When we turn our country into a productive country with irrigation, so that we could grow crops in dry years as well as wet years and be an asset to those that are not so fortunate as to have irrigation, rather than to be a liability to the people that do produce during those dry years that is what we want.

I am just talking from two or three notes here. All I came down for was to let you know how the people in our district felt about this, and so forth. And I do hope that after you folks hear our testimony, and also consider the opposition-I think that they have based part of their opposition on some things that are not correct, in my interpretation on it, at least. I think the canal is going to be of great benefit to those people up there in several different ways. It is going to make a wonderful fire guard in the range country west of us. During the triple A program, the tripe A paid out hundreds of dollars this year to have those farmers plant fire guards to protect their range. This is going to be a wonderful fire guard.

Also, the fencing being put up there is going to be a great protection as to the cattle that do drift into the lakes in blizzards. Those double fences certainly should stop those cattle, or at least to give them a chance to catch them and get them to the sheds before they drift into the lakes.

I will say this for sure. I speak of this not only for my own benefit, but for the benefit of the people in the future. It will be of benefit to the ranchers as well as the farmers, and I think the damage will be little and the benefits wonderful and great. I hope you people on the committee, here, will give us a favorable report on this. I thank you. Mr. ASPINALL. What you are saying is that you haven't changed your opinion in 15 months.

Mr. CLARK. Not at all.

Mr. ASPINALL. All right. If you will take a seat back there, we will call the next witness, and we will question you all together.

The next witness is Mr. J. Hall Dillon, county commissioner, Brown County, Nebr.

STATEMENT OF J. HALL DILLON, LONG PINE, NEBR., COUNTY COMMISSIONER, BROWN COUNTY, NEBR.

Mr. DILLON. My name is J. Hall Dillon. I am a resident of Brown County, Nebr. I have been a county commissioner in Brown County for 17 years, and I have been a resident of Brown County for 46 years. My entire life has been spent in the Niobrara River Basin.

I am a landowner and a livestock producer, owning 15,000 acres of sandhill rangeland fully stocked. In addition, I own 240 acres of farmland lying within the proposed Ainsworth Irrigation District. On this farm, I have made 2 attempts to get pump irrigation, and have drilled 2 test wells, but did not find sufficient water.

The farmers in this district practice rotation of crops so as to conserve the soil by putting one-half of the acreage to corn and the balance to small grain and alfalfa. Because of a 6- to 8-month moisture shortage, the small grain and alfalfa crop is now nil. The alfalfa has not been cut, only on pump irrigated farms. The wheat will not pay for the expense of combining, and the oats and rye are the same.

Our revenue departments are going to find themselves in the red, in these drought areas, and the assessments of personal properties for

county, State, and Government are going to be reduced greatly. There will be no revenue from one-half of the acreage of the dry land farms in our area and if we do not get a lot of rain in the next 60 days, the corn will be the same as the small grain and alfalfa.

At the present time, I am buying alfalfa from irrigated farms, and paying $15 and $16 per ton on the ground, and will still be out the expense of trucking it to my farm and ranch to hold my livestock. If it were possible for the proposed canal to run through my 15,000acre ranch, it would increase the carrying capacity to such an extent, the value of the ranch would be increased by $50,000. But there is no chance, as my ranch lies 30 miles from the proposed canal. I would be very happy to trade acre for acre with some of the boys who are so very fortunate as to have the possible opportunity of having the proposed canal running through their ranch. It would eliminate having to buy feed at $15 to $16 a ton to retain my breeding stock. I believe that is all that I have for you, gentlemen.

Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Dillon. I am sorry I mispronounced your name. Your name is somewhat like mine. One stutters awhile until he does get the pronounciation. If you will take your seat, you will be called with the others for questioning. Mr. Henry Miles, secretary-treasurer, Ainsworth Irrigation District.

STATEMENT OF HENRY MILES, MEMBER, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AINSWORTH IRRIGATION DISTRICT

Mr. MILES. Honorable Chairman, Congressmen, my name is Henry Miles, and I am a member of the board of directors of the Ainsworth Irrigation District, and also an active farmer operating land in the boundaries of the Ainsworth Irrigation District. I am appearing here on behalf of this project, because I believe in water conservation, conservation of our natural resources, and the development of our good, fertile soils, in our semiarid regions by irrigation.

