and cutting. One-half mile of forest road and three-fourths of a mile of access trail were washed away. Three road bridges were damaged. Replacement of these improvements cost $14,050. Fish life in approximately 25 miles of stream were washed out and suffocated. A 124-foot sheep watering trough was damaged beyond repair, valued at $500. The Victor-Jackson Highway was blocked for 11 hours to all travel. Heavy equipment-dozers, patrol, trucks-and men worked for 4 days before mud-rock deposits were cleared away and culverts replaced, estimated damage $3,500. Union Pacific park tour buses were delayed in their travel with tourists en route to and from Grand Teton Park. A picnic area was completely buried with 6 to 8 feet of mud and rock and another camp area was covered with 6 inches of clay and silt. The municipal supply for the village of Victor was extensively damaged. Sediment was deposited in irrigation canals and several hundred acres of cropland were damaged by floodwater entering canals.

Sediment damages in the watershed include damage to the irrigation system, to crops, cropland, municipal water supplies, and to forest lands. Damages to forest lands include local deposition of coarse debris in picnic areas, access roads, and trails.

Trail Creek channel about 1/2 miles below Victor has been plugged for several hundred feet by coarse gravel, cobbles, and debris. The plug resulted from about 600 feet of channel bank erosion directly upstream. Flood flows deposit sediment on adjacent cropland.

Sediment has contaminated the culinary water supplies for Victor. Head works of culinary supply system were renovated after the 1954 storm to eliminate future sediment damages.

Sediment yield from Trail Creek, including the tributary drainages of Moose and Game Creeks is estimated to be 9 acre-feet or about 13,000 tons per year at the mouth of Game Creek.

Erosion damages in the upper watershed are chiefly confined to the mountainous headwater area. Accelerated erosion in the headwater areas consist predominantly of sheet erosion. There is also significant gully, roadside, and channel erosion producing sediment downstream. Serious erosion damage from surface irrigation occurs on fields of grain and row crop. The continuous erosion of the shallow topsoil would eventually eliminate much of the area as productive cropland. Non-erosive irrigation is difficult because large streams are required to force water across fingers of coarse textured soils intermingled with larger areas of medium textured soils. Field delineation according to soils would result in many irregular shaped fields that are impractical to farm. Sheet erosion from irrigation contributes sediment to the Teton River.

Other erosion damages include floodwater scour on 65 acres of cropland on the flooded area northwest of Victor described under floodwater damages. Local scouring contributes sediment on cropland downslope. Trail Creek and its tributaries are the only source of irrigation water for the land served by the Trail Creek Sprinkler Irrigation Co. Under existing conditions the irrigation water supply is usually in excess of requirements up to the midddle part of June. During this period, water is spread over irrigated lands in excessive amounts to fill the soil profile before water shortages occur. This causes leaching of nutrients, retardation of plant growth, and erosion of top soil.

From the middle of June until the end of the irrigation season, the demand increases while the supply diminishes. Water is delivered to

the users on a continuous-flow basis when it is plentiful, and on a rotation basis as the supply diminishes. When the supply is less than the demand, the older water rights have priority on the use of the water.

Most of the canals are wide and shallow in gravelly soils with fairly high seepage rates. It is estimated that over 15 percent of the water diverted from Trail Creek is lost in the delivery system. As the flow decreases, the seepage losses remain fairly constant. These losses are most critical when the supply is short.

The on-farm irrigation systems are inadequate. Approximately 10 percent of the delivered irrigation water is lost in farm ditches. The most common method of irrigation is wild flooding with efficiencies as low as 10 to 15 percent. Other methods of irrigation include borders and some pump-operated sprinkler systems. The average farm irrigation efficiency is estimated at 20 percent. Due to diminishing flows in July and August, in combination with delivery losses and the low on-farm efficiencies, approximately 90 percent of the irrigated crops suffer from water shortages during an average year.

The factors described above have contributed to inefficient use of land, labor, and capital causing low farm incomes. Consistently low farm incomes have limited the application of needed land improvement measures such as land leveling, improved irrigation systems, and fertilizer application. Even with an improved surface system on the gravelly soils the water shortage in late summer would severely limit farm income.

The Trail Creek watershed project is an excellent example of one type of opportunity in Idaho to use Public Law 566 authority to improve irrigation water use and efficiencies. The work plan provides for a gravity pressure pipeline to enable sprinkler irrigation of 7,200 acres of pressure pipeline to enable sprinkler irrigation of 7,200 acres of cropland near Victor, Idaho. Most of this land is presently irrigated by the customary ditches, canals, and flood irrigation. The improved irrigation distribution system together with the increased on-farm irrigation efficiencies will enable a full-season-long supply or irrigation water to these croplands. At the present time, irrigation efficiencies are estimated to be less than 20 percent. The proposed project will enable overall efficiencies to be increased to at least 60 percent.

The critical floodwater and sediment source areas in the Targhee National Forest will be treated by contour terracing and trenching, gully plugs, and reseeding which will reduce erosion and sediment damage to forest lands, road improvements, campgrounds, and to the irrigated lands below.

The project is estimated to substantially improve the agricultural economy of this designated ARA county. The Teton County RAD Committee has supported this project.

Channel improvement and a dike along a section of Trail Creek below Victor will afford flood protection to 101 acres of cropland. The overall ratio of benefits to cost of all structures is 3.6 to 1. The plan provides for Public Law 566 fund costs of $1,105,000 and other costs of $1,927,000 for a total project cost of $3,032,587.

Mr. Chairman, I am very familiar with this area and know that this project will aid substantially and I would appreciate your favorable action.

The CHAIRMAN. You would agree, would you not, that the Wyoming project should be afforded the same consideration?

