STATEMENT OF HON. HUBERT H. PEAVEY, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM WISCONSIN

Mr. PEAVEY. In making this statement to the Rivers and Harbors Committee relative to the Chicago diversion question before the committee, I would have it known that personally and as a representative of the people of the eleventh Wisconsin congressional district I am unreservedly opposed to the said diversion of 10,000 cubic feet per second which is now being diverted from Lake Michigan through the Chicago Canal and the Illinois River. Within the boundaries of the district I represent is the great twin ports harbor of Superior-Duluth, which is the second largest harbor from the standpoint of total tonnage in the whole world. In addition to this I have five other harbor cities in my district, including that of my home city of Washburn, Wis., and Ashland, Wis., which have two large ore docks, to say nothing of the coal, lumber, and other such activities. These great industries are directly and seriously affected by the lowering of lake levels in Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie, through which they operate on each cargo trip. In behalf of these industries and the people of my district I appeal to the Committee on Rivers and Harbors of the House to protect and preserve our rights and interests, agriculturally, industrially, and commercially in any action it may take pertaining to this matter.

We are in no way opposed to the idea of establishment of the socalled Great Lakes-to-the-Gulf waterway via the Chicago Canal, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. It is our position that such a waterway as that just mentioned can be maintained upon a diversion of 1,000 cubic feet per second or even less, as Government and other reliable engineers have found. I will be glad to lend any assistance in my power toward a successful accomplishment of a Great Lakesto-the-Gulf channel of commerce.

For Congress to permit the diversion of more than a few hundred second cubic feet at Chicago necessary for water transportation is to give the Chicago sanitary district a privileged right to produce hydroelectric power at the direct expense and injury of the commerce and harbor cities on the Great Lakes. Any action to legalize this diversion appears to me and to the people of my district to be unjustifiable and indefensible. In closing this short statement I urge the committee to vote against any proposal which will directly or indirectly indorse, condone, or support the Chicago diversion.

STATEMENT OF M. G. BARNES-Resumed

Mr. BARNES. Before proceeding with the information that I have prepared, I want to make a few corrections that should be made in the statements made at the previous hearing at which I appeared. In my statement I said that at least three colonels in the engineering corps had made recommendation looking to a diversion of 10,000 cubic second feet of water at Chicago, and that these reports were approved by the higher officials.

Secretary Baker took exception to that and said those reports had not been approved by higher authorities.

The CHAIRMAN. If you will put that in the record we will read it and we will decide that matter to-day.

Mr. NEWTON. Mr. Chairman, I would like Mr. Barnes to continue with his statement; I don't know whether I will have a chance to read it and I would like to hear it.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Mr. Barnes.

Mr. BARNES. Now, I want to refer to House Document 2, Sixtyseventh Congress, first session, in which Colonel Judson did make that recommendation, and that recommendation was indorsed and approved.

Mr. NEWTON. What was the recommendation ?

The CHAIRMAN. Read it.

Mr. BARNES. This is from Colonel Judson, who went beyond his instructions. He says:

While recommendations are not specifically required by the instructionsThe CHAIRMAN. What page?

Mr. BARNES. Page 18.

While recommendations are not specifically required by the instructions, I take the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the foregoing statement of conditions and the tabular statement of costs indicates plainly the desirability of removing all dams in connection with the accomplishment of an 8-foot channel, if the increment from Lake Michigan is to be 4,167 second feet or

more.

In my opinion to most reasonably conform to the probable conditions of the future an 8-foot project should now be adopted based on a 7,500 second-feet withdrawal for purposes of estimate and with all dams removed.

Then he continues:

The computations show that with all dams removed an increment of 10,000 second-feet will increase the depths due to the increment of 7,500 second-feet by about 1.25 feet at Utica, about 1 foot at Peoria and Havana, and slightly less than 1 foot at the mouth.

It is believed that estimations of cost and any possible hypotheses seems reasonable by the reviewing authorities can be made with the aid of the tables submitted herewith.

W. B. JUDSON,

Colonel, Corps of Engineers, District Engineer,
Division Engineer, Northwestern Division.

The Board of Engineers of which board the present Chief of Engineers was chairman at that time, said

The CHAIRMAN. What page?

Mr. BARNES. Page 3:

The district engineer believes that the minimum that will be withdrawn from Lake Michigan is 7,500 second-feet and that it may eventually reach 10,000 second-feet. The effect of this additional volume of water will be readily understood, when it is considered that the normal low-water flow in the Illinois River is only about 500 second-feet.

