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Now, I want to ask you the question, if I may, Do you have a definite project report for the Gainesville lock section of the proposed Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway?

General PICK. Mr. Slichter, will you answer that question?

Mr. SLICHTER. As I pointed out this morning, the meeting that I referred to as of December 8, 1947, constituted the definite project action on the Gainesville lock. We have passed on that point. We now have plans and specifications, by your own record, 97 percent complete as of last summer. The studies have been completed.

Mr. DONNELLY. We are back in the same old terminology. You are talking about something else. The question to the gentleman is, When was the definite project report for the Gainesville lock section of the proposed Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway completed by the Corps of Engineers?

Mr. SLICHTER. I was trying to point out to you that the definite project report, as such, is a compilation of definite project studies; the definite project report transmittal is a formality; that the studies are the design analysis and the data on which the project is based; that those studies were approved at this meeting of December 8.

Mr. DONNELLY. Now, that meeting that you speak of was in the Nashville district. General Pick here yesterday sought to distinguish between action by himself as Chief of the Corps of Engineers and the action there that you speak of in the Nashville district.

Now, will you please answer the question for the committee, When, if ever, was the definite project report completed for the Gainesville lock section of the proposed Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway?

Mr. SLICHTER. The meeting to which I referred was held in the office of the Chief of Engineers on December 8, 1947, attended by representatives of the Chief of Engineers, the division engineer, and the district engineer.

Mr. DONNELLY. In what city?

Mr. SLICHTER. Washington, D. C.

Following that meeting, and from the findings of the meeting, the designs were approved by endorsement of the Office of the Chief of Engineers on the district engineer's letter, in which he submits a considerable volume of design figures. The point that I am making is, it does not take a formal report; it takes action by the three offices to formalize this.

Mr. DONNELLY. The concept "Definite project report" has been used repeatedly and consistently by the Chief of Engineers in all of his orders and regulations, in the letter that he just read, in the manual to the Engineer School officers at Fort Belvoir. That is the document, the "definite project report," that the Chief of Engineers had stated to this committee, in writing on April 16, 1951, was completed prior to the request for appropriation of the initial construction funds.

Now, will you answer the question directly, What is the date of the approval by the Chief of Engineers of the definite project report for the Gainesville lock of the proposed Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway?

Mr. SLICHTER. The date of the letter approving the design for the Gainesville lock, and you can call it the definite project report; you can call it the definite project studies-it is one and the same thingand it is dated December 19, 1947, the second endorsement by the Office of the Chief of Engineers, signed by Richard L. Jewett, Lieu-

tenant Colonel, Corps of Engineers, Deputy Chief of Civil Works for Rivers and Harbors.

Mr. DONNELLY. Now, we are back again to the old confusion of

terms.

This morning you told me that a definite project study was different from a definite project report. Now you say the two are the same. When, if ever, was the definite project report for the Gainesville lock, the first section of the proposed Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, submitted to the Congress or to this committee?

General PICK. It never has been submitted to the Congress, Mr. Donnelly, and the Congress has never asked for one of our definite project reports, to my knowledge.

Now then, the orders and regulations that you have been quoting from, and the textbook they use at the engineering school, point out definitely that in order to get a project study, and develop a project report, it requires a tremendous amount of information to be obtained, gathered, studied, and digested before plans and specifications can be prepared.

Your investigating committee, Mr. Chairman, has found out that the plans and specifications for that lock, the lower lock on the Tombigbee, are now 97 percent complete.

Now, that is a definite indication that the project study and the definite project report studies have been approved, and we have gone ahead and prepared the actual design for the building of the structure, so it seems to me that the point that is being belabored here is one of confusion. I see no point to it. I would like to be able to answer a question which I think is being asked in good faith, but I do not know whether there is an answer to a question, as is framed, when all we can do is to give the actual steps which have been taken in order to arrive at the design of this structure.

