Mr. REUSS. On the question of domestic water supply, you take issue with the Hoover Commission's recommendations, which are in essence that there is no need for Federal concern on the subject of domestic water supply?

Mr. BINGHAM. Yes.

Mr. REUSS. Later on in your testimony, when you got down to specifics on that, I thought you were saying that you recommended Federal interest in and help on the question of domestic water supply as a part of and incident to a multipurpose project. My question is this: Do you recommend Federal help and intervention in the question of domestic water supply either in connection with a multipurpose project or not and, if so, what kind of Federal help and intervention? Mr. BINGHAM. I believe this: That the mere accident of the fact that a community or area is not located on an interstate stream, and one which, because of its character, is suitable for multipurpose development-that that accident that the community is not located on such a stream under the Federal programs should not prevent that community like other communities from having the Federal Government interest itself in their water supply. So I believe that there should be a comprehensive Federal program on water conservation and development that would be applied in this Nation, irrespective of whether you had an interstate river or a multipurpose project involved.

Mr. REUSS. When you speak of Federal interest in such a noninterstate and nonmultipurpose water supply problem, what do you mean? Research, technical advice, grants, capital costs, operation and maintenance, operation of domestic water facilities, and so forth? I would like to have you spell that out a little more.

Mr. BINGHAM. Well, I think the pattern developed in a particular community or area should be one which is worked out between the Federal agency involved and the local agencies involved. If only one governmental jurisdiction is involved, primarily I think there should be equality in the financial aspects of it.

How the project is operated is a matter that can be negotiated. It depends on whether there is a local agency available to assume the operation.

Mr. REUSS. Let us assume in a given case there is a local agency available. Let us assume a truly metropolitan water supply agency in a given city, and let us assume further it is not on any interstate river. Let us assume further that the water supply is not in connection with a hydroelectric development or a navigation project. What do you mean by Federal equalization in such a case?

Mr. BINGHAM. I think the Federal Government ought to assume equal responsibility in the financing in that situation as it does-and as we recommend here it assume responsibility-in multipurpose projects for water supply facilities. I think it should in the case of the community you mentioned, where multipurpose development is not involved. The main equalization should be in the field of financing. I think the Federal Government should assume that responsibility on an equal basis. There is no particular problem there. It has already been done in the field of roads and highways, and I think that the pattern is the same.

Mr. REUSS. It has been done in the field of interstate highways by and large?

Mr. BINGHAM. They build roads right out to the mailbox just the

same.

Mr. REUSS. I want to try in the beginning to get your proposal here. You would recommend the Federal Government bear the entire cost of local domestic and industrial water supply facilities, whether it is interstate or intrastate, and whether it is multipurpose or just water supply?

Mr. BINGHAM. Congressman, you just cannot have a discriminatory policy where you do a job for some and not for others. I think the problem, for example, of metropolitan New York City, or Los Angeles and take those two areas-will point it up. I understand New York City has had to get its water from its own reservoirs. It has expended enormous sums of money. The city of Los Angeles, on the other hand, to a large extent, in the beginning, at least, secured its water from federally developed reservoirs. I think there was some obvious discrimination in that.

Mr. REUSS. And you would solve that discrimination by undertaking Federal responsibility for all domestic and industrial water supplies everywhere?

Mr. BINGHAM. Where it has to do with streams—navigable streams under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. You have to draw a line somewhere, Congressman. You cannot go and drill wells in people's back yards. However, I think that we have to coordinate our water problem even on small rivers. We have rivers in Tennessee which are not involved multipurpose development, but I assure you they are the source of water for most of Tennessee, or most of the people of Tennessee.

I will assure you of something else. You can go out on one of these small rivers which are not suitable for multipurpose development, on any August day, and you can put three irrigation rigs in at one time and dry up the water supply for 5 or 6 communities, with 25,000 people in them, in an afternoon. I do not think that the Federal Government should spend $600 million on the Cumberland River on multipurpose development and ignore the problems of the Duck River, on which the problems are just as substantial but mainly have to do with water supply for irrigation and for industrial and domestic and agricultural water supply.