The existing locks and dams were found necessary to secure the project depth of 7 feet when the normal flow only was available. With the increased volume of 4,167 feet, they are of doubtful necessity in connection with either an 8 or a 9-foot channel, and with the probable minimum increment of 7,500 second-feet cr possibly 10,000 second-feet, the locks and dams become an obstruction to navigation rather than an aid and should be removed.

The CHAIRMAN. What year was that?

Mr. BARNES. 1922.

Mr. HULL. Will you read the last four lines again?

Mr. BARNES (reading):

With the increased volume of 4,167 feet they are of doubtful necessity in connection with either an 8 or 9 foot channel and with a probable minimum increment of 7,500 second-feet, or possibly 10,000 second-feet, the locks and dams become an obstruction to navigation rather than an aid and should be removed.

Mr. NEWTON. What was General Taylor's position then?

Mr. KUNZ, That is his statement.

Mr. BARNES. I will get his recommendation if you want it, the recommendation of the board, which he signed.

Mr. McDUFFIE. Who was he at that time?

Mr. BARNES. Chairman of the board of review. He was a brigadier general.

Mr. MCDUFFIE. That is what the gentleman asked.

Mr. BARNES. Before quoting him, I will say that Colonel Judson had recommended an appropriation for an 8-foot channel based on a flow of 7,500 second-feet, and said that if Congress did not reduce this to 7,500 second-feet-to 7,000 from 7,500-that we would automatically have a 9-foot channel without any further cost. Now, then, the board says:

The board, therefore, reports that in its opinion it is advisable for the United States to modify the existing projects for the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers so as to provide a channel 8 feet deep from the vicinity of Utica, Ill., to St. Louis, Mo., approximately as proposed by the district and division engineers at an estimated cost of $3,110,000 for original work, and $77,500 for maintenance for the Illinois River and $620,000 for original work and $75,000 for maintenance for the Mississippi River, a total of $1,930,000 for initial work and $152,500 for annual maintenance: Provided, however, That the State of Illinois will convey to the United States such rights and titles to the locks and dams at Henry and Copperas Creeks as may be considered necessary to permit their removal.

That is signed: "H. Taylor, Brigadier General, Corps of Engineers, senior member of the board."

I want to insert right there that the State of Illinois has by legislative acts passed an enabling act permitting the departments which I represent to turn over to the Federal Government its title to the locks and dams mentioned.

Mr. McDUFFIE. Those are locks and dams at Copperas Creek and Henry?

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir. Now, at that time Lansing H. Beach, major general, was chief of engineers, and after going through this report he said: "After due consideration of the information presented, I concur in the views and recommendations of the board"which I have just read to you.

Mr. NEWTON. So that reports based on 7,500 and 10,000 cubic feet was concurred in all along the line?

Mr. BARNES. Yes; on an eight-foot channel; and they said that if Congress did not reduce this flow from 10,000 cubic feet, that we would automatically have nine feet and also said that these locks and dams were an obstruction to navigation and should be removed. Mr. HULL. I want to ask you if it is not a fact that the State of Illinois based their work on the canal on that report?

Mr. BARNES. On this 10,000 cubic feet, all the way through; yes. As Mr. Madden has so eloquently said this morning, it was held out as a tacit understanding all the way through for 10 years before the

State stated that we were to have this 10,000 cubic feet flow, and the Engineer Corps way back in the Sixty-first Congress in House Document 1375, said-General Bixbie being chairman of the board at that time that navigation on the Illinois River would not be properly provided for without we had provided locks at least 80 feet wide and 600 feet long, with a depth of 11 feet over the sills, and that excavation in the channel should be made to a depth of 11 feet. At that time, the State was asking for a 14-foot channel. Mr. SOSNOWSKI. That was all for navigation?

Mr. BARNES. That was all for navigation; yes, sir. Now, the other statement is not a correction, but it is answering a question that was propounded at that time which I did not completely answer. The question was as to when it was known that this diversion from Chicago would lower the levels in the Great Lakes from 5 to 6 inches.

I looked that matter up, and the earliest reference I can find to it is that the Engineer Corps measured and surveyed the conditions in 1891 and again in 1892 and reported to Congress through the annual report of the Chief of Engineers in 1893, in which they said at that time that the diversion would cause a lowering of Lake Erie of 5.28 inches.

Mr. HULL. Lake Erie or Lake Michigan?

