Description Introduced No. 544. Chronological list of Tennessee Valley Authority wholesale power 5285 5292 5295 545. TVA1-Summary analysis of large industrial and utility company power contracts with Tennessee Valley Authority---. 546. Photographs showing various types of Tennessee Valley Authority operations 5306 547. TVA,1 department of electricity, division of rates and research"Generation, Energy, Distribution, and Revenue". 5307 548. TVA-Power rate schedules___ 5312 549. Southeastern utility companies-“Residential and Commercial Rate Comparisons and Trends" (1938, revised) _. 550. TVA1-Comparison of Tennessee Valley Authority residential rates 552. Comparison of straight-line and sinking-fund method of depreciation accounting. (Tabulation)_ 553. TVA-Comparison of Tennessee Valley Authority estimates of marketable power available from 11-dam system with estimates made by E. L. Moreland__. 554. TVA1-Comparison of Tennessee Valley Authority estimates of power revenue from 11-dam system (average year) with estimates made by E. L. Moreland----. 555. TVA1- -Estimates of increment yearly cost and surplus from wholesale power operation on 11-dam system compared with estimates of E. L. Moreland--- 5314 5318 5376 5376 5393 5395 5397 556. Tennessee Valley Authority, department of power planning-"Liquidation Analysis of the Three-Plant System (Norris-WheelerWilson)" 5408 557. Financial statements of Tennessee Valley Authority wholesale contractors for fiscal year 1938 5409 558. TVA1-Consolidated financial statements of Tennessee Valley Au- 5418 560. TVA1-Chart entitled, "Electric Yardstick Residential Service" 2 5451 5470 1 This exhibit was secured from the Tennessee Valley Authority files. 2 See committee report. INVESTIGATION OF TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1938 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. The committee met pursuant to adjournment in room 357, Senate Office Building, at 9 a. m. Present: Senators Vic Donahey (chairman), Schwartz, Frazier, and Davis; Representatives Barden and Wolverton. Chairman DONAHEY. You may proceed. TESTIMONY OF SHERMAN M. WOODWARD-Resumed FLOOD CONTROL AND NAVIGATION PRIMARY PURPOSE OF DAM CONSTRUCTION Representative WOLVERTON. Mr. Woodward, would you say that the Norris Dam had been built primarily for flood control or power? Mr. WOODWARD. I would say primarily for flood control and navigation. Representative WOLVERTON. Well, now, if that is the case, then how do you account for the fact that T. V. A. did not follow section 17 of the T. V. A. Act, the original act, which required that the T. V. A. build the Cove Creek Dam, together with the transmission lines from Muscle Shoals, according to the latest and most approved designs, including powerhouse, and hydroelectric installation, and equipment for the generation of power, in order that the waters of the said Clinch River may be impounded and stored above said dam for the purpose of increasing and regulating the flow of the Clinch River, and the Tennessee River below, so that the maximum amount of primary power may be developed at dam No. 2, and at any and all other dams below the said Cove Creek Dam? You have stated that you believe it was built primarily for flood control and navigation, and the act itself, under which it was built, required that it be built so that the maximum amount of primary power may be developed at dam No. 2, and at any and all other dams below the Cove Creek Dam. How do you account for your answer in view of what the act itself requires? Mr. WOODWARD. Well, I don't understand that that language means that it is primarily or solely for power. It says, "including the powerhouse, and other appurtenances," and we have done that, including what we thought was suitable. I am not sure that we have planned it and put in the installation to get absolutely the maximum amount of power that we could have got if we had ignored the other requirements. Represenative WOLVERTON. Well, in view of the fact that that section in its own language states that the primary purpose of building that was to build for power. I don't see why you make the statement that it was built primarily for flood control and navigation. Mr. WOODWARD. I don't see any statement that says, "primarily for power." It says, "including the provision for power," and we have included provisions for power. Representative WOLVERTON. It says "including power" in the closing words of that section, "so that the maximum amount of primary power may be developed at dam No. 2, and all other dams below the said Cove Creek Dam." If that didn't require a power proposition, I don't know how to read the English language. Mr. WOODWARD. We have been criticized somewhat for not providing for more complete development of power at the dam. I never have taken it very seriously, and I don't know just how much more power could be developed at the dam, but some electrical engineers, or hydroelectric engineers, have criticized us because we didn't put in more installation at the dam, and I think that we have been criticized too, because we haven't planned it so as to produce more power at Wilson Dam. I don't know just how much more they claim we could have produced, but anyway the fact is that we have planned