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Mr. MORGAN. And, coming to the final conclusion of this matter, you are willing to rest your case on the findings of the Engineers of the War Department?

Mr. JARMAN. Yes.

Mr. LYON. You do oppose giving them a grant of 10,000 cubic feet in perpetuity?

Mr. JARMAN. Absolutely.

Mr. LYON. In other words, you would decrease the amount of diversion as they can build disposal plants, finally getting to the transportation system?

Mr. JARMAN. Yes.

Mr. MORGAN. Going a little further from that point, you are in favor of the diversion of such water as will maintain a transportation waterway?

Mr. JARMAN. Yes; and with the protection

Mr. MORGAN (interposing). Yes; that is implied.

Mr. JARMAN. That statement brings this situation: Here are engineers who say that a waterway can be carried down there with only a thousand cubic feet of water, with the locks. There are others who say that a waterway can be created with 4,167 cubic feet without the locks. Others say that they want 10,000 cubic feet per second. Now, they want a waterway. The only objection to the 10,000 cubic feet from that statement, if the waterway can be maintained there at 9 feet, is the cost of it is it not? And the deprivation of Chicago of hydroelectric power. Those are the only two objections to it, are they not? There can not be any other, as I see it. I say that the hydroelectric power is not entitled to consideration against the health of the people in the Illinois River Valley. If the War Department could say that they could create a proper waterway, not with 1,000 feet, but can with 4,167 cubic feet, all right, and if you protect the valley, all right, we say; but there they say it can be maintained without locks. Now, that is all they can have, a waterway without locks; but they come back and say

Mr. MORGAN (interposing). Is not the question you complain of very largely an engineering proposition? And you are willing to submit the proposition to Army Engineers?

Mr. JARMAN. Not at all. This bill provides for 10,000 cubic feet. per second in perpetuity.

Mr. MORGAN. I am not speaking about this bill; I am speaking about the finding of the Engineers as to the amount of water necessary for a canal.

Mr. JARMAN. But what is the objection, if you have a canal that has 4,167 cubic feet, a canal of that size, and if their sewage is taken care of there would be no objection in the world, except we want this hydroelectric power. We have taken care of your sewage, we are building the waterways of 9-foot depth, and the only thing they are deprived of is the electric power.

Mr. MORGAN. And that is your statement, you are in favor of a transportation canal to take care of the sewage disposal and the additional development is incidental, to whatever extent it might be? Mr. JARMAN. Yes. I am going to ask your indulgence to state my position on that, as I have it written here. [Reading:]

I recognize that this Congress must look at this matter from five viewpoints or with reference to five questions: First, the navigation of the Great Lakes;

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second, the navigation waterways from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River; third, the Chicago sewage sanitation; fourth, the Illinois River Valley sanitation and fish industry; fifth, the damages to and destruction of property in the Illinois River Valley.

Now, those are the five viewpoints from which this committee must look at this proposition, as I see it.

The CHAIRMAN. Nobody has told us the acreage of land affected by these floods.

Mr. JARMAN. I put that in the record before you came in. There are 400,000 acres of land along this river subject to overflow. There are 200,000 acres of that land in certain districts.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the average value and what is the average rental value of the land affected?

Mr. JARMAN. We have that in the record. These districts vary in size from 400 acres to 12,500 acres. The cost of the construction of these districts is about $18,875,000, about $95 an acre. The value of this land now is about $30,000,000. The value of the crop in normal times is worth yearly $500,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN. That answers my question.

Mr. MANSFIELD. One question in regard to damage. Has this damage that you speak of occurred altogether in the unprotected districts or a portion of it where you have your protected districts?

Mr. JARMAN. I was coming to that. There are 43 districts along this river, as I have told you. In the spring of 1922 in 17 of those districts the levees were broken and the water overflowed and destroyed the dwellings and outhouses and barns and stock and corn and wheat and corncribs and everything else in those districts. Seventeen of those districts were destroyed.

Mr. LYON. What was the highest stage of the river that year; what was the rise of the river between low water and high water?

Mr. JARMAN. At Beardstown I think it was 25 feet. That has occurred from year to year in these different districts, not to that extent. The climax of the damage from flood was reached in April, 1922, when there were over $2,000,000 of property destroyed along this valley. That was in April, 1922.

