ommend that, that he believed in the high dams, he was working on the high-dam plan, and urging it very much.

Mr. BIDDLE. You mean did not recommend them, I think for the reason you said General Brown gave you, that it was not in his province to recommend flood control.

Mr. WOODWARD. That is it, it would not be legal to make that kind of a report to Congress.

Mr. BIDDLE. Did the district engineer do all of the field work for the recommendation, or was any of that done by the Division of the Chief Engineer?

Mr. WOODWARD. It was all done by the district engineer.

Mr. BIDDLE. And any recommendations that might have followed or not followed his recommendations were based on data supplied by him.

Mr. WOODWARD. Yes, sir; and on perhaps theories of procedure. If you want it, I have a statement I think as to that, it is a very brief statement, as to their conclusions.

The district engineer, on pages 100 and 101, recommends the adoption of a general high-dam plan. Then he also recommends a lowdam navigation plan at a cost of $75,000,000, with provision for possible adjustments to include high dams.

The division engineer concurs with the district engineer's plan. In this case, since it was on the Mississippi River, there was a recommendation also from the Mississippi River Commisson, and their words boiled down are that they concur in the recommendation of the adoption of a limited low-dam plan with provision for possible inclusion of high dams.

The Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors says:

The Board thinks that the high-dam system is the best for general development, and that the United States should participate in such a plan and encourage its execution.

The Chief of Engineers concurs in general with the district engineer's recommendations that a low-dam plan be adopted, with provision for substituting high dams when the time for construction arrives. That is partly my own language. I boiled down these long paragraphs, trying to state fairly what I thought they said. It shows the difference of opinion and limitations they were under.

Mr. BIDDLE. Now, Mr. Woodward, as planned and built, what advantages would you say that the T. V. A. unified plan had over an alternative system, keeping in mind Mr. Kurtz's and Mr. Putnam's testimony which has been referred to by one of the witnesses here at some length.

Mr. WOODWARD. Well, I think that we would get a more economical system with the original cost and a very much better system to operate to combine these different purposes in the same dams insofar as possible.

I heard the testimony last week and it was pointed out that we had made certain calculations by assuming low dams or navigation dams on certain sites, then we had computed the flood control that could be obtained with dams on those same sites, but you couldn't have both sets of dams, it was just for the purpose of getting certain comparisons of figures. And if you put in power dams without flood control, then the very fact of building the power dams would prevent

you from getting separately or afterwards flood control at those some sites.

I think it has been pointed out that if Mr. Kurtz's system of dams was built for flood control alone, in which he was going to empty those dams substantially in between floods, that then you would make it forever impossible for anybody, either the Government or private individuals, to develop power at those sites. You just spoil the opportunity.

That is the first disadvantage of trying to separate.

make them entirely

Then Mr. Kurtz's plan for flood control gave no consideration to flood control below Chattanooga or on the Ohio or the Mississippi. and in the act we are instructed to do what we can to help flood control on the Ohio and the Mississippi, so his plan did not comply with the instructions in the act.

In a good many details these things don't work together very well. In Mr. Kurtz's plan, he provides a very high degree of flood control at Knoxville where the danger is not very much and does not provide, I think, complete protection for Chattanooga.

Mr. BIDDLE. Well, you hardly provide that either, do you, Mr. Woodward?

Mr. WOODWARD. No; not with our present set-up that we have asked Congress to authorize. He proposes a system

Mr. BIDDLE. You mean Mr. Kurtz proposes?

Mr. WOODWARD. Yes; Mr. Kurtz proposes a system of gate control, which is largely automatic and would not be as elastic, and therefore could not be, I think, as effective as ours, where we can absolutely cut off the flood on certain streams if we want to for temporary purposes.

His plan contemplated that there would always be some release at every dam, all the time during floods. And I think that makes a less sufficient operation, less satisfactory operation.

Of course, I heard him testify at considerable length on this matter in the Chattanooga case, and I think the testimony you have, in which he claimed this was an invention of his that nobody else had ever thought of, or that had never been used. I think he stated he had never designed or planned or operated any flood-control dams or reservoirs. Of course, I don't entirely approve of his ideas and his system, I think for perfectly good reasons.