At the present time I am irrigating some land by pump, and have for the past 12 years. I have found it advantageous to do so. But I own land, as do many of my neighbors, that is suitable for irrigation, on which so far we have been unable to get water to irrigate by pump. Just before I left, we finished putting up my first cutting of alfalfa, and it made a ton and a half to the acre. We have a little dry-land alfalfa that we didn't even bother to cut.

I also might add-this isn't in my prepared statement, but if I may do So, I would like to add it—that I have some oats that I believe will make close to 60 bushels an acre on irrigated land, and with the other it is doubtful.

I know that the future economy of our entire Nation depends on a planned program of soil conservation and a complete development of our water resources, and I feel that the Ainsworth project is a small part of this program, but a part that shouldn't be overlooked

now.

It takes years to develop these projects, after they are started. And isn't it true that our forecasters of the future say that we will have to increase our national production in foods in years to come to keep pace with the increasing population?

So Nature has given us the soil and the water out there, and we are asking for your help in bringing the two together.

Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you very much. Do you have a more detailed statement, Mr. Miles, that you wish to place in the record?

Mr. MILES. No.

Mr. ASPINALL. That completes your statement, then.

The same thing is true of your statement, Mr. Dillon? You gave all of your statement? You do not have a more detailed statement? Mr. DILLON. No; that is all.

Mr. ASPINALL. The next witness is Mr. Oliver Anderson, a rancher from some place in Nebraska.

STATEMENT OF OLIVER ANDERSON, RANCHER, JOHNSTOWN, NEBR.

Mr. ANDERSON. Brown County, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. ASPINALL. You may proceed, Mr. Anderson.

Mr. ANDERSON. My name is Ollie Anderson. I am a Brown County commissioner and reside at Johnstown, Nebr. I was born on a farm in northeastern Nebraska and am now in the livestock business.

At present I operate approximately 11,000 acres of ranchland, on which I own 1,100 cattle which are run on this ranch.

This ranch lies adjacent to the Ainsworth Irrigation District, and the proposed canal will run through my ranch approximately a mile. They have 2 different locations that they have figured on, and it could be 3 miles. I am a little luckier, I suppose than Mr. Dillon, on that part of it.

I think this canal would be a good thing for the ranch. I can't say where it will hurt anybody, as long as we get some place to drive our cattle across and be able to move them. There will also be a chance of using some of the water out of that, probably, for water rights.

I have neighbors along this canal above me that I know are in favor of this. What I am trying to get at is that they are not all against it. Also, as to this drought that Mr. Dillon was talking about, in my case, if we had had another week of that, I would have started getting rid of my cattle, because there was just nothing for them to eat anymore, and we have had rain there, 3 or 4 inches of rain, but our subsoil moisture is very low. And if we get hot, dry winds like we do in the last of June and July and August, we still could be in a lot of trouble in my particular territory and I think in the majority of the territory there.

So that is about all that I have, and I am here testifying because I am highly in favor of this project, and I think it is a "must" for our country. Thank you.

Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Anderson.

Mr. Everett T. Winters has asked to be given the privilege of making a short statement.

Mr. Winters, we will be glad to have your statement.

STATEMENT OF EVERETT T. WINTERS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, MISSISSIPPI VALLEY ASSOCIATION, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Mr. WINTERS. Mr. Chairman, my name is Everett Winters. I am executive secretary of the Mississippi Valley Association, with headquarters in St. Louis. As strange as that may seem, there are a num

ber of reasons, I think very valid ones, as to why I have an interest in being here today.

First of all, I am a native of Nebraska. Friends of mine are involved in this project. I work for an organization that is dedicated to the conservation and proper use of water. Then, the introducer of this bill is a friend of mine of many years, and I am an admirer of his.

Last February, at the 36th annual convention of our association, held in St. Louis, with 1,056 delegates present from 30 States, without a dissenting vote, our association passed this resolution:

We urge congressional approval of funds for the development of projects approved by the Reclamation Bureau on the Niobrara River Valley in Nebraska, the first of which is the Ainsworth Irrigation District.

Mr. Chairman, our committees in the Mississippi Valley Association are headed up by hard-headed businessmen, some of them representing some pretty large businesses.

Mr. ASPINALL. May the Chair agree with you, having sat on the Missouri River Basin Survey Commission.

Mr. WINTERS. I remember you, sir, very well.

