75TH CONGRESS 3d Session

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

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REPORT No. 2150

CONTROL OF SOIL EROSION, ETC., ON LANDS WITHIN BOUNDARIES OF SAN BERNARDINO AND CLEVELAND NATIONAL FORESTS, CALIF.

APRIL 18, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. DoXEY, from the Committee on Agriculture, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 7933]

The Committee on Agriculture, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 7933) to facilitate the control of soil erosion and/or flood damage originating upon lands within the exterior boundaries of the San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests in Riverside County, Calif., having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it do pass with the following amendment:

Page 2, delete lines 4 to 9, inclusive, and in lieu thereof substitute the following language:

those proportions of the entire receipts from the sale of natural resources or occupancy of public land within the San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests which are equal to the proportion of the net areas of said forests which are within the county of Riverside, State of California, which receipts are hereby authorized to be appropriated for that purpose until said lands have been acquired: Provided, That so long as said receipts are used in the manner herein authorized, the provisions of the Act approved May 23, 1908 (U. S. C., title 16, sec. 500), shall not be applicable to said county of Riverside.

STATEMENT

The above amendment has been suggested by the Department of Agriculture, which has made a favorable report on the bill, as shown by the attached letter from the Acting Secretary under date of March 24, 1938. Recent hearings were held by a special subcommittee, and the proposed legislation is recommended, modified as above.

Hon. MARVIN JONES,

Chairman, Committee on Agriculture,

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
Washington, March 24, 1938.

House of Representatives.

DEAR MR. JONES: Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of January 8, in which you request the views of this Department on the bill H. R. 7933, a bill "To facilitate the control of soil erosion and/or flood damage originating upon lands within the exterior boundaries of the San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests in Riverside County, Calif."

The Cleveland and San Bernardino National Forests were among the first in the entire Nation to be set aside under the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1103), for the primary purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flow. In this whole area the natural cover of the mountain slope has long been recognized and proven to be the only effective way to prevent serious soil erosion, silting of reservoirs and agricultural fields, and needlessly rapid run-off. The propriety of action by the National Government in this type of problem has been established by acts of Congress for over 40 years.

In its administration during the past decades of these national forests in order to obtain the benefits for which they were set aside, the Forest Service has consistently encountered unsolvable problems originating on private lands within the forest boundaries. No matter how conservatively the national-forest lands have been administered, practices on private lands have to a degree offset the benefiicial effects obtained. Such practices as cultivating hill lands, unwise clearing, and overgrazing which destroy the natural cover, result in focal points of flood run-off and soil erosion. It is to get hold of these problems that H. R. 7933 is designed.

If the private lands were all in a solid body it might be relatively simple to at least avoid any Federal responsibility by excluding them from the national forests, and thus disclaiming any obligation to attempt a solution of the problem. But the lands are not in a solid body; they are scattered in relatively small parcels through the national forests and as such are automatically a problem for the Federal Government to concern itself with.

In this area there has always been and is today a very high level of local interest in national-forest management and cooperation with the Forest Service. The county of Riverside, which would be affected by H. R. 7933, has for many years contributed liberally to the fire-control project on the national forests, enabling the Forest Service to go farther than would have been possible from Federal appropriations alone. The State of California maintains a fire-control organization in cooperation with the county which undertakes fire control on lands outside of the national-forest boundary. The county, in giving what is understood to be approval of the purposes of H. R. 7933, would forego the 25-percent fund (Act of May 23, 1908; 35 Stat. 260) which it would receive from national-forest income and would, therefore, in effect contribute one-fourth of the cost of private lands which may be acquired under the terms of the bill.

In short, the title of the bill states accurately its purpose, which may be otherwise stated as tightening up on a long standing Federal project for which full legal authority has long existed and for which local efforts cannot be expected. Local participation in the project is represented by the willingness of the county to forego receipts which it would otherwise obtain.

