to travel and able to supply canoes, tents, cameras and other gear requisite to luxurious lounging at taxpayer's expense.

Historically the Buffalo area, too, has been a hiding place for criminals. The late Col. Wentworth in his history of cattle trails mentions the Buffalo as a stop over for herds of cattle stolen from drovers using the Chisholm trail. Once local authority is enfeebled through local tax loss, what guarantee does the bill provide for prevention of crime in this wild area? As one who has hunted for his strayed cattle in the hundreds of mountain hollows around my ranch I can attest that an army of law enforcers will be needed here.

Most serious fault of all the bills like H.R. 8382 is the threat to private ownership of land.

Most of the men I interviewed during my W.W. II experience as commander of a training company were sustained through their trials by the certain knowledge that they could own and establish a home when the war was ended.

Some of us had a home. Others parents had homes to which these fighters could return. Around these homes we would plant trees and lawns and gardens that our children could enjoy and their children, too, in time. A matter of putting down roots we felt. We won that war, remember?

Many of us attained our goal as we did with our 1000-acre ranch on the Buffalo. Others saw their dreams fade when they found their chances for home ownership being gobbled up by now technology which led to the super farms. supercities, super highways and super air ports, of the 1950's and 60's. And so many who dreamed of home ownership in the 1940's see their children and grandchildren homeless and rootless in the 1970's.

What dreams will sustain these nomads as they go forth to their work and destinies? And should W.W. III begin, will they even go forth? Will they dream of lazy days camping on the Buffalo river, a stream they've never seen or cared to see or could afford to see? A river which, unless your committee prevents it by wise, courageous action, will be a gravel filled dry branch called by Act of Congress, Buffalo National River.

Instead of establishing so-called non-places. like Buffalo National River, for non-home owners to traipse to for non-recreational vacations, a wiser course, it seems to me, would be to re-establish the dream of land and home ownership as a certainty. Return land to people which government holds and then take no

more.

You claim a wish to keep Buffalo River a pure, natural stream. I do too but I can't see the spilling of millions upon millions of tax dollars into doing it.

There is a far simpler way. On the lower end of the Department of Agriculture totem pole are a few old time county agents and soil conservationists. These Chaps have been communicating with land owners of this area since the 1940's.

They are MEN, vigorous, kindly, knowledgable men who are respected. They are teachers and communicators, the best our government has for reaching rural mountain people.

Dig these old hands out from under the self-serving hierarchy of their bureaucracy. Give them the mission of saving the Buffalo by the simple advantageous means of easements and restrictive covenants from land owners of the Buffalo River basin. They can do it, simply, efficiently and quickly.

If you love the river do all in your power to spare the landowners the sight and smell of the tiptoeing, lisping fags who, in the name of the U.S. Government, have so thoroughly riled the entire Buffalo river community against any sort of program whatsoever. Keep these types out and shut down the various effete do-good societies whose members have recently learned a new word— ECOLOGY. This word they flaunt at every opportunity while having only a vague idea of its real meaning.

I plead that you table this half baked, hopeless, tax-gobbling measure, HR 8382, and begin at once to work out a sensible solution along the lines I've indicated. Please!

STATEMENT OF MR. AND MRS. JAMES S. VAUGHAN, JASPER, ARK.

We are opposed to the establishment of a National Park on the Buffalo River, now or at any time, because: The US Government now owns more than 52% of Newton County, Most of the best farm land in our county is along the Buffalo Rivers. National Parks usually consists of land not farmed nor where folks live. In the Election, November 1968 Newton County voted 97% against the National Park on the Buffalo River which denotes that the majority opposes it. Should the Bill pass we would be swamped with Hippies, drug-addicts, outlaws, Negroes and all kinds of people, litter and pollution.

You should visit some of the National Parks Out West and see the results. A National Park would be the death of Newton County, we would not have enough taxes to operate our schools etc.

Could October 28 (the date of the hearing) mean anything to-day? The Statue Of Liberty was dedicated October 28th 1886.

We will loose some of our citizens if the Bill passes, several parties are awaiting the decision, to build new homes here.

We do not think Homes and lands should be taken from our Pioneer families to satisfy some Sport Clubs etc. We welcome tourists to our beautiful Ozarks but want to keep our county clean and beautiful.

STATEMENT OF LUCILE HANNON, PRUITT, Ark.