The point I would like to make is that they do not endorse projects readily. They have endorsed this one wholeheartedly. We believe in it. We believe it is good for America. We believe it is good for Nebraska. And we hope that it receives favorable consideration by this committee.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this courtesy.

Mr. ASPINALL. Now, the Chair would desire to state that the hearings held last year, at least a part of the hearings held in 1954 in the area, are available to the members of the committee. And the Chair would request that the clerk see to it that each member of the committee who is a new member of this committee receive a copy of the hearings held heretofore, for his information.

Mr. CHENOWETH. I would like to inquire what progress was made on this project last year, what the status of it is.

Mr. ASPINALL. The Congress last year passed a resolution which gave congressional support to including the Ainsworth project and the other three projects in the Missouri Basin authorization.

Mr. CHENOWETH. You say the House passed it?

Mr. ASPINALL. Oh, yes. This is follow-through legislation that is necessary now to start the construction.

Mr. CHENOWETH. This is to supplement the other acts. There was no delay in the House, then, last year.

Mr. ÅSPINALL. No. No delay last year.

At this time, the Chair would like to call on our colleague, Dr. Miller, to advise the committee from whence cometh the water that is involved in this legislation and the other projects that are being considered later on. There is no rainfall to amount to anything in the area. The snowfall is not too great. Where is the water coming from?

Mr. MILLER. Well, Mr. Aspinall and members of the committee, Nebraska is in an arid area, but the sandhills of Nebraska are like a sponge, holding water that I think comes from your State of Colorado and the State of Wyoming in underground rivers. It is estimated that we have 600 million acre-feet of water in the sandhills. Some of it runs down from the northwest to the southeast and is quite reachable by pump irrigation. This particular pump area up there

is not suitable for pump irrigation. It is north of the sandhill area. But we have three loup rivers in Nebraska, the North, Middle, and South Loup. We have the Dismal River. We have the Snake River, the Niobrara River, and numerous creeks, all coming out of the sandhills.

Mr. Aspinall, when he was up there a couple of years ago, could not understand how we got water, because there were no mountains or run off from snow.

And the flow in these rivers, I think I am correct in saying, seldom varies. It runs about the same, year-round, whether there is rain or no rain. And I think the hydrologists-and I should call upon Mr. Raitt here, who is the son of Roy Raitt, who has just testified here-to tell us where some of the water comes from. But, as I understand it, there are some underground rivers that come down from Colorado and Wyoming. They have been named by some groups as the Grace River. Those rivers probably run clear across Nebraska and run into the Great Lakes. In other words there is, indeed, an area out in the Atlantic Ocean where much water boils up through the ocean as fresh water, drinking water, probably coming from some of this great underground source of water.

May I ask Mr. Raitt, the hydrologist, where the Snake River originates?

Mr. DALE RAITT. In Sheridan County, Doctor.

Mr. MILLER. How far from the Merritt Dam?

Mr. DALE RAITT. It is about 75 miles above the dam site, sir. Mr. MILLER. And as I understand it, there are 3 or 4 other rivers, the Dismal and the 3 loup rivers, that all originate in the sandhills of Nebraska. Is that right?

Mr. DALE RAITT. I believe that is right, sir.

Mr. MILLER. And as they slow down, they are fed by streams, and they are a constantly flowing river. If we get some of your water once in a while, Mr. Aspinall, from Colorado and Wyoming, we appreciate it.

Mr. ASPINALL. Under the circumstances, you are most welcome to it. The Chair would testify to the statement that the water is there, and it appears to be a uniform flow.

Mr. MILLER. More water comes out of the ground than goes into it. Mr. ASPINALL. Now, if you gentlemen who have just testified will take your places at the table, with Mr. Raitt to my left, then Mr. Clark, then Mr. Dillon, then Mr. Miles, then Mr. Anderson, and then Mr. Winter, I don't know how many questions the committee will have, but we do have a few moments for questions.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, Dr. Miller. Mr. MILLER. I think I would like to pursue the questions Mr. Saylor has given to me. There is one here I think Mr. Raitt, or one of the county commissioners may answer. I will read it again.

It is understood that the United States owns some 1,400 acres of land within the boundaries of the 81st Irrigation District. As a former satellite airbase and now leased to the city of Ainsworth as an airport for a dollar a year, the city gets the income from the land at present. Is it proposed that that land be included in the irrigation district?

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