Mr. PEAVEY. Did anybody ever collect any damages for that? Mr. JARMAN. No; none at all. They would not pay a cent because, they said, it was an act of God.

Mr. HULL. May I ask you a question?

Mr. JARMAN. Čertainly.

Mr. HULL. In my bill I have provided for the sanitary district to build levees high enough and wide enough to take care of the water so that there would not be any damage, and also to pump the water out from the farms. That is also provided for. Now, I want to ask you, because I think you agree with me that we want a deep waterway and want to take care of the sewage proposition-because we will be stunk out, as you say, if we do not-we want the farmer to be taken care of by levees high enough, and pumping stations put in, and everything; and if that were done, would you oppose the bill? Mr. JARMAN. Yes; as it is drawn, positively.

Mr. HULL. I am saying that the Congress should do it, not the bill. I mean if Congress decides that they will put in the bill, make the sanitary district put in the requirements for the water, then would you oppose it?

Mr. JARMAN. The gentleman asks me

Mr. HULL. Yes; won't you just answer that?
Mr. JARMAN. Yes; that question; yes.

Mr. HULL. You would oppose it anyhow? You would oppose it, even if we were to take care of the land?

Mr. JARMAN. As you ask that question, yes; but I did not finish stating my position.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you start, Mr. McLaughlin, a Member of Congress wants to present a matter very briefly.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES C. MCLAUGHLIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman, I represent a Michigan district located on Lake Michigan, where the people are vitally interested in this proposition; and at the suggestion of yourself and Members of the House representing Michigan there was a meeting yesterday of the delegation from Michigan, at which every Member was present. Everyone expressed himself forcibly to the same effect, of opposition to and disapproval of this proposed legislation; and I was directed to prepare a statement embodying the views of the Members, to be signed by them.

I prepared that statement, but I have not had time to get the signatures of the Members. I ask permission now to read the statement, and later to file it with the signatures of the Members of the House.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to hear you.

Mr. BOYCE. Will you file your statement for the record?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You will file it with the original signatures? Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes. And this does not include any argument. It is simply a statement of our opposition and the basis upon which our opinions are based.

Addressing this committee I say:

The COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS,

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 20, 1924.

House of Representatives.

GENTLEMEN: The undersigned. Representatives of the State of Michigan in the Congress, hereby respectfully express to you our disapproval of and opposition to H. R. 5475 (the Hull bill), and to all bills having for their purpose the authorization by the Congress of diversion of water from Lake Michigan by the State of Illinois and the Sanitary District of Chicago.

We submit that it is very doubtful indeed if any authority exists, even in the Congress, to authorize or permit diversion of water from the Great Lakes for any use or purpose calculated or the effect of which will be materially to lower their levels and thereby interfere with their natural and proper use for navigation purposes, which is and always must be the primary, if not the sole, purpose for which the water of said lakes may legally be used; that if it shall be determined that authority rests with and can legally be exercised by the Congress to permit diversion of water from said lakes, or its use for any purpose other than navigation, there can not be, certainly ought not to be, assumption or exercise of such authority without the express consent and approval of the State or States whose rights are involved and whose interests are or may be affected, which consent or approval has never been asked nor given by or in behalf of any of such States; that diversion of water from Lake Michigan by the State of Illinois and the Sanitary District of Chicago has for several years caused, and now causes, material lowering of the level of the water of said lake and of others of the Great Lakes, thereby embarrassing and making, diffi

cult, dangerous, and unduly expensive the navigation of said lakes, particularly the channels connecting the same and of harbors which have been constructed and are maintained along the shores, and if diversion of water as proposed by these bills be permitted, the business and property of the people of the State of Michigan-in fact, of the entire country-in addition to the inconvenience, damage, and expense already sustained, will suffer immense and irreparable loss.

ROBERT H. CLANCY.
EARL C. MICHENER.
ARTHUR B. WILLIAMS.
JOHN C. KETCHAM.

CARL E. MAPES.

GRANT M. HUDSON.

LOUIS C. CRAMTON.

BIRD J. VINCENT.

JAMES C. MCLAUGHLIN.
ROY O. WOODRUFF.
FRANK D. SCOTT.

W. FRANK JAMES.
CLARENCE J. MCLEOD.

This has the approval of the entire delegation of 13 Members from the State of Michigan.

