Nothing could be further from the truth. The three-party contract just referred to gives the flood-control district the right to use, for 15 years, half of the capacity of the Morris Reservoir, estimated not to exceed 17,500 acre-feet, for flood-control purposes during the storm season. There is no reason to suppose that this right will be renewed.

By the same contract, the San Gabriel Valley Protective Association is given the right to use 50 percent of the reservoir capacity for conservation purposes (subject to the flood-control district's right to use the same space for flood-control purposes during the storm seasons), decreasing at the rate of 10 percent every 6 years. Thus, the flood-control district's rights in the Morris Reservoir terminate in 15 years, and those of the protective association in 30 years.

Furthermore, while the four existing dams, San Gabriel Nos. 1 and 2, Morris, and Santa Fe, regulate the run-off from 236 square miles of the San Gabriel watershed, or 43 percent of the area tributary to the Whittier Narrows, there is another tributary area of 316 square miles, or 57 percent, over which the four dams' exercise no control whatever. This is the area of greatest flood hazard to Long Beach and other communities on the coastal plain, although it should not be overlooked that the regulated discharge from the four dams above-mentioned must also pass through the Whittier Narrows and add to the flood hazard of the area below.

Again, the flood hazard is not static but is continually on the increase. Every bit of land which is put under an impervious covering, whether it be a new roof, a paved yard, or road, and every new storm drain discharging into the Rio Hondo or the San Gabriel River north of the Whittier Narrows, as well as every forest fire that denudes a portion of the watershed of its cover, adds to the flood hazard. Meanwhile, the capacity of existing dams is being reduced by silting during every major storm. A former chief engineer of the Los Angeles County floodcontrol district stated that "after a normal watershed cover has been denuded, erosion rates will increase from 50 to 100 times that with undisturbed vegetation." San Gabriel flood-control dams Nos. 1 and 2 have lost more than 11,000 acre-feet .from this cause, or about 17 percent of their total initial capacity, since they were constructed 9 to 11 years ago. A series of small dams designed to retard the flood flows from nine small watersheds along the south slope of the San Gabriel Mountains tributary to the Whittier Narrows, which had an initial aggregate capacity of 6,717 acre-feet, have lost 30 percent of their combined capacity through silting.

WATER CONSERVATION

So far, this brief has dealt with the subject of flood control, inasmuch as the Army engineers are charged with the construction of flood-control works. However, the conservation of water is of secondary importance to flood control in this region only because it begins with flood control. If there is no control of floods, there can be little conservation of flood flows.

The metropolitan area of southern California has been carved out of a desert. Without more water than nature provides it will revert to a desert. Only 1.4 percent of the waters of the State of California originate south of the Tehachapi Mountains, while more than 40 percent of the population of the State-perhaps as much as 45 percent-is located in this scantily watered region. Consequently,

it is of the highest importance that every possible drop of floodwater be conserved and put to beneficial use.

Nature has provided this area with two great underground storage basins, one above and one below the Whittier Narrows. Anticlinal folds of the earth's crust form the lower lips of these basins and act as barriers to hold the underground waters back.

The upper San Gabriel Basin is like a tilted saucer or bowl, the lower edge of which is a partially eroded fold connecting the Puente Hills on the east and the Merced Hills on the west. The lower basin is much flatter and is formed by another fold which passes through Dominguez and Signal Hills, Anaheim Landing, and other high points. Both basins contain great bodies of absorptive sands and gravels which store large quantities of water.

Both basins are supplied to some extent by direct rainfall, but chiefly by the run-off from the areas lying to the north of them. The capacity of the upper San Gabriel Basin to retain water is limited by its rather high tilt. Percolating waters are forced to the surface at the Whittier Narrows by the constriction which occurs at that point in both width and depth, and these rising waters become a portion of the supply of the lower or Coastal Plain Basin.