I believe that in the small watershed development program some effort at equalization is already attempted.

Mr. JONES. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. REUSS. Yes.

Mr. JONES. You know the House passed a bill which provided for the lending of up to $5 million in the nonreclamation States, without interest, for the development of irrigation and industrial and municipal water supplies for 50 years. Do you think that that would be beneficial to this area?

Mr. BINGHAM. That is extremely beneficial. Of course, I have not been primarily concerned with water supply, and I do not think I am capable of offering a solution on this problem today. Apparently the Hoover Commission worked at it and spent $470,000. I think they spent it for a road map when they knew the point that they were going to, and there was no need of their spending the money. I think it was a great waste because they could have tried to understand and solve

the water problems of the country instead of plotting a means of ignoring the water problems.

But I think the principle of equal treatment and equal financial benefit ought to be applied in this water resource field insofar as possible.

Mr. REUSS. What would you do about the case of city X, let us say, where it has developed a domestic and industrial water supply not in connection with any multipurpose project, and not in connection with any navigable stream under the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers, but by other methods-nonnavigable streams underground water, lakes, the Great Lakes, or whatever it is? City X has, by dint of raising the money locally, and by a peculiar type of regressive tax system, spent Y millions of dollars in the past 5 years developing such a domestic water supply.

Should the Federal Government reimburse that city for the money it has spent, obtained out of the hides of its real estate taxpayers?

Mr. BINGHAM. I do not think we can adopt any reimbursement policy. That was tried in the highway field, as you know, in order to reimburse the States for toll roads and interstate highways, and so on, and it was rejected by the Congress. I do not think reimbursement would be successful because that has always proven difficult. I think we ought to try to start with a clean slate, if we can.

My view would be that already the Federal Government is aiding communities in water supply projects through the Watershed Act. The Federal Government is doing that through the Controlled Facilities Agency of the Housing and Home Finance Administration, to loan funds to the municipalities for water supply, as you know. Mr. REUSS. For research into how to get water supply.

Mr. BINGHAM. Well, they can loan funds for water systems, including water supplies.

Mr. JONES. I believe the maximum is $250,000 on that.

Mr. BINGHAM. Yes. And there is a maximum authorized loan of $100 million, I believe, and it is mainly for communities under 10,000 population.

Mr. REUSS. What I am getting at really is if you loan a community money for local water supply, it has to pay it back, and can pay it back only out of the existing state of things, and only out of money it raises through taxes, which means very largely through the real estate tax, which is the greatest resource of local government.

Are you suggesting that the Federal Government should contribute cash grants to pay the difference between the cost of local water supply and what the community will be able to get by the use of user charges for its water? That is a very fundamental question.

Mr. BINGHAM. I thing that ought to be seriously considered by the Congress. There comes a point where problems become national rather than local. When the point comes I do not think that the Federal Government can very gracefully or on a sound political basis do the same service for some that it denies for others. I do not think you can carry the mail, for example, for the poor and let the rich carry their own, or any other category. You have to carry the mail for everybody.

I believe water has become a national problem and some means of giving equalized treatment to every community in the Nation ought to be considered by the Congress. I do not know exactly how it can

be done. I would be happy to try to find out and make some suggestions, but I think it is a national problem.

Mr. REUSS. But you think it cannot be now said that there is no problem here and the Federal Government need not think about it? Mr. BINGHAM. No, sir. The problem in Tennessee is just as severe on the rivers that are not subject to multipurpose development as it is on rivers that are.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Lipscomb?

Mr. LIPSCOMB. Could you tell the subcommittee how you feel that the Hoover Commission's recommendations will halt or stop the lower Cumberland River project?

Mr. BINGHAM. Well, apparently their criteria-that is, that some private utility has got to be brought into the picture-I understand that probably the skids would be greased on the lower Cumberland if we could just work KU-Kentucky Utilities-into it somehow. We had some conferences with people in the upper Cumberland area about the upper Cumberland development some months ago and a proposal was made there at a meeting that the Kentucky Utilities be brought into this thing in one of these partnership dams. Frankly, I do not think I doubt if the private utilities are going to put up or can put up their share of the money for these projects.

