The records indicate that during the past 3 years there was an average of 16 civil actions and over 100 criminal proceedings originating annually from the territory which would be served by a term of court at Newport News.

Aside from the cost of providing court quarters, the additional expense to the Government of a term of court at Newport News would probably not exceed the sum of $300.

Judge Way, the resident district judge at Norfolk, has written me strongly favoring the proposal under consideration.

I find no objection to the enactment of the bill.

The Acting Director of the Bureau of the Budget informs me that there is no objection to the submission of this report.

Sincerely yours,

75TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3d Session

REPORT

No. 2353

COMPREHENSIVE FLOOD-CONTROL PLANS AND WORKS FOR RESERVOIRS, LEVEES, AND FLOODWALLS

MAY 13, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. WHITTINGTON, from the Committee on Flood Control, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 10618]

The Committee on Flood Control, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 10618) to authorize the construction of certain public works on rivers and harbors for flood control, and for other purposes, having considered the same, unanimously report it without amendment and recommend that it do pass.

The bill represents a truly comprehensive effort definitely to meet the widespread public demand for effective flood control throughout the United States, and it contains general legislation having this purpose in view.

More than 10 years ago the Congress, foreseeing the growing public demand for improvements for flood control and allied purposes, authorized comprehensive surveys for the purpose of initiating actual improvements with tangible results. Great numbers of surveys were completed by the Corps of Engineers of the War Department and the Congress was supplied with the information necessary for definite legislation.

As a result and following the great floods of 1935 and 1936, the Congress passed the act of June 22, 1936, which established a national policy for flood control and effected a beginning of improvements to accomplish the national purpose, but this beginning, although a great step in the right direction, did not fully meet the public demand. Additional legislation and a greatly increased program of construction for flood control has been insistently demanded by the people of the United States.

During the consideration of the 1936 flood-control legislation and since, we have heard a great deal of planning. Proposed planning has been too theoretical and has been lacking in practical results.

The professional planners advocate the covering of too many proposed activities in one report with the result that we do not receive sufficient definite information to legislate for the specific improvements that are practical and urgently demanded. Many of the so-called related activities are connected with the important activities too remotely. Instead of these remotely related proposals aiding in the initiation of the urgent and important improvements, they confuse the issues and delay or submerge entirely the furnishing of definite information necessary to the enactment of legislation for the actual initiation of projects.

In order for practical results to be obtained, it is necessary for the Congress and its committees to receive reports covering the projects for specific improvements, and giving sufficient definite information on these projects to permit legislation. Remotely related proposals should of course receive the consideration that their importance and priority warrant, but this consideration should not be permitted to submerge entirely the essential considerations of practical results.

Prior to the act of 1936 and since, the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army, under the direction of the Secretary of War, has prepared and submitted to Congress a large number of reports on the improvements of the rivers of the United States and their tributaries for flood control and allied purposes. These reports cover the important and urgent improvements, give these improvements their deserved priority of consideration and at the same time cover related activities to the extent necessary for coordination with the more improvements for flood control and allied purposes. The reports in question give the information necessary for legislation; they_cover practically every drainage basin of any importance in the United States. The lesser tributaries are covered in sufficient detail to formulate many more projects that can be financed at this time. If anything is ever to be done to initiate flood-control works that are urgently demanded by public opinion, now is the time to do it.

The policy of the act of 1936 provided for improvement or participation in the improvement of navigable waters or their tributaries, including the watersheds thereof, for flood-control purposes, if the benefits to whomsoever they accrue are in excess of the estimated costs, and if the lives and social security of the people are otherwise adversely affected. The act provided for investigations of watersheds and measures of run-off and waterflow retardation, and soilerosion prevention on watersheds, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture.

On June 15, 1936, the Mississippi River Flood Control Act was amended to provide for the substitution of the Eudora floodway for the Boeuf floodway and to provide for the substitution of the Morganza floodway for the East Atchafalaya floodway, and for other

purposes.

Following the record Ohio flood of 1937 which exceeded all previous gages by some 9 feet at Cincinnati, Louisville and Paducah, as provided by law, the House Committee on Flood Control on February 10, 1937, adopted a resolution calling upon the Chief of Engineers to review in the light of the flood of 1937 reports previously submitted on the Ohio River and its tributaries, and on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and to submit plans for protective works to prevent a

recurrence of the 1937 and previous record floods, including the floods of 1935 and 1936.

The Chief of Engineers, in response to the said resolution, submitted to the President of the United States, to be transmitted to the Committee on Flood Control of the House of Representatives, a comprehensive flood-control plan for the Ohio and the lower Mississippi Rivers on April 6, 1937, and the President on April 28, 1937 transmitted the said report to the House Committee on Flood Control. His letter and the report were published as House Flood Control Committee Document No. 1, Seventy-fifth Congress, first session, and are herein and generally referred to as the comprehensive report.

As stated in his letter, the President requested that the consideration of the full report be continued until the present session of the Congress. Hearings were conducted on June 7-11 and June 15-18, 1937, and these hearings were limited to priority and emergency projects in the Ohio River Basin. An act was passed on August 28, 1937, authorizing the appropriation of $24,877,000 for the construction of levees, flood walls, and drainage structures, in the Ohio River Basin, the projects to be selected in the order of their priority by the Chief of Engineers, with the approval of the Secretary of War, in accordance with the said comprehensive report.

At the time of the passage of the said act of August 28, 1937, it was understood, in accordance with the request of the President, that the consideration of the comprehensive report would be continued until the present session of the Congress and that during the present session the hearings that resulted in the passage of the said act of August 28, 1937, would be continued, and that hearings would be conducted on the entire comprehensive report, with such modifications as the Chief of Engineers desired to submit, that hearings would be conducted on additional reports covering other flood-control projects and that hearings would be conducted upon all amendments to existing flood-control acts and upon all pending projects for flood control.

The House Committee on Flood Control conducted hearings from March 30 to April 19, 1938, and they are entitled "Comprehensive Flood Control Plans." They cover substantially all of the drainage basins of the United States. All advocates of flood-control projects were heard. These hearings constitute complete information respecting flood control in the drainage areas of the United States.

It was announced that at the conclusion of the hearings the House Committee on Flood Control would formulate a bill and that this bill would include only the plans and projects recommended by the Chief of Engineers and that the committee would undertake to authorize the initiation and approval of projects estimated to cost approximately $300,000,000.

The Congress will understand only too well what an enormous task has confronted the Flood Control Committee. We have had before us a great many more worthy flood-control projects than can be authorized and financed at this time. We have been well nigh overwhelmed with demands for legislation that would permit the initiation of projects which it has been impossible to initiate due to the inability of local interests to provide the cooperation required by the 1936 Flood Control Act. The committee has solved the problem in a way that it believes to be fair and equitable to the States and local subdivisions concerned as well as to the United States.