Mr. BARNES. Lake Erie. So it was known publicly seven years before the sanitary canal was opened and it was known publicly more than 20 years before the State undertook its work, and General Poe, who had charge of the surveys at that time, was in charge of the improvement of the work at the Soo, and he knew of this proposed lowering before he laid the sills of the Soo locks. The Canadian Government knew it before they laid the sills of their locks. General Poe knew it before he completed the plans for the 21-foot channel throughout the Great Lakes system.

Mr. MCDUFFIE. As an engineer, you studied the effect upon the diversion by the removal of the two locks in question?

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir.

Mr. McDUFFIE. What does it mean? Engineers seem to think; that they can have a 9-foot channel with any amount from 2,000 cubic feet up to 10,000 cubic feet. Now, if we remove those two locks, how much water, or what is the least amount of water that would be necessary to take out of the lakes to have the 9-foot channel?

Mr. BARNES. Well, that is a good deal like asking what is the least amount of food that one can get along with at a luncheon. We can build a waterway with 500 second-feet. We did it in 1848. It has been relegated to the waste heap. It does not serve transportation; it does not serve navigation. What we are trying to do now is to build a waterway for present and modern traffic, modern conditions. Now, if you take 1,000 feet or 2,000 cubic feet per second, as the lowest that they have estimated for in their reports, that will not fill the channel that they are recommending, 9 feet by 200 feet, with slide slopes.

Mr. MCDUFFIE. Then you differ from that?

Mr. BARNES. Absolutely. You take a channel 9 feet deep by 200 /feet wide, with slide slopes of 2 on 1, or 4 on 1; the cross section

area of that channel is more than 2,000 square feet. Now, if it flows only 1 foot per second, the amount of water in the river will not fill that channel, and the engineers say-and I know it is so that the velocity of the water in that channel exceeds 1 foot per second. Therefore, the 2,000 feet would not fill the channel, to say nothing of the bayous and low water adjacent to the stream. So, it is foolish to say that we can provide an adequate channel with 2,000 cubic feet of water per second. Moreover, if we limit the channel to 2,000 cubic second-feet-I am speaking of an open channel-we will have throughout the reach many hidden low waters that will be dangerous to navigation and discourage and defeat the very purpose for which we are making this appropriation.

Mr. MCDUFFIE. What about 7,500 cubic second-feet?

Mr. BARNES. I cite that as the condition in the New York Canal. That is one of the reasons now for their failure. It is because their canal is not adequate. That is the reason your chairman is here now asking for an all-American canal. That is the reason the Canadians are here asking for the St. Lawrence waterway-because they have found that the New York Canal, built at an enormous cost, is inadequate to meet the present needs of commerce.

Mr. MCDUFFIE. What do you say as to the 7,500 cubic second-feet; could you take your locks out and get an open channel on a flow of 7,500 cubic second-feet?

Mr. BARNES. Yes. We can get an open channel 9 feet with all locks removed with 7,500 cubic second-feet; but it will not be as good a channel, as good a canal, as it would be with 10,000 cubic second-feet. But we can get a reasonably good canal with 7,500 cubic secondfeet. Now, I don't want to go below that. When you get below that you also get the same opinions from the Engineer Corps; but when you get down to 4,167-cubic feet, then locks would have to be installed.

The CHAIRMAN. However, Mr. Barnes, I want to call your attention to this report that you have cited. I refer to page 3 of Document No. 2, Sixty-seventh Congress, first session, in the third paragraph:

It will be seen from the district engineer's report that the estimates for the Illinois River are largely influenced by the amount of water discharged into it through the Chicago Sanitary Canal. The present permit authorizes the withdrawal of 4,167 second-feet from Lake Michigan, but apparently the actual amount withdrawn is about 8,500 second-feet. Estimates are given for a flow of 4,167, 7,500, and 10,000 feet. The district engineer believes

He is talking about what he believes is going to be done simply— that the minimum that will be withdrawn from Lake Michigan is 7,500 secondfeet, and that it may eventually reach 10,000 second-feet.

Why I am referring to this is simply for this question: Where the engineers in either of these reports recommend the withdrawal of any particular amount; that is what I would like to know, is there any such recommendation fixing the amount?

Mr. BARNES. I read it into the record. It will be found on page 18. The CHAIRMAN. I did not refer to that. I said the board or the chief.

Mr. BARNES. Both the chief and the board indorsed the recommendation of General Judson.