Mr. DONNELLY. All right, General. Now, with respect to the Gainesville lock, this definite project report, as we now understand from Mr. Slichter, it was, did it include an accurate cost estimate of the total construction of the Gainesville lock?

Mr. SLICHTER. This document make no reference to the estimate. Mr. DONNELLY. That is exactly the point. So, Congress is not given a sound cost estimate.

(NOTE. The uncertainty of cost, and of location of the Gainesville lock, is indicated by the following excerpt from the document approved by the Chief of Engineers on December 19, 1947 :)

:Site B:

Initial channel, minimum bottom width 170 feet

Rectification of river channel and excavation for lock ap-
proaches, 1,824,000 cubic yards at 20 cents-----
Lock excavation, 804,000 cubic yards at 75 cents.
Lock cofferdam_.

Site C:

Total

Cut-off channel and lock approaches, 1,920,000 cubic yards at 25 cents-▬▬▬

Lock excavation, 999,000 cubic yards at 60 cents_.

Lock cofferdam (includes cofferdike and pumping only).

Bridge over lock, Highway No. 39-

Total_____.

$364, 800 603, 000 275,000

1, 242, 800

480, 000

599, 400

75, 000

220,000

1,374, 400

Initial channel, minimum bottom width 170 feet-Continued

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Rectification of river channel and excavation for lock ap-
proaches, 7,113,000 cubic yards at $1___

Lock excavation, 804,000 cubic yards at 75 cents-----
Lock cofferdam__

Bridge over Tombigbee River, Highway No. 39.

Site C:

Total___

Cut-off channel and lock approaches, 2,907,000 cubic yards at 25
cents_____

Lock excavation, 999,000 cubic yards at 60 cents.

Bridge over lock, Highway No. 39.

Lock cofferdam (includes cofferdike and pumping only)

Total_

Difference in cost-.

Saving by reduction of distance..

Total savings, site C over site B.

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General PICK. Now, the estimate of the cost of the construction of the lock is available. I do not know whether it has been given to the committee or not.

Mr. DONNELLY. Was it given to Congress in the fiscal year 1949 when the engineers asked the Bureau of the Budget for $5,735,000 for construction and planning and the Bureau of the Budget estimated to Congress $1,500.000 for construction?

General PICK. The Congress was given the total estimated cost of this entire project in 1949 as being $136,244,000.

Mr. DONNELLY. You have told us now that you take up your definite project reports in steps, or in sections, by your own words in this letter that you read of August 12, 1949-"Sections of the definite project report."

The $136,000,000 figure that you refer to now, which you say was submitted to Congress in 1949, was not based on a definite project report for the entire proposed project; was it?

General PICK. No. That was not based on a definite project report. Mr. DONNELLY. Will you answer this question: Did the corps tell Congress in the fiscal year 1949, when you asked for the construction money, how much your sectional definite project report estimated the total construction of the Gainesville lock to be?

General PICK. I cannot answer that.

Colonel POTTER. May I answer that question?

As the committee well recognizes, this [indicating] is one of the sheets that I used in my testimony, and which was handled by Mr. Cohen, on my left, during the testimony, and as an adjunct to the justification sheets which were my main volume, and the committee will remember that I frequently referred to these during my testi

mony. This [indicating] is the data sheet on the request for funds for 1950.

Mr. DONNELLY. Will you identify it for us, please?

Colonel POTTER. "Appropriations, Subcommittee." At that time $2,000,000 was put in as proposed operations, broken down as follows: Planning, phases 1 and 2, $300,000.

Land acquisition, $50,000.

Commence construction by continuing contract on Gainesville lock, $1,650,000.

On a table to the right, completion of construction of Gainesville lock and dam, $6,134,000.

I am asking for the justification sheet that was used for this presentation to be made available, and I will be able, I believe, to show the committee that the data were indicated in that sheet.

Mr. DONNELLY. We are getting your testimony, sir. Will you identify it? Was it before this subcommittee? Will you identify the date?

Colonel POTTER. It is the 1950 appropriation, original estimate of $2,500,000. An appropriation apparently of $200,000; the budget, $200,000.