The CHAIRMAN. And you will be good enough to obtain the signatures and then file it.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. We are deeply interested in this matter. My district extends approximately 125 miles along the shore of Lake Michigan, and there are several harbors, some of them the largest and best on the Great Lakes. Two are great car-ferry ports, one of them-I believe I am speaking correctly-is the largest in the world. All of them have been constructed and are maintained by the Federal Government.

I will say also that reliable reports are all to the effect that diversion of water now going on, from Lake Michigan at Chicago, has materially lowered the level of the lakes and to a point never before known, and that has made more shallow the water in many of the harbors. And as I have said, has made dangerous the passage of those harbors. The annual report of the Great Lakes Carriers' Association shows that the level of water of the Great Lakes is lower than ever before, due directly to the diversion of water in Chicago, and that the great freight carrying ships have found it necessary to carry light loads, so that they can get over shallow places, made shallow by this diversion of water.

The gentlemen of this committee are familiar, of course, with the magnitude of the traffic on the Great Lakes. Those who have not given particular attention to it have little, if any, conception of that travel and traffic. No similar area in the world supplies such an amount of business or the character of business in importance and value as this area served by the Great Lakes.

The CHAIRMAN. I would say, as illustrating that, two things; first, last year was the greatest year in the history of the Great Lakes. This business has been growing in spite of the difficulties, not by reason of them but in spite of them; and, second, one of the Detroit steamship companies is going to put the greatest passenger vessel in the world on the Great Lakes this coming season.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. The Detroit River is one of the greatest waterways in the world. Last year vessels, not scows or sand-suckers or craft of that kind, but real ships, passed the city of Detroit and did business there in such numbers that during the 73 months of navigation if the ships passing through and touching at Detroit had been equidistant from one another, one would have passed there and been at the city of Detroit every 15 minutes during the entire 7

months.

As an indication of the amount of traffic carried on at the Soo Locks, in the St. Marys River, connecting, as you know, Lake Superior and Lake Huron, the amount of business transacted there was 91 million tons of freight, whereas at the Suez Canal there was only 23 million tons, and at the Panama Canal only 19 million

tons.

That is, the tonnage at the Suez Canal and at the Panama Canal together is about 10 million tons less than one-half as much as at the locks of the St. Marys River. And the total freight, as far as I have been able to ascertain, on the Great Lakes was 120 million tons in 1923.

This is a business so large, that those who have given no attention to it, as I have said, have no appreciation of its value or of its magnitude. The boats that are used are among the largest in the world and they need all the water that would be there naturally but for improper diversion at Chicago.

Mr. HULL. The boats that you speak of are running now, are they not?

The CHAIRMAN. Running light.

Mr. HULL. They are running now?

Mr. McLACHLIN. Not now; they run only about 7 months of the year. Navigation will not open for a couple of weeks.

Mr. HULL. But last year they ran all through the season, as you stated, did they not, carrying this freight?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes. There are 7 months of navigation on the Great Lakes and through St. Marys River. Many of the boats on the lower Great Lakes run all the year round. For instance at my home city, Muskegon, there is a line of boats between that city and Chicago also a line of boats to and from Milwaukee running all the year round. The same is true at Ludington, the great carferry port. The same is true at Manistee, also at Frankfort, all in my district. As to those harbors I can speak definitely, but can not speak so well as to the harbors of Lake Erie and Lake Huron.

Mr. HULL. That is what I understood you to say. Suppose this committee should become convinced for the purpose of protecting the sanitary conditions in Chicago it is necessary to permit temporarily a larger diversion of water from Lake Michigan, this amount to be decreased as the city is provided plants to take care of the sewage, would your delegation then oppose a temporary bill of that kind?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I doubt very seriously-the wisdom or safety of an affirmative answer to the question.

The CHAIRMAN. If you will permit me to interpolate, as I understand the protest filed by your delegation, you think the legal question about the right to divert should be settled in the Supreme Court action before congressional action is attempted, and that then you would meet that question of the temporary needs of Chicago until it can provide other means of sewage disposal?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes; you have expressed our opinion on that phase of the question.

Mr. LYON. Then, do I correctly understand that would be the only objection so far as your delegation is concerned, if the Supreme Court should decide that they have a right to divert this water then your delegation would have no objection to a bill allowing the city

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