not attempt until tomorrow, at least on our part, to try to outline in our own minds how this problem as it's been discussed today breaks down so that we might be able to define the areas of agreement. I would prefer to leave today as a general discussion so you will have an opportunity to ask questions, make comments, to clarify this issue as much as you think it can be clarified. Mr. FOLTS. Because the subject was not included in the agenda I did not attempt to bring it into the discussion. However, I do not think that this meeting could recess or adjourn without some attention being paid to the subject of water. I have not heard, at least in my knowledge, I was absent for a few moments from the room, any discussion of water, and yet our papers are full and we are mindful that water today is probably the greatest resource of the Northwest. The things that we do with water as a catalyst to bring forth the fertility of the soil, the things we do with water to produce forage to replace some of the mineral deficiencies rapidly coming upon America, have a high place in any discussion such as this. I had occasion to think of it in which both the discussion of the Congressman and other facets were brought up on the grass or timber on the claim. I would like to put in the record that it is available through the Forest Service that water per acre on a watershed has definite definable values, and in some instances will be the highest value on that land. Now, that figure arose in the controversy in the public lands case in the Colorado. I am mindful of the fact that our neighboring State of California now, and may I remind you that some of this is brought about by abuse of mining in the Trinity River country above Shasta Dam and elsewhere, they are now today seeking to come into the northwest region in this vicinity, if you please, and tap the Columbia River and relieve the shortage of water. The going price of water in Los Angeles is $100 per acre-foot, and in each one of these illustrations, whether it be here or on the watersheds of Montana, Idaho, Washington, or Oregon, water has a definite part in the economy, and that water should be one of the considerations as we sit here in our deliberations. Those values of water and how they're used and how we store water on our watersheds all have a part in what I termed earlier the harmonious use of these resources. I do not think, as I said before, that we could have gone through this without some attention paid to water and the fact it has definite values. Thank you. Mr. GOLDY. Thank you, Mr. Folts. Mr. E. C. STEPHENS. May I ask Mr. Folts a question? What has that got to do with the revision of the mining laws, Mr. Folts? Mr. FOLTS. The subject I thought would be clear from the morning discussion of the morning papers that were given. We had the difference between surface and subsurface rights. In this it was argued that the mining claimant would have the right to take off all of the timber of the particular mining claim or group of mining claims in which he would use them for his mining purposes, unmindful of the fact that that constitutes part of a watershed, and that perhaps he was doing an injury to the public that could well have been done without. In other words, there should be some protection for that water. There are tests, that is also available for the record, in North Carolina where the Forest Service has been doing a water study on lands on the effect of cutting of timber, on the effect of disturbing 63829-50-ser. 24- -10 land, and they have found that the disturbing of land or the creation of erosion is the thing that starts the dissipation of the watershed itself, so consequently if you are to leave these as they are presently, with the right to cut all of that, or the right to take all of the grass, because after all every blade of grass is a little dam, and as such they have to be treated as part of a watershed; true one claim doesn't make much difference, but you multiply those one by one and dissipate those, you reach a great effect or impact upon the water resources. I live in a timber country, not so much in a grass country, and there we've watched the streams go down to where you can wade them today without getting your ankles wet, where once you had difficulty fording the stream. Does that answer your question? Congressman WHITE. Mr. Chairman, may I reply to that observation? For the benefit of the gentleman from Oregon, I'll state that very experience is a dear teacher. It just so happens I paid $3,000 in a very expensive lawsuit to learn something about water and mining rights. I'll say to the gentleman from Oregon that as far as water is concerned, that I think mining operations help the water system. They intercept percolating water under the ground—I learned that as a legal expression-and bring it to the surface, and cause it to be made available for utilization. In this particular case that I speak of, I don't want to bore the meeting, but this is experience in Idaho, there was a small stream that ran part of the time in the summer and filled a little half-inch pipe during the spring season. The