Senator SCHWARTZ. When you speak of the cost on that basis, are you including cost of the dams?

Colonel PARKER. I am including, when I say that, the cost is so much per acre-foot, I mean that is the cost of the entire project.

Senator SCHWARTZ. I may be mistaken, but I think that Mr. Wolverton is seeking the cost per acre of the land acquired by the land acquisition department, and the land acquisition department could probably give us the average cost by a very simple arithmetic proposition, couldn't it, so many acres, and so much money invested? Mr. ELWELL. I think that that testimony has already been offered by Snyder's department.

Representative WOLVERTON. Maybe it is one of those statements. or exhibits that has been put in that wasn't presented to the committee, for its attention, that you would have to depend upon picking it. up in one of these 492 exhibits that have been offered. I don't know if you can point to me where that information is I will be glad. Mr. ELWELL. I will be glad to get it for you.

Representative WOLVERTON. I would appreciate your helpfulness. Now, I understand that while I was talking to Senator Frazier, that you stated in answer to my previous inquiry that there would be approximately 3,500 families affected in this area of the Gilbertsville Dam.

Colonel PARKER. That is correct.

Representative WOLVERTON. How many towns will be wiped out? Colonel PARKER. There will be-this reservoir is very fortunately situated, inasmuch as there are the only towns affected to that extent will be some very minor villages, no towns of any consequence will be wiped out, in the entire reservoir.

Representative WOLVERTON. You mean in a distance of 180 miles. that there won't be any towns except a few minor cases that will be affected?

Colonel PARKER. That is why this is such a very favorable reservoir site.

Representative WOLVERTON. Do I understand that that is the case? Colonel PARKER. Yes, sir.

Representative WOLVERTON. Well, from what source, then, if it is such a sparsely inhabited territory, as your answer would indicate, where is the business coming from for navigation on this stream that you are providing for?

Colonel PARKER. The navigation on this part of the river would be a through proposition, originating largely either below the mouth of the river or above the upper end of this reservoir.

Representative WOLVERTON. I won't press that inquiry because I assume that there will be a navigation man.

Mr. BIDDLE. Mr. Alldredge will testify as to navigation.
Colonel PARKER. Shall I proceed?

Mr. BIDDLE. Yes.

PROBABLE INCIDENTAL POWER OUTPUT

Colonel PARKER. I believe that we had been discussing the development of the river for navigation and flood control and what the various possibilities were. I should like also to make a brief summary of what may be expected from the incidental development of power. The

firm-power output which you remember I stated at Wilson Dam was about 40,000 kilowatts, before the Authority started its work, has already been increased to about 88,000 kilowatts by storage releases from Norris alone, without further expenditure at Wilson Dam.

Wheeler storage releases will further increase the firm output of Wilson by about 8,000 kilowatts. At present, the regulation of the river primarily in the interest of navigation and flood control makes possible the production of 155,000 kilowatts of continuous and dependable firm power at the Norris, Wheeler, and Wilson projects. The practically completed Pickwick Landing project will add nearly 60,000 kilowatts of firm power to the T. V. A. system.

In addition to the firm power, there is available from the Norris, Wheeler, Wilson system 58,000 kilowatts of secondary power, available 75 percent of the time, plus a further amount of less dependable dump power which will average about 550,000,000 kilowatt-hours per

year.

In addition, the completion of the Pickwick Landing project will relieve navigation conditions immediately below Wilson, and release the full use of the Wilson capacity for peak purposes. That is one of the principal reasons why Pickwick was started early in our program. It had been necessary previously to that time to maintain a continuous flow through the Wilson Dam of approximately 15,000 second-feet in order to provide for navigation on the lower river. With the construction of the Pickwick Reservoir it is possible to equalize any outflow from Wilson and make the necessary release below Pickwick. Wilson, with its large capacity, is intended primarily as a peak-load plant, operating at large capacity part of the time and part of the time, perhaps, almost shut down. The construction of Pickwick, therefore, sets it free to perform this very necessary and useful purpose as a peak plant.

Representative JENKINS. Just in that connection, Colonel, you answered Mr. Wolverton, and you said that the navigation, if there will ever be any, which there is none now, will come from up the river above the big dams, I take it.

