COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE, STATE OF INDIANA, Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, DEAR SIR: This will acknowledge your letter of May 29 concerning your proposed project to utilize unemployed workers on conservation projects. Since our function in extension forestry is purely educational, we would not be in any position to utilize workers on the ground. Our function is to work with both youth and adults in promoting better management of our forest and related resources. We would, however, be in an excellent position to assist with the planning and educational phases of such a program. Several of us have had experience as leaders in the former CCC camp program which of course was very similar to your proposal. If there is any way in which we could help with these phases of such a proposed program we would be only too happy to do so. Having had several years of experience as a foreman in the old CCC days, I am firmly convinced that this program did an immense amount of good not only in the development of our park and forest resources, but in the development of better citizens. As a result, it is my personal feeling that your proposal is an excellent one which could achieve the same end results. Sincerely yours, EDGAR J. LOTT, State Extension Forester. INDIANA RECREATION COUNCIL, Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: We have received your letter concerning your proposed legislation for conservation projects. I heartily endorse the idea and compliment you on the proposed project. Our office works with the local park and recreation departments in Indiana. You could, therefore, see that we could use a substantial number of workers. As local parks hardly ever receive enough budget for maintenance purposes, you could naturally realize the boon this would be to any park system. The possibilities are so broad that it is difficult to be specific about projects, but in the main, new lands could be developed and the overall area of city beautification would be enhanced. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of July 1, with reference to the utilization of unemployed workers on conservation and recreation projects, etc. The city of Evansville could very easily utilize each year 100 men and young people in various work programs connected with park and recreation facilities doing general improvement and beautification work, as well as some minor construction throughout our parks and recreation facilities. The kind of work I am speaking of is the type of work that cities are reluctant to appropriate tax dollars to accomplish, but at the same time if Federal funds were available, directly to cities, that much good could be accomplished for a total park, recreation, and general program in not only improving facilities but in the beautification of existing ones, as well as the construction of additional park and recreation areas. I sincerely hope that the legislation that you have introduced will receive favorable reaction from the Congress, and want to assure you that if such legis lation is passed the city of Evansville will be more than happy to participate in a program utilizing the unemployed that we now have in our community, as well as in our tristate area. With all good wishes, I remain, Sincerely, FRANK F. MCDONALD, Mayor. CITY OF SOUTH BEND, South Bend, Ind., July 20, 1964. Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: There is, presently existing, law in the State of Indiana for the use of relief recipients in work projects. My experience here in South Bend is that such programs are difficult to administer and not very productive. In view of the existence of this particular program, I would be opposed to the use of Federal funds for make-work projects as suggested in your letter. Yours very truly, LLOYD M. ALLEN, Mayor. IOWA RESPONSES STATE CONSERVATION COMMISSION, Senator GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: This letter is in reply for commission members and staff who may have received your letter of May 29, 1964, concerning the interest of the Iowa Conservation Commission in a Federal program to provide funds for hiring unemployed workers on conservation projects. I am not sure whether this program will be limited to certain age groups or be proposed for both youth and older unemployed workers. At the present time we are engaged in a program of establishing prison labor camps whereby the inmates work on development projects on our forest, park, and wildlife areas. Some of these camps have operated for a number of years and generally the results have been good. We get our most dependable worker from the older inmates. There are many types of work younger boys cannot do which of course presents problems. Another important point is the educational level of the worker. To be able to handle normal operations where tractors, chainsaws, and other mechanical equipment are in use, the worker must be of average intelligence. We find that damage to equipment and injury to the worker is less prevalent in such cases. I would like you to know that we are very much interested in such proposed legislation. It will provide the opportunity of securing needed new developments and the repairing and maintenance of existing facilities on State and county lands in a shorter period of time than would be possible otherwise. We recognize the urgent need of providing worthwhile jobs for unemployed youth or possibly older workers. In answer to your questions it is our hope the following information will be of help to you. 1. There are 128,714 acres of State land, 34,992 acres of natural lakes, 4,450 acres of artificial lakes, 1,740 acres of city reservoirs, 15,000 miles of streams, 200,000 acres of bottomland along the Mississippi River, 4,000 acres of Missouri River cutoff lakes, 21,084 privately owned farm ponds and 17,000 acres of county lands that have been purchased or could be used for conservation and recreational purposes. 