company that I was connected with ran a tunnel into the mountain and intercepted this percolating water, it percolated down through the dump, augmented the supply that the person filed the water right on, and brought it to the surface, and made him a yearround supply, but we happened to be ambitious, and went to the foot of the hill and ran a long tunnel and hit the vein, and when we did, the water come out our tunnel and ceased to come out above. We were sued for destroying a water right, and paid for the privilege. I might say, for the gentleman's information, speaking of use of water, I was chairman, you know, for some years of the irrigation and reclamation committee, and we had a very interesting situation in the State of Arizona near Phoenix. Out there on one side of the Paradise Valley they had been waiting for years to utilize the water of the Verdi River, and they had actually got an allocation of $6,000,000 to start the work, but competitors and rivals over in the Salt River Valley, which is a big beautiful valley around Phoenix, they got somebody to influence the Department of the Interior public works to withdraw that $6,000,000 and to put the water into the other system, there's quite a powerful factor there, and it was so done, and left those people out there; they're there today, still on that dry land and no water, and after the Salt River people got the water the Phelps-Dodge needed the water, and in a recent transaction the Phelps-Dodge got the water that should have gone out in the valley. It proved in the end it wasn't so much needed for irrigation as it proved to be utilized by the mining company. I just tear that little page out of my book of experience for the gentleman from Oregon. Mr. K. WOLFE. In my paper I attempted to give slight mention to the situation in Wenatchee. I think it's indicative of the fact that we get into a wide variety of conditions. There, where they're min ing pumice, if they clear that land off, take all the vegetative covering, leave nothing but the hardpan, I don't think there's any question but what it would have a very serious effect as far as streams are concerned, that the water will run off the land about as fast as it hits there, and it will not soak through the soil and land and come out as you need it during the growing season. Mr. GOLDY. I would like to call on Frank S. Sever. STATEMENT OF FRANK S. SEVER, ATTORNEY FOR THE OREGON AND CALIFORNIA LAND-GRANT COUNTIES OF OREGON Mr. SEVER. As the chairman said, my name is Frank S. Sever. I'm chairman of the association for Oregon and Washington landgrant counties. To save these gentlemen craning their necks, I'll come up here. Those counties are the counties which have an interest in the forfeited Oregon and California grant lands. There are two and a half million acres of those lands. They were granted, the usual grant to a railroad. Congress in 1916 forfeited that grant because of the breach of conditions of the land, and revested it in the United States, and by the act of 1937 Congress set aside those two and a half million acres for administration under the Secretary of the Interior of those lands for a perpetual sustained-yield forest. By the terms of that same act the counties, where the grant lands lay, receive 50 percent of the receipts from those lands, to compensate them for the loss of taxes. Those lands were not the usual Federal lands, part of the public domain withdrawn by Executive order, but title had been vested in the railroad company for many years. The granting act was in 1868. When they were forfeited in 1916 it wiped from the tax roll two and a half million acres, and with it all the accumulated delinquent taxes. Now, by the act of the last Congress those lands are reopened to mineral entry; it's true, under regulations to be published or adopted by the Secretary of the Interior, but at least now we're faced with all the problems that the Forest Service is faced with in the administration of these lands. Now, so far today you've heard from representatives of various affected industries, timber, mining, you've heard from livestock, you've heard from wildlife, you've heard from the Federal Government. Well, I'm here representing local government. Mr. Forest Cooper, who is the attorney for the Association of Oregon counties, which includes the entire State, was supposed to be here and was on the program, but we do have this problem, and our problem is aggravated by this fact, that the railroad grant was the usual grant of alternate sections of 10 miles either side of the right-of-way on what is now the Southern Pacific Railroad from Portland to Ashland, with an indemnity strip on either side in which the railroad could select sections in lieu of those that were lost, and when the grant was forfeited two and a half million acres, so our grant, if we had a map you could take the area from the coast range and the summit of the Cascades, you'd see a giant checkerboard-one would be black, Oregon and California; one white, privately owned; and the other green, national forest so this problem of access to our timber is one of vital concern to the counties. |