Mr. BIDDLE. Have you any similar comments to make on Mr. Putnam's testimony with respect to the navigation dams that he had in mind? You have already made some comment. I don't want to prolong it unnecessarily.

Mr. WOODWARD. He urged the merits of the low dams.

Mr. BIDDLE. You have commented on that perhaps sufficiently. Mr. WOODWARD. I don't think that the grounds that he urges for them, or his criticisms of something else are justified. His claims are rather general, as a matter of fact.

Mr. BIDDLE. Mr. Woodward, you testified from a chart based on studies over a period of years showing wide seasonal variations of floods. Do you recall that?

Mr. WOODWARD. Yes, sir.

Mr. BIDDLE. Now, although that variation is wide, I think you said that the floods were over by April of every year?

Mr. WOODWARD. The large floods.

Mr. BIDDLE. The large floods?

Mr. WOODWARD. They always have been.

Mr. BIDDLE. Would you say therefore that the variation from year to year was in any sense standard to such an extent that you could at least judge the extent of the expected variation?

Mr. WOODWARD. Yes; I think that is perfectly conclusive. All of the big floods have occurred in the winter months, in the flood season, in the rainy season; there never have been any very large floods in the summertime. I think we can rely upon that just as well as we have any established knowledge about meteorology.

Mr. BIDDLE. Have you established knowledge on the Ohio and Mississippi floods that can be correlated with your knowledge of floods in the Tennessee Valley? What I am trying to get at is to go a little further. It is true, isn't it, that the floods there have a different seasonal variation from the floods in the valley?

Mr. WOODWARD. They are a little less certain in the distribution, although there is the tendency

Mr. BIDDLE. And, at other times of the year.

Mr. WOODWARD. Yes. There have been exceptional cases all over the Northern States.

Mr. BIDDLE. What I mean is does the Tennessee Valley flood or do the Tennessee Valley floods occur at the same time the Ohio and Mississippi floods occur usually?

Mr. WOODWARD. Well, usually in the winter.

Mr. BIDDLE. Usually in the winter.

Mr. WOODWARD. If you are talking about exact timing

Mr. BIDDLE. No; I mean seasonally.

Mr. WOODWARD. Oh, seasonally; it is usually in the winter, but there have been occasionally big floods upon the Ohio or tributaries of the Ohio during the summer season. There has been east of the Appalachian Mountains, like the Potomac and Susquehanna, and other rivers, there have been occasional big floods, not in the winter

season.

QUESTION OF SEPARATING POWER AND FLOOD-CONTROL PROGRAMS

Mr. BIDDLE. Mr. Woodward, Dr. Arthur Morgan has filed with the committee an administrative study in which he specifically recommends that the power authority of T. V. A. and the flood-control authority of T. V. A. be separated, not merely departmentally, as is now done, but specifically by a separate authority being raised for the purposes of flood control and possibly navigation, but I think flood control was the emphasis of his suggestion, and that that separate authority have complete control over the flow of water in the river, so that at no time could power considerations be in conflict with the major considerations of flood control. Would you like to comment on that suggestion? Do you think it is necessary, wise, useful, or have you any suggestion to make?

Mr. WOODWARD. I had not thought of a separate authority, that I know of. But I don't have any disagreement at all that the floodcontrol authority ought to be the controlling one, and that the water power should be subservient, and if there were any conflicts it would have to yield whatever is necessary.

Mr. BIDDLE. My question is not addressed to that consideration. I take it you are both in agreement on that, as the act provides it, and you would have to be. My question was directed at whether you have given any consideration or would wish to make any comment on this suggestion for a different type of administration, which from his point of view might bring about the construction which you both accept, of course.

Mr. WOODWARD. I never had thought of that idea, so I have no comments to make on what I think would be of value. I would like to repeat, if I may, though, that there ought to be some centralized authority-there shouldn't be any doubt about it, when decisions have to be made.

Mr. BIDDLE. Now, let us go into that now. Is there a centralized functioning authority about which there is no doubt, within the Tennessee Valley? In other words, are you the authority and are you interfered with?

