Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Mr. RAINEY. The questions involved here are very overwhelming. These questions are the most important submitted to this committee, most far-reaching in their effects, and I do not know of anything that has ever been submitted to any committee of Congress at any time in the history of the United States as important as this question is. All these legal propositions will be cleared up. So it is unnecessary, from my viewpoint, for this committee to pay the slightest attention to that. The decisions that will soon be rendered by the Supreme Court will decide this matter very soon. I think the Supreme Court is going to decide against the diversion, and just as soon as they do that aggravates the difficulties in which this committee and the Congress will find themselves, because if they do decide against the diversion this committee is going to take some action to prevent an epidemic of typhoid in Chicago, which will completely destroy that great city; value of property will decrease hundreds of millions of dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, your suggestion is, Mr. Rainey, that if the Supreme Court should decide adversely to the diversion, then reason and common sense would have to be used in the enforcement of that decree.

Mr. RAINEY. It would, indeed; and the Supreme Court will probably grant a stay until Congress can act by appropriate legislation in the matter. So that is when the difficulties of Congress will commence. Now, no matter what the Supreme Court does in the matter it won't relieve the situation down in my section of Illinois. The CHAIRMAN. This is an entirely different thing.

Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Even if the diversion were limited you would still be threatened with the troubles you have to meet there?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes; typhoid and disease and death and the destruction of our property. So our question is going to with you always. Mr. MANSFIELD. Then you will have to try to abolish the Supreme Court of the United States?

Mr. RAINEY. No; I do not belong to that crowd that believes in abolishing the Supreme Court. Now, may I ask this in this connection? Mr. Madden, my personal friend, is not here. He has introduced a bill, the most careful of all these bills as far as the interest of the Sanitary District of Chicago is concerned, and I want to add that when you grant me the privilege of being heard, you will grant him the privilege also of being heard on his bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; we will be glad to do so.

Mr. SWEET. Would it not be wise to try to arrive at a conclusion as to how much time is going to be consumed?

Mr. HULL. We are trying to crowd them through. We have wit-. nesses here to be heard.

Mr. RAINEY. Will you ask the engineers to pass on Mr. Madden's bill?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. I think the proponents can finish their proof to-day.

Mr. HULL. Yes; we can finish them by 3 o'clock, if you will let us get started.

Mr. BRUCE. And then you will assign Thursday and Friday to the opponents, will you? We are here and we want to get home Sunday if possible.

The CHAIRMAN. Here is the trouble with the situation: We have set hearings on another bill. Perhaps we may be able to do this; to divide the time between the other bill and you, giving each of you half a day. We can sit all day, I think, beginning to-day.

Mr. BRUCE. The proponents have had about 6 hours and our pro- ́ gram calls for practically 10 hours.

The CHAIRMAN. The proponents will probably finish at 3 o'clock to-day and give you the balance of the day, and we shall try to sit until 5 o'clock if we can.

Mr. SWEET. Ask them to put in two or three hours this afternoon, the opposition that they desire to present.

Mr. HULL. Why can not we have a night session? I am willing to sit at night if the rest of you are.

The CHAIRMAN. Let us decide that when we get to 5 o'clock.

Mr. SWEET. I feel that the opposition ought to have sufficient time. The CHAIRMAN. Not only that, but we will be compelled to adjourn because there are parties who have not been notified at all; for instance, the president of the Lake Carriers' Association, Mr. Livingstone, a gentleman 80 years old, who knows as much about this subject as anyone. He is in Miami, Fla., held there by reason of the serious illness of his wife. I told him we would give him an opportunity to get here and be heard. What we want to do immediately is this: If we can give those who are here now the opportunity to be heard, I think that would be well. I would suggest, however, Mr. Bruce, in that connection, that men like yourself, who are familiar with the whole subject and have a deep interest in it, will probably want to be present at the future hearings.