Mr. HANSEN. I think that the nature of the facilities and the physical layout in which they operate are very similar, and I would think that they should be accorded much the same treatment, except when you get down to the figures as to what the cost-benefit ratios are. Then there is a substantial difference, and that is something you might have to analyze separately. The other had a much closer benefit-cost ratio than this. This is 3.6 or 2.9 to 1, depending on whether you consider the secondary benefits. The Wyoming project is 1.3 to 1, and 1.0 to 1. There is a substantial difference in the cost-benefit ratio; otherwise, the characteristics are much the same.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions from the members? Mr. MURRAY. The last thing we have here is a copy of the letter from the Department of the Interior which was discussed earlier today, which probably should be put into the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be made part of the record at this point.

(The letter dated February 16, 1967, follows:)

Hon. ORVILLE L. FREEMAN,
Secretary of Agriculture.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, D.C., February 16, 1697.

DEAR MR. SECRETARY: Your letter of January 10, 1967, points out that the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives in its consideration of watershed projects under the Watershed and Flood Prevention Act (P. L. 83-566) has been giving increased attention to arrangements for financing, installing and maintaining land treatment measures on public land included in such projects. It further points out that the Committee had advised the Department of Agriculture that it will not approve any work plans involving public lands unless the appropriate land administering agency provides satisfactory assurance that it will finance, install and maintain these measures on lands it administers. It was suggested that the Department of the Interior provide your Department or the Committee with such assurance on lands under its jurisdiction. The Department of the Interior and its several land administering agencies have as a result of Congressional action certain overall responsibilities and authorities relating to lands under the jurisdiction of the Department. Under the authorities granted and in accordance with budgetary and other limitations programs pertaining to such lands are directed toward the fulfillment of these total responsibilities. Within this framework appropriate agencies of the Department will: install and maintain needed land treatment measures on lands under their jurisdiction as prescribed in watershed work plans developed by the sponsors with assistance from and joint concurrence of the Soil Conservation Service and the appropriate land managing agency; install necessary measures that may be required in the future to restore watershed conditions that become impaired or destroyed by fire or other natural causes; request necessary funds to carry out the foregoing.

This letter is written with the understanding that a copy may be made available to the Committee of Agriculture of the House of Representatives which may be inserted in the Records of Hearings on this matter and that such action makes it unnecessary to secure a separate commitment in connection with each individual P. L. 566 project proposal on public lands administered by agencies of this Department.

Sincerely yours,

STEWART L. ÚDALL, Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. MURRAY. And, second, last year when we had our hearings we had a similar letter from the Forest Service. We already have it in our 89th Congress hearings last year, but for the sake of having these letters together for reference, I suggest that we put them both in the record at this point.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that letter will be placed in the record at this point.

(The letter dated August 16, 1966, follows:)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

FOREST SERVICE,

Washington, D.C., August 16, 1966.

Hon. W. R. POAGE,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Conservation and Credit,
House Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: To supplement Mr. Edward P. Cliff's statement before your Committee on March 21 of this year, we wish to make it absolutely clear at this time that the Forest Service will include in its budgetary request the funds needed to carry out necessary treatment practices on National Forest System lands in any future authorized upstream watershed projects.

The Forest Service further understands that the PL-566 practices pertain to initial land treatment measures, any additional measures required as a result of natural catastrophes such as droughts or fires, and proper maintenance of these measures as prescribed in watershed work plans developed by the sponsors and with assistance from the Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service. This letter is written with the understanding that it may be inserted in the Record of Hearings on this matter and will make it unnecessary to secure a separate commitment in connection with each individual PL-566 project which includes National Forest System lands.

Sincerely yours,

A. W. GREELEY, Associate Chief.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is nothing further on these watersheds, I think we will go into a short executive session. We may be able to make a little progress.

(Whereupon, at 12 noon, the subcommittee retired into executive session.)

WATERSHED PROJECTS

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1967

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSERVATION AND CREDIT

OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 1304, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. W. R. Poage (chairman) presiding.

Present: Representatives Poage, Gathings, and Dole.

Also present: Fowler C. West, assistant staff consultant, and Mrs. Marjorie Johnson, subcommittee clerk.

Hollis R. Williams, Deputy Administrator for Watersheds; Clyde W. Graham, Director, Watershed Planning Division; William A. Weld, Assistant Director, Watershed Planning Division; and R. Neil Lane, Chief, Projects Branch, Watershed Planning Division, Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. I know we are in a little unusual quarters here. It is also a little unusual not to have as many members as we should, but Mr. Purcell has a subcommittee running with some of our members over there and Mr. Resnick has a subcommittee running also. This is the reason we are meeting here, because both of the committee rooms are in use.

We felt we should try to move some of these watershed projects. I want to make it clear on this record that we do not know whether we can expect to achieve anything or not.

Mr. Williams, do you understand that the Bureau of the Budget contemplates letting you do anything if we do approve these projects? Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Poage, the only information that I have is contained in the letter of May 9 to Speaker McCormack, transmitting the work plans for your consideration. I believe, beyond that, I have no comment to make. We are grateful that the plans have been submitted to the committee for consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. Let's read this transmittal letter and get it in the record, because I don't want the public to be fooled about this thing and I don't want people thinking that they have got something when we do not have anything.

In this letter of May 9, which is addressed to Speaker McCormack, on page 2 it says:

To facilitate the implementation of completed project work plans, we are transmitting these work plans to the Congress as they are completed for its consideration. If, following review, the Congress wishes to proceed with these projects, we believe the alternatives are: (1) enactment of the legislation proposed by the Administration last January, or (2) action by Congress as a whole on legislation authorizing individual or preferably groups of projects. Otherwise, the President