Little, if no Congressional Record has ever been made on the actual cause for the numerous bills introduced primarily by J. William Fulbright and John Paul Hammerschmidt to nationalize the Big Buffalo River in Arkansas in 1967, 1969, and 1971. In 1931, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the Big Buffalo River with a view of damming it and "taming the wild country" as the conservationists and the recreationists, wildlife organizations, and those state and federal employees introducing state and national river legislation falsely labeled the Big Buffalo. Many reports, studies, surveys, etc. were made by the Engineers and other governmental departments, more especially in 1932, 1937, and 1938, but they were all in vain. Then, finally Congress appropriated some money for the construction of the Gilbert Dam: legislation upon which had been introduced by Congressman Jim Trimble; John Paul Hammerschmidt's predecessor. Mr. Trimble worked long and hard for many years to get the Gilbert Dam for the people who wanted it and needed it so badly ofr economic reasons. Finally, the bill passed the Senate and House, and twice, President Dwight D. Eisenhower vetoed the legislation. From the time President Eisenhower last vetoed the Gilbert Dam legislation until the year 1961, the landowners, more especially those in Searcy County, the majority of which wanted the Gilbert Dam, almost gave up hope for an "economic shot in the arm". Then, in May of 1961, James Tudor,

published of the Marshall Mountain wave a weekly newspaper met with Gibson L. Walsh, an abstractor, and started what became the Buffalo River Improvement Assn. Its purpose was to exert pressure to get the dams built at Lone Rock and Gilbert, the latter of which would have been only 14 miles from the little town of Marshall. Then, in 1962, some of the landowners opposed the Gilbert Dam, giving no specific reasons, except that they did not want to come under any state or federal government control. This association was known as the Buffalo River Landowners Assn., comprised of Newton County landowners.

Over 7,000 signatures to a petition headed by the Buffalo River Landowners Assn. opposing any government controlled aid, was obtained by Newton County landowners and interested residents from all four counties in which the Buffalo River runs. These signatures were sent to Washington, more especially to oppose legislation by J. William Fulbright to make the Buffalo River a national river. Legislation of any nature is always an effective part of a cause, whether it be true, or false.

Now, we regress to the actual cause for the numerous national river bills introduced by Fulbright and Hammerschmidt and their colleagues for the past nine or ten years, as first mentioned in paragraph two of this letter.

The Arkansas Power & Light Co. with Home Offices in Little Rock, Ark., a monopolistic industry, furnishing electric power to a greater portion of Arkansas, and all of Northwest Arkansas, in which the Buffalo River and its tributaries lie, did not at the time money was allocated by Congress for the Gilbert Dam, and still does not want any electric power competition. The Arkansas Power & Light Company sub-contracts most of its power to the REA's in which all of the Buffalo River, Little Buffalo River and tributaries thereof are situated. They add their profit to this sub-contract power and the REA sub-contractors add their profits, which therefore makes the REA electric power much higher than the power obtained directly from the Arkansas Power & Light Co. This latter statement is a fact, for I have, for the past 10 years conducted my tax consultant work in Harrison, Ark., using the same house trailer office as used on REA power in Newton County, with no additional power consumption, and the sub-contract REA power bills have been almost double the contract power obtained direct from the Arkansas Power & Light Co. in the Harrison, Ark.

area.

Here lies your false cause for the effective false legislation introduced by Fulbright-Hammerschmidt to nationalize the Big Buffalo River, for the Arkansas Power & Light Co. evidently felt that the Big Buffalo River couldn't have a dam and a national river at the same time, which is also a false thought, if they had it, and I'm sure they did.

Therefore, we have been accusing our state and federal governmental employees, the various conservation and recreation societies as being the cause for this false legislation for a national Buffalo River, when in reality, they have always been, and are still the false effect! But one is as bad as the other, for they will both register a false result.

If one could make a factual survey of the monies contributed by the Arkansas Power & Light Co. to these state and federal governmental employees, the various conservation, recreation and wildlife associations, no doubt charged off to "campaign contributions and donations", then we estimate that each legislator and association has, and continues to receive handsome contributions to continue such effective false legislation, and such effective falsely syndicated information that "we need to save the Big Buffalo River from the polluters, bulldozers, builders, and destroyers of wildlife, etc."

Each moment, our United States is becoming nationalized in some way, either by selfish industrialists, who subsidize our state, federal, county and city employees to institute false legislation, and we are all growing weary of fighting for our true American Heritage, namely, under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution: "Persons and houses to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures", and "just compensation for private property taken for public use." For ten years, our lands and homes have become devalued because of this continuous false legislation for a national Buffalo River, and we have and still fear to even repair what buildings we own, and to conserve and improve what lands we own. But this is the way these "eminent domain land grabs" go, more especially when it is being grabbed for pleasure of the "outsider", forgetting the heritage rights of the landowner. We have noted with continued accrescence over the past ten years, the complete disregard for the people's needs; the landowner's majority vote in special and general elections, verbally at hearings and otherwise, by the political-industrial-news media coalition who proposes

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