Mr. BRUCE. Yes. Well; that is satisfactory.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you turn out your light, one minute. When Mr. Randolph resumes his testimony I would suggest this: One of the points made on this screen is-Chicago is making $1,000.000 a year out of this water power. Now, that is 25,000 horsepower out of 8,500 cubic feet. I do not know what can be produced in the St. Lawrence stretches, but 250,000 could be produced at Niagara, just 10 times that amount. Of course that is an economic loss of ninetenths of the total at Chicago, of plus probably an equal loss in the St. Lawrence River. Now, I would suggest, because I have not any doubt from what I have been told by these witnesses that they are going to press that objection-that that be met. I am doing this simply to be fair to you, to give you an opportunity to meet what I am sure will be the testimony on the other side. Then there will be the claim that the levels of the lakes have been reduced and that as a consequence, vessels can be loaded only partially, and that the loss in partial loading of lake vessels, owing to the reduction of lake levels through this diversion, runs into millions upon millions of dollars annually. That will be the claim, as I understand it, of those interested in lake navigation. Now, those two questions, it seems to me, are important questions, and I would suggest that if you can you deal with them.

STATEMENT OF MR. ISHAM RANDOLPH-Continued.

Mr. RANDOLPH. May I suggest that it will take about 20 minutes to finish these pictures, and if permitted to run them through without interruption, then I can submit to cross-examination afterwards. (Moving-picture machine was started.)

My first film shows a hydrograph of the levels of the Great Lakes from 1860 up to the present time. Your technical advisers, the Corps of Engineers, has estimated that the effect of the Chicago division, the total effect, is a lowering of 5 inches of the levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron. We are straining to accept that decision and our own engineers, before the canal was started, had estimated that the ultimate effect of the lowering would be somewhere in that neighborhood. [Showing picture.]

The CHAIRMAN. What is the amount? I did not catch the amount. Mr. RANDOLPH. Five and a half inches. This is a hydrograph of the monthly mean surface elevation of the Great Lakes, taken from a recording gauge at Milwaukee, extending from 1860 to date.

The extreme range between high and low, shown in this hydrograph, is 4 feet. There is a record high and a record low, which shows a range of 6 feet, throughout a period running back before this hydrograph.

The improvements to the inner lake channel, the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers, have affected the levels.

I have a report here (pps. 356 and 357 of the Warren report), there is a statement to the effect that the effect of the improvement of the inner lake channels, the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers, 13 years prior to the publication of the report, 13 years prior to 1900, had been to reduce the levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron for more than a foot. The low record shown there, the horizontal line [referring to picture] shown there is in December, 1895. The average stages above that low record are shown by the wiggly lines above the straight line.

Lake Michigan is second from the top and Lake Huron the third. That is the low water 1895 [exhibiting chart on screen]. The low of 1923 is shown at the extreme right. This shows that it got down to the record of 1895 and a little below it.

The Chicago Ship Canal was opened January 17, 1900. At that time the level of the lake was aproximately a foot higher than the low record of 1895. The vertical line shows the date of the opening of the canal and the stage of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron at that time.

In the 34 years the canal has been in operation, the average monthly stages are shown by the hydrograph, and you see there a range of about 3 feet between mean low and mean high, and the average for that 24-year period has been foot and a half above the low record of 1895, before the canal was opened.

I do not mean to argue by this that the flow through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal has resulted in the raising of the lake level, but I do mean to indicate that 5 inches is a minor effect, and that it is matched by major effects that are daily and hourly occurring.

The lake level will rise and fall more than a foot in an hour with a shift of the wind. The levels are influenced solely by the water supply, rainfall, and run-off, and by the outflow, including the loss through evaporation.

These fluctuations are due entirely to natural causes.

The cause.

for the great concern at this time is the present low stage of the water. It is due to some natural causes, to which the low stage of 1895 was due. There is one short reel to follow this, showing the pictures of the development at Niagara Falls.

Now, as to the claim that there has been a loss to shipping as the result of this estimated lowering, theoretical lowering of 53 inches, I have this to say: The regulating depth to lake shipping are found in the interlake channels in the St. Clair and the Detroit Rivers. Those channels have been improved by the Government to the extent of something around $100,000,000. The largest ships that use those channels are the ore-carrying ships. Eighty per cent of the shipping on the Great Lakes is that of the Pittsburgh Steamship Co., which is a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation. Those ships carry the limit of their capacity as defined by the depths in the interlake channels. They can not load to within 6 inches of the same point with marks at bow and amidships and it has been demonstrated by tests that they can not, or at least if they can they do not. The estimated loss of depth of draft of 5 inches is purely theoretical.