Colonel PARKER. I was speaking of Gilbertsville Dam.

Representative JENKINS. I know, but you are speaking of Gilbertsville Dam now, and then you come up to Pickwick Dam up the river, and you say that it is necessary to build Pickwick Dam a little earlier than otherwise, so that it would help with the power situation at Wilson; that is right, isn't it?

Colonel PARKER. It made it possible to operate Wilson on a variable-flow basis; that was partly in the interest of power, and partly in the interest of navigation. The construction of Pickwick Reservoir floods a stretch of river which it had been formerly necessary partly to canalize, and it makes in that part of the river a greatly improved condition for navigation.

Representative JENKINS. Colonel, it would seem to me that if this is a navigation project at all, navigation would have to find its way out into the Ohio River, and in order to do that, it would seem to me like the first navigation project you should build would be Gilbertsville, and instead of that you are building Gilbertsville as the last project, and according to your own testimony you say that Gilberts

ville down there-the traffic is above Gilbertsville, and of course it is, it is any place on the river, and now you say that you build Pickwick to help out Wilson.

Well, it is inevitably the result, then, that you built Pickwick to help out Wilson, and there is no navigation. You must have built Pickwick purely from a power standpoint. Am I right?

Colonel PARKER. Of course, in order to provide continuous navigation up to Knoxville, which is our objective, it is necessary to have the complete river canalized. However, it was not possible to build those plants all at once, and we had to, in view of budgetary limitation, to build them in sequence.

We have picked out those to be built first, partly from a point of view of improving the most difficult parts of the river, and partly because there was some stretches of the river, such as Gilbertsville, in which it was necessary to conduct a very lengthy reconnaissance in order to find the most favorable dam sites.

Representative JENKINS. But, Colonel, it seems to me, of course, you are a great engineer, and I gave you that deference, but I have been raised on the river, and I know a little about navigation, and it would seem to me if you are building the projects in the Tennessee River for navigation you would start at the mouth of the river, where the navigation has got to come out of, but of course if you are going to build it for power, you would go right up to the head of the creek and head of the river, like you did at Norris, where you could get the power without regard to that.

Colonel PARKER. There are some parts of the river which had originally limited navigation, were much more critical from the point of view of navigation than others.

Representative JENKINS. Which were they?

Colonel PARKER. One of those stretches was this place above the Pickwick Dam.

Representative JENKINS. There is no navigation along there, you have finished Pickwick, and Wilson, and Wheeler, and there is no navigation there.

Colonel PARKER. I think that Mr. Alldredge will be very glad to give you the particulars in regard to that navigation. I might say, in passing, that there is already a very considerable amount of gasoline being carried up as far as Guntersville by one of the oil companies, who have established a terminal there.

Representative JENKINS. That is gasoline for the use of the Government, practically all of it.

Representative WOLVERTON. How much, or how much higher is the dam at Gilbertsville than is contemplated to be constructed by the Army engineers in their report of 1930?

Colonel PARKER. You refer to the House Document 328?
Representative WOLVERTON. Yes.

Colonel PARKER. The dam which the Army Engineers proposed at a site known as Aurora Landing, which is what they proposed at the time, was proposed to have a lift of 50 feet, and would have flooded back to the Pickwick Landing site, apparently just about the same lift proposed at Gilbertsville.

115943-39-pt. 11——13

Representative JENKINS. Gilbertsville is going to be about 250 feet high, isn't it?

Colonel PARKER. I hope not; I should hate to build it that high.
Representative JENKINS. How high is it to be?

Colonel PARKER. You will excuse me if I hesitate a moment, the height of a dam depends upon where you measure it to. I should like to give you that information accurately.

Representative WOLVERTON. Measure it at the same place as they did when they said 50 feet.

Mr. BIDDLE. Did you hear the Congressman's question, the same measurement as you testified with respect to the Aurora Landing?

