Mr. DWORSHAK. Within a year after the termination of the war? Mr. WRIGHT. We have plans which we expect to lead into an outlet within a year. Mr. DWORSHAK. To whom do you expect to sell most of that powerto private users or municipal and governmental agencies? Mr. WRIGHT. Possibly to a large extent in the development of new industries. AVERAGE COST PER MILE OF OPERATION OF TRANSMISSION LINES Mr. JONES. What is your average cost per mile of operation of transmission lines? Mr. WRIGHT. I believe it to be, including substation expense, about $300 per year per mile. Mr. NORRELL (presiding). We thank you and your coemployees for appearing before the committee and giving us this information. I believe this concludes the examination. FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 1945. ACQUISITION OF FLOWAGE RIGHTS, GRAND RIVER DAM PROJECT, OKLAHOMA Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. We will take up at this time the supplemental estimate contained in House Document No. 114 under the heading "Southwestern Power Administration," which reads as follows: The unobligated balance of the Public Works Administration allotment of $500,000 made to the Department of the Interior, Southwestern Power Administration, under authority of section 201 of the Public Works Administration Appropriation Act of 1938, and continued available by the Second Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1944, until June 30, 1945, is hereby continued available to the said Power Administration until June 30, 1946, for the purposes for which allocated. The following justification is submitted in explanation thereof: PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION, ACT OF 1938 (ALLOTMENT TO INTERIOR, SOUTHWESTERN POWER ADMINISTRATION) STATEMENT OF JUSTIFICATION The Federal project to provide additional storage space in the Grand River Dam was initiated on December 10, 1942, and the original allocation of the funds necessary for the project was approved by the President on March 12, 1943, and the actual acquisition of the flowage rights began in April 1943. The project was initiated under the Federal Works Agency. All the powers, duties, and functions of the Administrator of the Federal Works Agency, with reference to the project, were by Executive order of the President, No. 9373, dated August 30, 1943, transferred to the Secretary of the Interior. The sum of $2,000,000 was allocated for the purpose of acquiring the lands necessary for the additional storage space of the Grand River Dam for flood-control purposes, as follows: National industrial recovery, Public Works Administration (Allot- Total_ $1,500, 000 500,000 2, 000, 000 When the original allotment was made it was estimated that it would be necessary to acquire flowage rights on approximately 8,000 acres of land, at an estimated cost of $60 per acre. Soon after the acquisition program was started, the May 1943 flood occurred and demonstrated that it would be necessary to acquire flowage rights to a higher elevation than had been anticipated, which materially increased the acreage on which flowage rights would have to be acquired. Accordingly, flowage rights were acquired up to 757 feet from the dam up to the Grave Bridge; up to elevation 758 feet from the Grave Bridge to the Frisco railroad embankment near Wyandotte, Okla.; and up to elevation 760 feet above the Frisco embankment at Wyandotte. This increased the acreage on which flowage rights had to be acquired from the estimated 8,000 acres to the actual acreage of 11,615.22 acres. It also increased the number of tracts from an estimate of 1,500 to 2,248. The construction of the project involved the relocation and reconstruction of certain roads and highways. For this purpose 70 tracts of land, having an acreage of 64.52 acres, had to be acquired for road rights-of-way. In addition there are 298 tracts belonging to the Grand River Dam Authority on which flowage easements must be acquired. In initiating the project it was determined to acquire all lands and flowage rights necessary for the project by condemnation and that procedure has been consistently followed throughout the project. The condemnation proceedings have been handled through the Department of Justice under an arrangement allowing the chief counsel of the Southwestern Power Administration to be designated as a special assistant United States attorney for the northern district of Oklahoma and allowing him to represent the Department of Justice in condemnation proceedings and making available to him the legal staff of the Administration to assist in the acquisition work. It has been the policy during the time that the condemnation proceedings are progressing to contact owners of the land and to reach an agreement as to the compensation to be paid, but in those instances where an agreement cannot be reached and the landowner contests the appraisal made, it becomes necessary to try out in court the question of the amount of compensation. A very large number of owners have demanded jury trial and the number of jury trial demands are increasing. All of these lands are within the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma and the cases are assigned and tried only at the time set by the court. The court is very busy with litigation, having at all times a congested docket. There remains a large number of cases on the docket which have yet to be tried and all the work of preparing and having entered final judgments and distributing the money cannot be computed until the cases are tried. The various reasons for the delays in completing the project are as follows: 1. Underestimate of the acreage to be acquired in the amount of 3,615 acres. 2. Inability to secure pencil abstract reports as needed due largely to a lack of manpower during the war emergency. 3. Bad titles, necessitating careful abstracting, much field work, and service by publication. 4. The necessity of including in condemnation proceedings personal damaged or destroyed property by the May 1943 flood. 5. The large number of demands for, jury trial involving the necessity of determining the amount of compensation by trials in court. 6. The congested condition of the Federal court docket and inability to get cases set for trial and tried. 7. Shortage of manpower due to the war emergency, necessitating the use of regular staff of employees. The sum of $30,000 to cover personal services and other expenses incidental to the land acquisition program during the fiscal year 1946 will therefore be required in order to complete the program. It is expected that the unobligated balance on June 30, 1945, in the allotment "Public Works Administration, act of 1938 (allotment to Interior, Southwestern Power Administration), amount $500,000," will be ample to provide for personal services and other expenses required for the fiscal year 1946, which is estimated at $30.000, should the said fund be continued available to the Southwestern Power Administration until June 30, 1946. Public Works Administration, act of 1988 (allotment to Interior, Southwestern Power Administration) STATEMENTS OF CLARENCE L. FORSLING, DIRECTOR; ARCHIE D. RYAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR; AND DEPUE FALCK, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS Mr. NORRELL. This is the new Director of Grazing, Mr. Forsling. Do you have a general statement you wish to make? GENERAL STATEMENT Mr. FORSLING. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to come before this committee. This is my first experience with this committee, as you know. We are glad for the opportunity to present the justification for our estimates. I would like to make a brief general statement and then comment particularly with reference to the salaries and expenses item. The Taylor Grazing Act, which bears the name of the former chairman of this committee, and is the act under which the Grazing Service operates, was approved in 1934. This act brought under protection and management the last of the once vast area of public land in the continental United States. This legislation followed, after a considerable number of years, the legislation which brought under protection and management such lands as national forests, national parks, game refuges, Indian lands, and so forth. For some 80 years this land, while awaiting the application of the homestead laws, had been used as public grazing commons with71191-45-pt. 1- -29 out regulation or protection. It was illegal to fence this land; there was little to encourage the development of watering places and other improvements for livestock use. Because of the free-for-all use that existed on this grazing land, the individual settler could not rely upon the use of the available forage, because he never knew when someone else's stock would come in and eat out the range. The result of all this was instability in the livestock industry, and much damage was done to the range over considerable areas through the depletion of the vegetation by overuse. As a result, many areas have been badly eroded and the run-off from precipitation often is excessive. Yet, there developed an interdependence between this land and the better land that the settlers had acquired. The settlers usually came in on the streams where water was available for irrigation, where they could raise hay and other feed for part of the year. They were dependent upon public land in the main, however, for grazing during certain seasons of the year. In other words, the two classes of land, the public domain grazing land and the privately owned farm and forage producing land, were interdependent. PURPOSES OF THE TAYLOR ACT One of the main purposes of the Taylor Grazing Act is to protect and improve the forage resources on the public domain lands and to stabilize their use among the settlers who are dependent upon them. Of equal or greater importance is the conservation of the resources of these lands in the broad public interest. For the most part, they are tributary to the streams which are so vital to irrigation and power development in the West. Although the annual precipitation on the whole is not high, rainfall often occurs as torrential storms which, unless there is good plant cover, result in torrential run-offs and severe erosion frequently results. Local torrential floods often originate on depleted areas. The soil eroded from its proper place on the slopes is then carried down into the streams where it chokes the channels and fills storage reservoirs. Consequently, while these lands, as compared to better pasture lands as most of us know them in the eastern part of the country, have a very low productive capacity, they are important in the maintenance of homes of the settlers, the livestock industry, and in the maintenance of favorable conditions of stream flow for irrigation and other purposes in a very large part of the West. AREA IN AND NUMBER OF GRAZING DISTRICTS During the years since what is now the Grazing Service was started, some 141,000,000 acres of federally-owned land and about 1,000,000 acres of land under cooperative agreement, or under the Pierce Act, have been included in grazing districts, and intermingled with the Federal lands and grazing districts are State lands, privately owned lands, and railroad grant lands which, in the aggregate, bring the total area within the grazing districts to some 266,000,000 acres, which is, roughly, one-sixth of the land area of the 48 States. On these lands within grazing districts; that is, on the federallyowned lands within grazing districts, we have licensed or permitted their use for some 2,000,000 head of cattle and horses and about 8,500,000 sheep and goats. These animals belong to some 22,000 permittees, or ranchers, or settlers within or near the grazing districts. At the present time, these lands have been set off into 60 grazing districts. Three of those are administered in conjunction with others; so, in effect, we have 57 administrative units or grazing district offices. The grazing district is the primary unit of administration. For administration purposes we have found it necessary to establish regional offices, with a number of grazing districts supervised from each regional office. For the most part these regions conform to States and we have 10 such regional offices at the present time. The Director's office and staff is now located in Salt Lake City. At the present time, the number of permanent positions in the Grazing Service for the administration and protection of the grazing districts totals 259. These include the clerical, supervisory, and field forces. JOB LOAD IN A SAMPLE DISTRICT Now, I believe the best way to acquaint the committee with some of the work and problems of the Grazing Service and the reasons why we are requesting additional funds this year will be to discuss the job on a typical grazing district. For that purpose, I have chosen the San Rafael grazing district in Utah. As we go along, I wish we would all keep in mind if we multiply this typical district by approximately 57, it will give a pretty fair picture of the Grazing Service job as a whole. I have some charts here. First, here is a general map of the West, showing the grazing districts. It may be you are all familiar with this map. The buff-colored lands surrounded by the heavy black lines are the grazing districts. They now pretty well cover all of the public lands in the West, except an area here in Nevada [indicating], a small area in Utah [indicating], and some in Arizona and California. There are a few other isolated, scattered areas; but in the main the big bulk of the public grazing land is now within grazing districts. Now, to go to the San Rafael district. This district is located in south-central Utah, as shown on this map of the State. There are 11 grazing districts in Utah. Practically all of the State except a little piece in here [indicating] is covered. Here is the San Rafael grazing district [indicating]. It is slightly larger than the average district, but is a good typical district to discuss. It includes 4,600,000 acres of land, of which 3,500,000 are Federal, 500,000 State, and 600,000 private. That shown in red is the privately owned land; that in blue is the State-owned land. The uncolored within the heavy black lines is the Federal land. In addition to that, there is some Federal land in this darker color here [indicating] that has been withdrawn for possible future development for reclamation. Incidentally, this district is as large as the combined areas of Connecticut and Delaware, or approximately 65 percent of the area of Maryland. That gives some idea of the size of one of these districts. The longest air-line distance north and south is 140 miles; east and west, the longest distance is 75 miles. |