Mr. KERR. Did you say you wanted to put that in the record, Colonel?

Mr. DONNELLY. No, Judge, he was reading something at the time; he wanted to indicate what his testimony to the committee was.

Colonel POTTER. The justification sheets are made available and a copy is presented to every member of this committee while the testimony is being taken down.

Mr. DONNELLY. The point I wanted to clear up here for the benefit of the committee is the procedure of the Corps of Engineers who are asking the Congress for construction money. They have what they call a definite project report, which the Corps of Engineers through their own order, say is available before they ask for the initial construction money, and we want to find out what the Corps of Engineers identifies as the definite project report or as a section of the definite project report, and whether Colonel Potter in his testimony on the 1950 appropriation bill was identifying, using the concept used by Mr. Slichter, a definite project report, and nothing more. And it was testified this morning both by General Pick and Mr. Slichter that the new concept is in the definite project study.

Mr. SLICHTER. Could I explain that?

Mr. DONNELLY. Yes.

Mr. SLICHTER. I tried to point out that there is a definite project report, a book full of definite project studies. I would like to express it this way: Take a structure, or a dam, we have to make investigations; we have to make analyses and tests, explorations and studies to determine, for instance, the slope of the embankment. That is a definite project study. That goes on here.

Then, take the spillway, the hydraulic studies, things that have to be determined, and that is a definite project study, and it goes in

the book.

And when you get through with all of the studies of the structure, all of the inquiries, and all of these things have been studied, you arrive at an integrated and final project report; all of them are put

together in the report, called the definite project report. They are one and the same thing. We are not talking about two different things.

Mr. DONNELLY. This morning, Mr. Slichter, you sought to tell the committee that there was some difference between the two, and I am asking you with regard to the testimony of yesterday.

Mr. ŠLICHTER. Well, I regret that I gave that impression.

Mr. DONNELLY. Here is the question before the committee: The question was asked yesterday, and this is the basis of this present :situation:

Mr. DONNELLY. When was the definite project report completed on the Gainesville lock and dam?

Mr. SLICHTER. Approximately 3 years ago.

Now, the pending question to Colonel Potter is whether in his testimony before this subcommittee, in the hearings he referred to on the appropriation bill for 1950, was it?

Colonel POTTER. 1951.

Mr. DONNELLY. 1951. Whether he told the committee that a definite project report for the Gainesville lock used on this proposed waterway had been completed, and whether he told the committee the accurate estimated cost for the Gainesville lock? That is the pending question.

General PICK. Mr. Chairman, the counsel seems to be laboring under the apprehension that the Corps of Engineers has failed to supply the committee with certain documents. I would like to ask the chairman of the committee this question: As to whether or not the subcommittee on appropriations has ever asked the Corps of Engineers, in requesting information, that the definite project report be furnished?

Mr. KERR. It has not been done while I have been on the committee in the last 5 or 6 years.

Mr. DONNELLY. Now in line with the general's statement, the question before this subcommittee now is not whether or not the definite project report is submitted by the Chief of Engineers. The question is whether the Corps of Engineers, prior to the time of the testimony in the hearings completes a definite project report which will contain accurate cost estimates upon which this committee can then decide whether to vote funds for initial construction. That is the point before the committee.

General PICK. We always testify as to what the project will cost when we come before the appropriations committee asking for funds. Mr. DONNELLY. Now on this Tennessee-Tombigbee situation Colonel Potter said he testified to $136,000,000 for the entire project. Then I asked him when he was testifying with reference to the Gainesville lock, whether he said he had a complete definite project report and whether he furnished the committee the accurate estimated cost of the Gainesville lock, based upon that definite project report.

General PICK. What was the data sheet; what does it show, Colonel? Colonel POTTER. This data sheet was used in supporting request of the Bureau of the Budget and the budget did not permit that, so that information was never used in the hearing.

(The data sheet is as follows:)

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