If this theoretical loss of draft is applied to the tonnage represented by that depth of draft in all of the boats, and a rate per ton applied to that, you can get a theoretical loss which will run into the millions. It is appaling in theory, but in practice it is inoperative, because they do not load to those depths.

The hourly and daily changes in the depths preclude any possibility of loading to the depth stated.

The power development in Niagara Falls I have not seen; I have not seen the plants there for some years, and so I will not attempt to designate the different plants in the picture. [Exhibiting pictures.]

Taking up the chairman's suggestion as to the camparative value of 10,000 second-feet of flow at Niagara Falls and in the Illinois River between Lockport and the head of navigation on the Illinois River, there is no question but what the potential head between the upper pool level at Niagara Falls and, we will say, the level of the St. Lawrence River at Montreal, will produce a vastly greater amount of power than can be produced in that 63 miles of the Illinois River. I admitted yesterday, or the day before, in response to an interrogation by a gentleman from Canada, that 10,000 second-feet in that reach would develop something like 500,000 horsepower.

The CHAIRMAN. That was the Upper Canadian plant, not the new plant which you have just shown in the last picture?

Mr. RANDOLPH. Yes, that was the one before.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, as I understand, to be abandoned; that proposition is to be abondoned, is it not?

Mr. RANDOLPH. We have no assurance that it is to be abandoned. The plants are now in operation. All of these Canadian plants in operation at Niagara Falls are operating under the provisions of the treaty on boundary waters May 5, 1910. That treaty allotted to

the Canadian side a diversion of 36,000 second-feet, to the American side a diversion of 20,000 second-feet. We claim, and we have the evidence to support that claim, that that apparent unequal diversion of international waters is based upon the allotment to Chicago of the 10,000 second-feet flow. The Canadians, in the plants above the Falls or at the Falls, are now using their total allotment of the treaty of 36,000 second-feet.

The Queenstown-Chippewa plant in operation [picture].

The sixth unit put in operation in December is now using some 9,000 second-feet in excess of the true allotment. The actual measurements of these flows are to be determined by two commissioners, one appointed by the United States and one appointed by Canada. Mr. KEEFER. I do not suppose those statements are accepted as accurate?

Mr. RANDOLPH. The authority for those statements is the Warren report as to the amount of the use of the water at present at the Falls, and also technical publications, and common knowledge as to the use of the volume of water at the Queenstown-Chippewa plant. It is to be determined by these two commissioners that are appointed what the diversion is at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. I would say to the witness in that connection that I have had a very active connection with that question of the amount of water diverted for power purposes at the Falls and this is the present situation, as I have found it. I have personally applied to the Secretary of State on several occasions urging that a temporary treaty be negotiated with Canada for the use of 10,000. additional feet to be used on each side of the river, on the ground that there were two plants, one on the Canadian side and one on the American side, which, owing to improved development. would be abandoned unless we had a new treaty, and which could produce 100,000 horsepower on each side of the river, the equivalent of about 2,000,000 tons of coal a year.

Mr. RANDOLPH. May I ask, will those plants not have to be abandoned if you have a new treaty?

The CHAIRMAN. Of course they will. So I say my information is that so far as the American side is concerned, at least, the purpose of the power companies is to comply strictly with the law and limit themselves to the 20,000 cubic feet which they are authorized to use, and they have proceeded on the theory that Canada would follow a like course and comply with the law, and that is why I have interviewed the Secretary of State on several occasions with regard to this matter.

Mr. RANDOLPH. I do not allege that Canada will not follow the same course. I do allege that Canada is not at the present time following the same course because they are making the diversions at

this time.

The CHAIRMAN. I have no information as to Canada, and it was simply an inference by this interest on the American side that Canada would comply with the law. I have no information and do not profess to have as to the Canadian side, but on the American side I think there is no question that we intend to and will comply strictly and literally with the law.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Let me suggest that your technical adviser, the Corps of Engineers, in the Warren report, made in 1921, sets forth these facts I have given. I can give you the reference if you want it.

« AnteriorContinuar »