2. The type of work that we feel can be done by youth and older labor includes forest tree and wildlife shrub planting; fence removal and construction; riprapping of fishing streams, lake shores, and ponds; installing erosion control measures including seeding, planting of trees and shrubs; and construction of various types of structures; timber stand improvement; fire suppression; building of roads, foot trails, bridle trails and fire guards; construction of picnic and camping areas; boat launching (ramp) and dock construction; establishment of wildlife herbaceous seedings and food plots; control of noxious weeds; construc tion and maintenance of duck nesting projects; banding of upland game birds and waterfowl; construction of various types of facilities including shelters, latrines, picnic tables, etc., repair and maintenance of existing facilities including painting, repairing, and general cleanup. 3. It is estimated that the average man-years of employment over a 5-year period would be around 1,000 as it concerns carrrying out the broad categories of our forestry, park, game, and fisheries programs. At the present we are beginning to install many of these categories on the same area as part of a broad-use recreational program. ' 4. Included in the various projects which we feel would have broad public appeal, besides providing jobs for unemployed workers, would be the repairing of existing recreational facilities originally constructed during the CCC program and the construction of new facilities such as picnic areas, camping facilities (primitive and modern) access areas including boat ramps on lakes and major streams, major game, forest and park facilities including trails, bridle paths, beaches, shoreline protection, watershed protection including tree planting, flood control structures, and general land management. We sincerely hope the information presented will be helpful to you. E. B. SPEAKER, Director, State Conservation Commission. STATE CONSERVATION COMMISSION, Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: Your letter of May 29, 1964, concerning the drafting of legislation to provide funds to Federal, State, county, and municipal agencies to utilize unemployed workers on conservation projects was discussed by our commission at the meeting on June 2, 1964. Naturally, we are in accord with the idea, and within a short time will have at least a preliminary statement concerning projects, man-years of employment, etc., which we will forward to you for reference and consideration. In Iowa our conservation funds came largely from two sources-license fees for fish and game projects and development, and State legislative funds for waters and State parks capital improvements, developments, and maintenance. Matching Federal funds from the Department of the Interior, U.S. Forest Service, etc., are very important in our program. Iowa's ability to participate in a Federal-State program would, therefore, be límited to funds available from these two sources. Sincerely yours, E. B. SPEAKER, Director, State Conservation Commission. BLACK HAWK COUNTY CONSERVATION BOARD, Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SIR: In reply to your letter of June 16, 1964, in regards to providing funds to utilize unemployed workers on conservation projects, this subject is of interest to me because of its potential needs. We are a county conservation board, dependent entirely upon tax levy for operation. Our present county population is approximately 125,000 at the present time. We have unemployed in the county 1,010 people registered with the State employment agency. Of this number approximately 35 percent are women, and a certain portion of the balance are registered looking for a specific type of employment, and might not be interested in park work. Having to work with a fairly small budget, and in trying to accomplish clearing and development work in new areas, we started to use county jail help, and also employable men who were on relief. This has worked real good for us, and we are set up at the present time to handle approximately 30 men without having to buy additional equipment or to hire extra supervision. I have some figures that might be of interest to you. In 1961 we used the following man-hours of this particular type labor. You might notice that our relief help dropped considerable man-hours in 1963. This is due to the fact that whenever an employable man asks for groceries, they will allow him the amount of groceries that he asks for, then they will tell him that before he can get another order, he has to work out the previous order, and quite a few of them never come back for another grocery order. They work out their grocery order at the rate of $1.25 per hour. Our present program consists primarily of land acquisition, and we are constantly acquiring land for future use. Most of this land is along our rivers and streams, and all of it needs work. I could probably use 10 to 15 men per day, for a period of 6 months per year in our work bus, for clearing, for the next 10 years. Some of these men could possibly be used for regular maintenance work in our parks, because every time we clear and develop a new area we have also created a new maintenance problem. I am especially interested in this from the standpoint of possibly using high school dropouts. This is becoming a serious problem