I think that will be one definite block on the matter. I think some of these dams will be marginal, particularly on the upper Cumberland and on the tributaries, if you limit the calculation of benefits just to flood control, navigation, and power. I think if you do not put in water supply for both industrial and domestic purposes, and if you do not put recreation in as one of the allowable benefits to be calculated in seeing whether it is economically feasible, that some of those dams will fall out.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. Is there any specific Hoover Commission recommendation that you do refer to when you talk about the halting of the lower Cumberland project?

Mr. BINGHAM. The testimony had to do with the 10 dams on the Cumberland River. I think if any one of the dams can slip through the network which the Commission has set up it would be probably the lower Cumberland River, but the testimony referred to the 10 dams and said that it would halt development on the river as we visualize it, that is, on the construction of 10 additional dams on the river over a period of time.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. When you speak of bringing a halt to the future development of the river you speak of 10 dams and not just the lower Cumberland River?

Mr. BINGHAM. I think if any dam can get through it would be the lower Cumberland.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. What is the estimated cost of the development of the river?

Mr. BINGHAM. $627 million.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. How much has been developed there today?

Mr. BINGHAM. It is on the order of about $225 million, and there are some $400 million yet to go.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. So the $627 million represents the total amount Mr. BINGHAM. In other words, it is about one-third developed. Mr. LIPSCOMB. On page 4 of your statement you mentioned that you are right here in the heart of these two rivers and yet the area

does not have enough water for irrigation and for many kinds of manufacturing and processing operations, or even enough water for ordinary domestic use on the farm and in the city. Why is that?

Mr. BINGHAM. Congressman, along those communities and those farms located on the Cumberland and Tennessee there is plenty of water for every purpose. However, as I pointed out, most areas of the State, and particularly in the middle Tennessee Valley and upper Cumberland Plateau they are not adjacent to these rivers and cannot by pipes or otherwise get the water from these rivers. They are dependent on underground and surface supplies from small streams and small rivers. These other areas which cannot reach the water supply of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers have been having very serious water shortages, in Tennessee particularly, for the last 4 years.

We have therefore in Tennessee established a water resources commission this year by our legislature, to try to develop some means of assuring water supply for most of Tennessee, which does not have access to these two rivers.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. Has the State of Tennessee ever bonded itself or invested any money in trying to pull this water from the river into these areas which do not have an adequate water supply?

Mr. BINGHAM. No, sir.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. You mentioned in your testimony something about Los Angeles-which I am very interested in. Would you mind repeating what you understood about Los Angeles?

Mr. BINGHAM. Well, under cross-examination, I understood that in the beginning Los Angeles got a good share of its water from federally constructed projects in that area. I understand that. Whereas New York City has gotten its water mainly from its own reservoirs.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. About 50 years ago Los Angeles went up to the Mono Basin, at least 50 years ago, to start their water supply system.

Mr. BINGHAM. Of course, I know they have invested maybe some of their own funds, but as I understood it, there are 2 or 3 Federal projects that were built, and I do not know exactly when, which supplied a good share of the water supply of Los Angeles in that general

area.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. Of course, being very partial I think there is a good pattern up there that other States could well take cognizance of. They started in over 50 years ago to solve their water problems. That solution is not adequate at the present time and they are now in the process of looking into bringing water from the northern part of the State into the southern part.

Mr. BINGHAM. Apparently, Los Angeles being a water deficient area, the Federal Government started to enter the field at about the same time the city started to do it.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. The State legislature has already started to appropriate money to solve this on a statewide basis. They are investing their money to bring this water down from the Feather River and the Trinity River into the metropolitan area of Los Angeles and into the city of San Francisco. We are doing it with State funds at the present time, although there is a controversy as to whether the State or the Federal Government should participate in the program.

Mr. BINGHAM. I think, Congressman, you will find in the country as a whole all sorts of policies. Since there is no national policy to provide water, of course local and State governments are using every de

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