It is from this Coastal Plain Basin that the city of Long Beach derives most of its water supply. During each of the last two fiscal years, the city pumped nearly 23,000 acre-feet for municipal use, from 25 wells, widely scattered in the area north and east of Signal Hill.

Most of the replenishment of the underground water supply of the Coastal Plain occurs in the so-called forebay area, lying between Downey and the Whittier Narrows. Beginning in the neighborhood of Downey, clay beds appear, which become more numerous and thicker as the coast line is approached, and which materially interfere with percolation of surface water, and ultimately cut it off altogether. The fact that the area south of Downey was artesian for a long time, and that artesian flows still appear in portions of it during or following seasons of high precipitation is due to these clay beds, which form an effective artesian cap, preventing percolation upward or downward.

In 1895, a well widely known as the Big Bouton was drilled east of the Los Angeles Terminal Railroad, now a part of the Union Pacific system, and slightly north of the site of Carson Street. This well came in, according to authenticated records, with a pressure of 35 pounds per square inch. This is equal to the weight of a column of water 80 feet high.

The Big Bouton well flowed for the last times in the winters of 1915 and 1916. Since then, the static water level has steadily declined until, on August 19, 1946, it reached a low of 115 feet below the ground surface, or nearly 49 feet below sea level-a drop in combined pressure and water levels of 195 feet in the last 51 years.

In the meantime, the 1946 pumping levels in some of the Long Beach wells show the following depths below sea level: Citizens Well No. 5, 81 feet in September; Alamitos Well No. 9, 94 feet in September; Commission Well No. 1, nearly 94 feet in October. These wells are rather widely spaced.

It is this downward trend in water levels, which is taking place all over the Coastal Plain in varying degrees, that makes the city of Long Beach so insistent upon the need of water conservation in conjunction with flood control, especially as we are now nearing the end of an 11-year wet cycle and must look forwardto the occurrence of a dry cycle in the near future-a cycle of less than average precipitation.

We are also faced with a very definite threat of sea-water intrusion if this trend is not soon stopped. This is because the "barrier" which accompanies the Newport-Inglewood fault zone and which forms the southwesterly lip of the Coastal Plain Basin is not impervious.

Six or seven years ago the United States Geological Survey was brought in to make a study of this danger. Their work has disclosed that 9 miles out of 27 along the crest of the anticlinal fold forming the "barrier" have been eroded away to depths of as much as 150 feet below sea level. Subsequently, these gaps have been filled by recent detrital material which is permeable and capable of passing water in either direction.

Therefore, the only means of protecting the fresh water supplies of the Coastal Plain from ocean water intrusion is to maintain a head of fresh water a few feet greater than the salt water head. In other words, the sea can be kept out only by maintaining a liquid dam of fresh water in these eroded areas.

Under such conditions, the depth to which water can be safely withdrawn from the Coastal Plain is limited, and everything indicates that the water levels in the Long Beach wells are very close to that limit now. Only the fact that these wells lie a few miles back from the ocean have protected them this long, by permitting recovery of the water levels to sea level or above before reaching the barrier.

Consequently, anything that tends to increase the percolation of flood flows into the gravels of the Coastal Plain is of the utmost importance to the city of Long Beach. The engineering staff of the Long Beach Water Department has long realized that it does not dare take from the city wells enough water to supply the city's full requirements. If that were done, it would precipitate the very thing we are trying to avoid-an invasion of sea water.

Long Beach is a member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It, therefore, has a second water supply available. As a matter of fact. Long Beach purchased nearly 5,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1945, and almost 9,600 acre-feet in the year ending June 30, 1946, at costs approximating $75,000 and $144,000, respectively.

However, the local water supply, practically all of which comes from the underground waters of the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo, is far superior in quality and

much softer than the Colorado River water and is produced at less than half its cost. Long Beach not only cannot afford to stand idly by and see this local supply reduced in quantity, but must make every possible effort to see it augmented.