Without the passage of the bill it will be exceedingly difficult for the United States to handle the vitally important problem of intermingled private lands because the act of March 1, 1911 (36 Stat. 961), under which the Forest Service operates, is of doubtful applicability to include watersheds of streams of questionable navigability such as those in this area, or to lands suited only in part to the production of commercial timber such as the lands covered by the bill. The land exchange procedure offers no adequate solution, since it is inadvisable to subject lands now owned by the United States to possibilities of private misuse. In other words, unless this bill may become law there is no effective legal machinery under which the Forest Service can move forward to accomplish the purposes for which the national forests were established and for which they have been administered.

That part of the Cleveland National Forest which is within Riverside County has a gross area of 90,583 acres, of which 59,019 acres are reserved for nationalforest purposes and 31,564 acres are privately owned. The 59,019 acres of national-forest land is 15.5 per cent of the total net area of the Cleveland National Forest.

That part of the San Bernardino National Forest which is within Riverside County has a gross area of 267,013 acres, of which 181,099 acres is national-forest land, and 85,914 acres is privately owned. The national forest area amounts to 30.5 percent of the total net national forest area of the San Bernardino National Forest.

As now worded the bill authorizes the appropriation and expenditure of the receipts from national-forest land in Riverside County. That fact would seem to necessitate the maintenance of a separate and detailed record of all receipts from that particular county which in some instances might be difficult since the uses authorized in certain permits might extend territorially or seasonally into adjoining counties. Then too, under the act of May 23, 1908, the share of each county in the receipts from a national forest is proportional to the area of the national forest in the particular county. To simplify administration, and to avoid inequity to other counties concerned, an amendment of the bill H. R. 7933 appears desirable and is recommended as follows:

From page 2, delete lines 4 to 9, inclusive, and in lieu thereof substitute the following language: "those proportions of the entire receipts from the sale of natural resources or occupancy of public land within the San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests which are equal to the proportion of the net areas of said forests which are within the county of Riverside, State of California, which receipts are hereby authorized to be appropriated for that purpose until said lands have been acquired: Provided, That so long as said receipts are used in the manner herein authorized, the provisions of the act approved May 23, 1908 (U. S. C., title 16, sec. 500), shall not be applicable to said county of Riverside."

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1937, the total receipts from the Cleveland National Forest were $7,883.48, and the total receipts from the San Bernardino National Forest were $43,196.76. Since 15.5 percent of the national-forest lands in the Cleveland National Forest is in Riverside County, and assuming subsequent receipts to be the same as those for the fiscal year 1937, the part thereof which would be available for expenditure under H. R. 7933 would be approximately $1,222. Since 30.5 percent of the national-forest lands in San Bernardino National Forest is in Riverside County, the receipts, if the same as for previous years, would be available to carry out the provisions of the bill to the extent of approximately $13,175. In effect then, and on the basis of similar continuing revenues, the bill would authorize the appropriation and expenditure annually of about $14,400.

The acreage of privately owned land within that part of the Cleveland National Forest in Riverside County is 31,564 acres and within that part of the San Bernardino National Forest in Riverside County 85,914 acres. However, some of this land is now owned by water companies which give it such good protection that its acquisition by the Federal Government would be unnecessary, and there are other private holdings not of great public importance and now reasonably well protected which need not be acquired. The net area to be acquired under the provisions of the bill H. R. 7933, cannot definitely be stated, but is known to be only a minor proportion of the total private ownership involved. If the bill were enacted into law the plan and objective of this Department would be each year to acquire the most important tracts for which negotiations successfully could be concluded with the owners thereof up to approximately the amount in value made available under the terms of the act. Thus the most critical areas now in private ownership gradually would pass to Federal control, with consequent improvement in the facility and economy of management of the national forests concerned and in the extent and variety of public uses thereof. The pending measure has much to commend it and its favorable consideration by the Congress is, therefore, recommended by this Department.

This matter was referred to the Bureau of the Budget, as required by Budget Circular 344, and the Acting Director thereof advised the Department of Agriculture, under date of March 14, 1938, that there would be no objection on the part of that office to the submission of the foregoing report to Congress.

Sincerely,