Mr. WOODWARD. I think it is satisfactory as it is at present. The resolution that I read says that my decisions are subject to review by the chief engineer. Our practice has been to mail them to his office, as we do the others. Ordinarily, so far as I know, nobody pays any attention to them. There has never been but one case, where on account of some very strong remonstrances over which I had no control, there has never been but one case that we brought to his attention and asked him to make a decision. That was because his construction organization, which is entirely independent of mine, building the dams, was very much concerned in one of these orders, and there were conflicts, and I didn't feel like trying to reconcile the difference of something that was outside of my sphere, which was directly under Mr. Parker, so I asked him to give his consideration, and he helped make the decision.

Mr. BIDDLE. Did that represent a conflict between flood control and power?

Mr. WOODWARD. No.

Mr. BIDDLE. Well, assuming, Mr. Woodward, assuming less sympathetic personalities involved than you and Colonel Parker, don't you think that a wise administrative measure might be to have the executive officer in charge of flood control, if you want to call him that, you, have complete control of that, rather than to have him under the control of the engineer, as a pure matter of administration! Mr. WOODWARD. Well, I had never thought of it that way. Mr. BIDDLE. In other words, shouldn't his say-so be final except as everything is final with the approval of the Board?

Mr. WOODWARD. Well, my inclination would be to go up the usual channel, and I think it is a good thing sometimes to have a higher person that, if it seems necessary, can act as a referee.

Mr. BIDDLE. But there is no reason to put flood control under the chief engineer.

Mr. WOODWARD. Except as I am under him in everything else, and all of my staff is under him, and we report to him.

Now, nine-tenths of our work-or ninety-nine one hundredths of it, he never sees, because it is details, but occasionally we might get a question that we would like to have his approval of or decision on, and I am glad to have somebody there to back me up and help me out, but ordinarily I have to give a considerable amonut of time to

this. Some days half the day is taken up discussing these and getting data on these interfering requests that have to be accommodated to each other, individuals up and down the river.

Mr. BIDDLE. There would be a good many power requests that you turn down?

Mr. WOODWARD. I don't know why we will ever get any power requests; they will use the water as it comes ordinarily, and that is what they are planned for; that is what their machinery is available for, and they will have enough in a very dry year, the driest year we can imagine, there will be the question as to regulating this down, to straighten the uniformity. At such a time I would make all of my decisions, probably, on what the power operations people say; if they want a little bit more released from one reservoir or another or a little less, in order to spread that scanty water uniformly through the season-they are so much closer to that work than I am, not all of the time, and nobody else would object; I do everything I can to help them, and I would ask their advice, because they are specialists in their line, but other years the trouble is getting rid of the excess water and not furnishing them the water.

Mr. BIDDLE. I take it, then, assuming that the purposes and objects of the act are being carried out, which I think that you stated in various ways they have been, do you thing the unified control of the flow of the river under one head is better than the separation of the functions under various heads?

Mr. WOODWARD. That is my natural reaction, to have a unified administration.

Mr. BIDDLE. Is there anything in your present administrative system which has not worked to effectuate the relative purposes under the system?

Mr. WOODWARD. No, sir; I don't know anything in this last year's experience that I have any suggestions for changing.

Mr. BIDDLE. Do you pick out the last year particularly?

Mr. WOODWARD. The present set-up is only since a year ago in July.

Mr. BIDDLE. That is a better set-up than before that?

Mr. WOODWARD. Before that it was under Mr. Evans and me jointly.

You raised the question a little while ago, that I thought was the timing of the floods on the Ohio and the Mississippi

Mr. BIDDLE. The question was whether that timing was closer toward the timing of the floods on the Tennessee River.

Mr. WOODWARD. Well, they are in the winter season, but it is true that in general our Tennessee floods come earlier in the winter than the Ohio floods. We have no influence from snowfall that is appreciable on the floods of the Tennessee River, so that we don't have delayed melting of snow, which is quite important on the upper Ohio, and, of course, more important on the upper Mississippi.

Mr. BIDDLE. And which isn't predictable to the extent that you can predict floods on the Tennessee Valley, is it?

Mr. WOODWARD. It could be predicted; people don't pay much attention to it, it comes on slowly, it most cases, and lasts quite a long while; it is predicted sometimes, but most people are not, or have never been interested in it except out West.