Six alternative plans are being presented by the Army engineers to accomplish flood control at the Whittier Narrows. Three are for flood-retarding dams of approximately equal capacity, differing from one another chiefly as to site and cost. Three are for all-channel projects which involve the widening and improvement of the existing San Gabriel Channel from the Narrows to the ocean, without any retarding dam. The effect of any of the all-channel plans would be to speed the flood waters to the ocean as rapidly as possible.

As between the two kinds of project, the Long Beach Water Department endorses the flood-retarding dam and basin, and unalterably opposes the all-channel plan. Its engineering staff is convinced that the retarding dam will provide superior flood protection combined with maximum water conservation at, in the case of plan A, minimum cost.

The Board of Water Commissioners of the city of Long Beach has officially endorsed plan A in a resolution adopted December 5, 1946, and already filed with the district engineer. This is the fifth time that the board has officially approved substantially this same plan.

Plan A is not only the most economical of the six plans presented, but it also preserves and utilizes the spreading grounds on both the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel. It preserves existing percolation and may be operated to increase it, without detriment to the area above the dam.

The opponents of the retarding dam have advocated plan F or something similar to it, contending that it will best serve the Coastal Plain from a conservation standpoint. This is not true. As has already been shown, even with a wide, open-bottom channel of the type provided in plan F, there would be almost no percolation of storm waters outside the forebay area. Granting that there might be some increase of percolation in the forebay area of such a San Gabriel Channel, the far greater percolation on the Rio Hondo side would be largely or completely lost, and the result would be less percolation than now occurs, instead of more. The opposition to the Whittier Narrows Dam centers in the city of El Monte. This is a relatively small city of approximately 6,500 population and an area of some 700 or 800 acres. However, the leaders of the opposition purport to speak for the so-called Greater El Monte area, a region of indefinite boundaries in which they claim a population of some 45,000. Whatever the size and population of the area, the fact remains that it lies in comparative safety above the Whittier Narrows. It has acquired this position of security by reason of the construction of the four dams on the San Gabriel River already mentioned herein. Furthermore, it has no reason to fear a shortage of underground water.

In other words, opponents of the Whittier Narrows retarding basin have secured flood control and water conservation for themselves, and they would now deny one or both to their neighbors on the Coastal Plain.

Against the alleged population of 45,000 in the Greater El Monte area of indefinite size, there are at least 250,000 people on the Coastal Plain, occupying close to 50,000 acres, with an assessed valuation of well over $50,000,000, who are subject to severe flood hazard, and another 250,000 in immediately adjacent communities who would be greatly inconvenienced by the inevitable loss of bridges and highways and disruption of railways, communications and utilities, in the event of a severe flood. The America doctrine of the greatest good for the largest number certainly demands the construction of the Whittier Narrows Dam. The opponents of the dam have at various times based their chief arguments on various premises which were subsequently abandoned. They started with the claim that the dam would be built on a foundation of quicksand. At one time they based a large part, if not the major part, of their opposition, on the claim that the construction of the dam would raise the already high water levels under the city of El Monte-a claim that cannot be substantiated, due to the short periods of time that water would be retained.

At present, their chief claim seems to be that they need the reservoir site for future expansion. Part of the site is unfit and even dangerous for residential purposes and such use should be forbidden by law.

As for El Monte's need of expansion, comparison might well be made with the situation of Long Beach, where expansion is prevented on the south by the Pacific Ocean, on the west by the city of Los Angeles, and by large land holdings, and on the north, in part, by the city of Compton. Even with the establishment of the proposed Whittier Narrows retarding basin to the south, El Monte will still be able to expand in three directions.

There has been much vague talk by the opponents of the dam, of social values and benefits that ought to be considered. We know of no social values and benefits which outweigh the value of human life, and human lives are at stake on the Coastal Plain.

Mr. WELCH. I neglected to bring to your attention the fact that Congressman Bramblett had to leave and he requested me to secure permission of the committee to file for the record a statement favoring the program and particularly as it refers to the Eleventh Congres sional District.