it for flood control and navigation, and developed all of the power that we thought was reasonable to try to develop in that connection. Representative WOLVERTON. Then, notwithstanding the distinct language of that section of the T. V. A. Act, you say that you planned it for navigation and flood control? Mr. WOODWARD. I think the primary objectives, including all of the power that we thought it was economical to include. Representative WOLVERTON. It seems to me that the T. V. A. is so anxious now to avoid the suspicion of building power and attributing everything to flood control and navigation, that you have just overlooked the fact that the original act itself required that it be a power proposition. Mr. WOODWARD. Well, we have turned in a distribution of the expense, in which we have put over half of that to power. I don't know anything more to say about it. QUESTION OF CESSATION OF FARMING NECESSITATED BY SUBMERGING OF LANDS FOR DAM CONSTRUCTION Representative WOLVERTON. Now, I want to make some inquiry into the question of the total average annual value of the crops on the lands which will be permanently overflowed by the T. V. A. Reservoir. Can you give me your estimate of the value of the crops annually? Mr. WOODWARD. No, sir; we have never made anything like a systematic study of that question, and I would like to explain a little bit why. We would look for such information ordinarily to census reports. The census reports are by political subdivisions-that is, by counties, so that the figures on value of crops cannot be easily used. I think no agency has ever made any systematic census of flood damages. There have been occasionally, here and there, rather careful compilations of limited areas; we have done that a little bit, but it would take a lot of time and cost a lot of money, and it has had no bearing on our work. When we buy the land we assume that we pay for all of the value of that land in the sense that we pay for all of the annual crop production that might come off that land. I would like to explain further that the largest part of this land is not the highest-priced land in the vicinity. The great bulk of the bottom lands in the valleys are subject to overflow and destruction of crops about 1 out of 2 or 3 years. It is very well illustrated in northern Alabama, where the river flows across the northern end of Alabama. That is a great cotton-producing region, as you would have observed in traveling through it, but none of these bottom lands in the valleys are used for cotton because they cannot raise cotton crops there with any success on account of the overflow. Representative WOLVERTON. I am in receipt of a communication which just came into my hands yesterday from a resident of the Gilbertsville section, in which he states, first: The Tennessee Valley at this point is wide and very fertile, and an 88-foot dam will create a lake from 5 to 8 miles wide and 185 miles long and will cover up and drown out forevermore over 1,000,000 acres of the finest soil in this part of the United States. Now, how much of that do you agree with and how much do you disagree with? Mr. WOODWARD. Well, the area is about four times the maximum area of the Gilbertsville Lake. Representative WOLVERTON. You mean, how many acres will there be in that? Mr. WOODWARD. We are estimating that we will buy about 200,000 or 300,000 acres, and that includes a good deal above the water lineI just can't recall that-so that when he says "1,000,000 acres" that is roughly four times what we will cover with water. Representative WOLVERTON. He evidently has in mind the fertile lands up the creeks and small rivers that will also be flooded, because in his second point he says: There are many creeks and small rivers that run into the Tennessee River along this 185-mile course, and this high lake will cover up these rich, fertile creeks and small river bottoms extending in many instances as much as 20 miles from the main river itself, and it is estimated that another 200,000 acres will be destroyed for farming and forest purposes, leaving only unfertile fields and small branch bottoms for the citizens to make a living on in the future. Mr. WOODWARD. Well, I am sure that he has his figures very much exaggerated, but, of course, there is a tendency of some effects about which he is speaking, but the fact is that those creek bottoms this last summer were flooded and crops very much damaged by a very heavy summer rain that came in August, as I remember it, the first part of August, and they are customarily flooded. Those lands are very fertile, so far as having the richness to produce crops, but it is a precarious farming, and it is not a prosperous farming region compared with other parts of the country. Representative WOLVERTON. You say that you had made no estimate? Mr. WOODWARD. We have not estimated anything like a census figure of annual flood damages on those lands. Representative WOLVERTON. Now, I have before me figures that were gotten together for the locality near Guntersville, relating to that reservoir, and it was estimated there that the annual value of the crops normally cultivated in the Guntersville Reservoir basin was $829,000; in the Chickamauga Reservoir basin, $407,000; in the Pickwick Reser |