all over, including our county, but would probably require more supervision than older people. I hope that some of this information will be of value to you, and if I can be of further aid, feel free to ask. Sincerely yours, JOHNNIE MAAS, Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.O. POLK COUNTY CONSERVATION BOARD, DEAR SENATOR: You are in the process of drafting legislation, that in my opinion, when and if enacted into law, will most certainly be one of the greatest boosts to the cause of conservation and a boon to the Nation, comparable to the Civilian Conservation Corps. I am most happy to offer any assistance I can. First your questions: If funds were available could you utilize substantial numbers of workers in your own program? Yes. Insofar as we are still in the land acquisition stage of our program we do have sufficient areas in which we could effectively use at least 30 menat present, none are available from our welfare office. What specific kinds of projects could be done without extensive new preparation? We are at present doing lake-bed clearing on a 220-acre artificial lake site. This job is practically a "pick up sticks and put on the fire" type. Also we have many rods of old fencing to remove, new fences to build; new areas to eradicate 100 years of farming; old buildings to raze; depressions to fill, to reseed, to replant, to reforest. (See clippings and copies of correspondence; please return for our files.) Could you estimate the number of man-years of work which might be usefully undertaken in the immediate future? For the next 5 years I estimate that we could use from 30 to 50 men throughout each year. We recognize that certain types of work and under certain conditions the work would be of "made" variety, but even this has its intrinsic values in greater benefits to the men themselves. The greatest difficulty we found with our program in the use of relief recipients was that of supervision. To effectively work men that are not physically nor mentally qualified, nor want to work, don't know how, nor do they want to learn, requires an exceptional foreman. We found that the program must be a training type for both the man and the supervisors. If a large-scale program is arranged of this nature the first step should be an intensive training school for the supervisory personnel. If I can be of any aid in securing passage of your proposal, please ask. J. A. WYMORE, Executive Director. CITY OF CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, June 25, 1964. Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: In Cedar Rapids we have a large park system consisting of 50 parks with a total of over 1,600 acres and we certainly could use additional labor, especially if the funds were forthcoming from some other agency. We have a fast-growing park system and we could utilize unemployed labor in developing some of our new park land and we would have use for most of the skilled trades-especially equipment operators, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, and cement finishers. Presently all of our work forces do all of these jobs and, consequently, we are limited in our development by the amount of work our small force can get done in a given year under a given budget. We presently have, as for instance, a design for a 300-acre regional park, including an 18-hole golf course, picnic shelters, ball fields, winter sports area, a lake to be built and space for a zoological garden. If the labor could be supplied by others, I am sure the municipality could find the funds for the materials and the supervision to get the park developed. It would appear to me that this type of program, properly administered, could prove to be a big asset to our agency, but I would hasten to point out that presently in Cedar Rapids we have a 1.1 percent unemployment, and to find the unemployed workers to do this project, we would have to look to some other area, which might make the program impractical in our park system locally. I hope my brief comments will be of some assistance and if we can be of further service, please feel free to call on us. Very sincerely yours, DONALD K. GARDNER, Commissioner of Parks and Public Property. Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, U.S. Senator, Washington, D.C. CITY OF COUNCIL BLUFFS, RECREATION DEPARTMENT, Council Bluffs, Iowa, June 25, 1964. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: Thank you for your letter pertaining to the drafting of legislation to provide funds for Federal, State, county, and municipal agencies to utilize unemployed workers on recreation projects, conservation, park developments, etc. If funds were available and taking into consideration what conditions were required of the local agency, I think legislation of this type would be helpful to our program. As to what specific kinds of projects and the number of man-years of work which might be undertaken immediately would be difficult for me to estimate at this time. Projects of this type for our community would involve the planning commission, city council, park board, recreation commission, and other groups. I would think the act should enable the development of lands an agency has already acquired for recreation purposes. Perhaps also to enable an agency to acquire land for conservation and recreation, and to develop it for these purposes. I feel legislation of this type has merit regardless of or with or without the utilization of unemployed workers. Some workers just naturally prefer this kind of labor. This work has an element of creativeness, and if done well, will provide for future generations. Some people are very happy in engaging in this |