Colonel PARKER. That is 57 feet. But may I correct that slightly. The operating level, the maximum operating level, will be at an elevation of 359, with a minimum, a usual minimum, of 354, so that the lift under those conditions would vary from 57 feet to 52 feet. Representative JENKINS. How much longer is the Gilbertsville Dam at the present location than at the Aurora Landing location? Colonel PARKER. As far as I know, substantially the same. Representative JENKINS. What is the difference in the construction? Colonel PARKER. I would assume it is about the same sort of construction. I am not familiar with the exact design proposed by the Army, but I should think that it would be about the same thing. I should say, may I add to that a moment, that our exploration of the Autora site showed it to be really impracticable of use.

Mr. BIDDLE. Why?

Colonel PARKER. Because the foundations were so poor, the rock is at so great a depth.

Mr. BIDDLE. Had the Army engineers taken borings to determine whether or not the foundations would be practicable?

Colonel PARKER. I don't know.

Mr. BIDDLE. Is there anything in the Army Engineers' report to indicate the extent of their explorations or borings there on that site? Colonel PARKER. We don't know, we will look that up.

Mr. BIDDLE. Will you continue while your assistant is looking that matter up?

Senator SCHWARTZ. About how far from the Gilbertsville Dam site was it to the Aurora Dam site upstream or down?

Colonel PARKER. I am sorry that we can't carry all of these figures in our mind, but we will look that up.

Representative THOMASON. In the original T. V. A. Act, did Congress direct that the Norris Dam be built first?

Colonel PARKER. I believe it did; yes, sir.

Representative WOLVERTON. Under the War Department or the Department of the Interior, didn't it?

Colonel PARKER. I can only refer you to the act for the answer to that.

Mr. BIDDLE. That was covered, Mr. Wolverton, in an Executive order of the President.

Representative WOLVERTON. I know it was. But the act provided that it was to be built by either the War Department or the Interior Department, as I understand it.

Mr. BIDDLE. The Executive order was issued under the act, we

will get a copy.

Representative WOLVERTON. It isn't important; the dam was built. Colonel PARKER. I would like to continue a moment with a summary of these power availabilities, just to give a picture of what the potentialities of the Valley are.

With the completion of the present 10-dam program, the total reliable all-year-around power will amount to 485,000 kilowatts, which at 60 percent load factor will carry peak loads of 810,000 kilowatts-350,000 kilowatts of high-grade secondary available 75 percent of the time, assuming the firm power is all utilized, and about 1,500,000,000 kilowatt-hours of dump or independent power in a year of average-stream-flow conditions will be available.

Mr. BIDDLE. Does the 10-dam system include Fontana or exclude it? Colonel PARKER. It excludes it.

In reply to that question about the location of Gilbertsville and Aurora, I find that at Gilbertsville it is 21 miles below Aurora.

RELATIVE COSTS OF AUTHORITY SYSTEM AND LOW-DAM SYSTEM

Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. Could you give me the difference between the storage capacity of the Aurora Dam as planned by the Army engineers and Gilbertsville as now constructed or planned?

Colonel PARKER. I am afraid that I will have to look that up. Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. Can you get that in the records somewhere?

Colonel PARKER. Yes.

Representative JENKINS. Can you give me offhand the difference between the estimated costs of the two?

Colonel PARKER. That is in this Document No. 328, and we will look that up, too.

In order to conserve the waters of the Tennessee River for beneficial use, storage reservoirs are required to regulate the sharp variations of stream flow from flood season to low-water periods. The central fact is that the sites essential for the necessary reservoirs are strictly limited in number, and those required for flood control frequently coincide with those necessary for the development of the river for other purposes.

The construction of projects designed and operated for the sole purpose of storing water only in times of flood would therefore permanently preclude the construction of the stream-flow regulation projects which are essential for power development, and would thus completely destroy the power resources of the river. The construction of low dams in the main stream serving navigation alone would preclude the construction of high dams, except at the cost of drowning out the low dams and wasting the investment.

Representative JENKINS. In that connection, Colonel, you touched. there on the very heart of the controversy between the two systems. The Army Engineers' system was primarily a navigation system, providing for 32 low dams, and you stated a minute ago that in order to have proper protection according to your system you would have to have reservoirs, in order to store the water during the flood system; that is, your system, in order to have power, you have to flood the