Mr. ENGEL. That permission is granted. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT BY ERNEST K. BRAMBLETT, MEMBER OF CONGRESS

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, Congressman Welch, my California colleague, has secured for me your permission to file a statement on floodcontrol conditions in our State. I deeply appreciate this opportunity to bring this very urgent matter to your attention.

First, I want to concur with the statements made before the committee by California engineers, who are thoroughly conversant with our problems. The need for flood control, water conservation, and irrigation in California are at the present time without parallel in the history of our State. In my district there are several problems awaiting solution, and they readily can be classified as being very grave emergencies.

In the counties of Santa Barbara and Ventura the water problem is such that it has been necessary to impose severe rationing measures for all users. The continued lack of rain and the natural dryness of the area have combined to create a very dangerous situation, especially in regard to fire hazards and the general consumption of water. It is mandatory that communities such as these be given the consideration of the Congress in their attempts to solve these problems.

I am joining with millions of my fellow Californians, and with all those who have given our problems close study, in asking that your committee give full consideration to the great need for relief in a State whose progress and development may be sharply retarded because of water problems which can be solved only with Federal assistance. Thank you.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1948.

WHITTIER NARROWS PROJECT

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD M. NIXON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. ENGEL. Our colleague, Mr. Nixon, would like to make a short statement. We should be glad to hear you at this time, Mr. Nixon. Mr. NIXON. Mr. Chairman. I know the committee will recall the testimony that was heard about 6 months ago on the Whittier Narrows project. The statement that I made at that time is in the record. I do not intend to repeat it now. All I should like to say at this time is to bring the committee up to date on the development since then, pursuant to the suggestion of the Chairman, that the local interests attempt to resolve their differences.

As to that I should like to say that some progress has been made. I would say that the opposing groups are closer together now than they were a year ago, I think due to the efforts that I have exerted and some of the parties on both sides.

However, the district engineer's office in Los Angeles, I understand, has recommended the same plan, plan A, that they recommended last year. Since they have done that, I shall have to reiterate my opposition to plan A at this time as I did last year and for the same reasons. I shall not repeat those reasons, because I know the committee is familiar with the problem.

I would suggest, however, that the postponement of the project will allow additional negotiations to go on looking toward an eventual settlement of the matter in which I know the committee is interested.

I have brought with me today the representative of the opposing groups on the Whittier Narrows program. They filed a statement last year as well with this committee, as you will recall.

Mr. ENGEL. Yes.

Mr. NIXON. I should like him to speak on that for the purpose of reiterating his position, and for the purpose of the record at this time. It will take only half a minute, with your permission, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ENGEL. We shall be glad to hear him at this time.
Mr. NIXON. I should like to present Rev. Dan Cleaveland.

WHITTIER NARROWS PROJECT

STATEMENT OF REV. DAN CLEAVELAND, CHAIRMAN, ANTIWHITTIER NARROWS DAM ASSOCIATION

Mr. CLEAVELAND. Mr. Chairman, I live in El Monte, and am chairman of the Anti-Whittier Narrows Dam Association. As the Congressman has said, we made our statement before this committee at a previous hearing and we will not go into that, but our position is exactly the same as it was at that time. We are still opposed to the Whittier Narrows Dam as proposed under plan A and we are endeavoring to meet with the opposition groups and others who are concerned trusting that we may be able to work out a solution of that problem.

I thank you.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1948.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, I should like to present Mr. Edward Hyatt, the State engineer, on the Pajaro, Salinas, Ventura and Prado projects, and that will conclude our presentation. Mr. ENGEL. We shall be glad to hear him at this time.

PAJARO, SALINAS, VENTURA, AND PRADO PROJECTS, CALIFORNIA STATEMENT OF EDWARD HYATT, STATE ENGINEER OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. HYATT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am State engineer and secretary of the California State Water Resources Board, which board has worked for several months preparing this program. It has been whittled down considerably after many hearings.