WALLACE CHANNEL, PAMLICO SOUND

Mr. ANGELL. The next project will be Wallace Channel in Pamlico Sound, N. C. Colonel Milne, we will be glad to hear from you on this project.

Colonel MILNE. The report on Wallace Channel, Pamlico Sound, N. C., is contained in House Document No. 453, of the 81st Congress, 2d session, authorized by the River and Harbor Act of July 24, 1946. Wallace Channel is in Pamlico Sound at Ocracoke Inlet. Pamlico Sound is a body of water off the coast of North Carolina. It is located above Cape Lookout, and between Cape Lookout and Oregon Inlet. There is no Federal project in the Wallace Channel at this time. During the war the Navy found it necessary to have that channel dredged out, and they asked the Corps of Engineers to do the job.

In 1942 it was dredged to a depth of 12 feet, and then about 7 years later it was dredged again with emergency funds. At the conclusion of the war there was no further maintenance work done in the channel because it is not an authorized Federal project.

The area surrounding Pamlico Sound is primarily devoted to fishing and agriculture. Across the Wallace Channel in 1952 there were some 1,600 vessel trips, primarily trawlers and menhaden boats carrying their produce into Pamlico Sound and to the processing areas or plants nearby.

The local interests have felt that if Wallace Channel is not maintained to a depth of 12 feet, the commercial fishing industry will be unable to utilize the channel and get out through the Ocracoke Inlet. Instead of that the bulk of them would have to take the much longer route through Beaufort, around Lookout Point, and out to the fishing banks in the Atlantic Ocean.

By utilizing Wallace Channel the distance from their home ports is 61 miles. If they must take the longer way it more than doubles the distance or some 123 miles.

Accordingly, local interests have requested consideration be given to the provision of a channel 12 feet deep and 200 feet wide across the Wallace Shoals.

The Chief of Engineers investigated the area and has come to the conclusion that the provision of a channel 12 feet by 200 feet is economically justified. Those recommendations were furnished to the State of North Carolina and they indicated their concurrence. Likewise, the Bureau of the Budget indicated that they had no objection to forwarding the report to the Congress.

Based on the project document the Federal costs are estimated at $83,000. Those costs revised to the fall of 1953 have a Federal cost of $108,000.

The annual charges based on the revised costs are $18,810, of which approximately $15,000 represents an annual maintenance charge. Based again on the revised costs the benefit-cost ratio is 1.62

to 1.

There are 2 types of benefits that would accrue if the Wallace Channel could be maintained to a depth of 12 feet.

(1) The trawlers that use Wallace Channel and Ocracoke Inlet to get out to the fishing banks could do so with minimum travel. Without the channel, they would have to take the much longer way

through Beaufort and across Lookout Point. That would increase their travel time by something like 24 hours. When you reduce that 24 hours to dollars and cents it becomes an appreciable annual increased cost to the fishing fleet.

(2) The second benefit would accrue to the menhaden fishers. These fishing fleets do not always use Wallace Channel. They do go out through the Beaufort area. However, they must have a means of getting back into sheltered waters when these unexpected storms occur on the Atlantic. This is a real natural inlet off the menhaden fishing banks. So if the Wallace Channel is not provided there will be a decline in the menhaden fishing industry in that particular area.

The sum of the 2 benefits, we believe, amply and fully justify the Federal Government maintaining Wallace Channel to 12 feet by

200 feet.

Mr. ANGELL. Are there any questions of Colonel Milne by members of the committee?

(No response.)

Mr. ANGELL. Congressman Barden, we are happy to have you with us, and we would be pleased to hear from you at this time.

STATEMENT OF HON. GRAHAM A. BARDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to be back before your committee here. I first had the honor of serving on this committee for about 15 years, I reckon, under a grand old gentleman, Judge Mansfield. And then I strayed off into another committee-and I have not had as much fun since, I want to assure you.

Mr. ANGELL. We are very glad to have you come back. It is like a prodigal son returning.

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Chairman, the three projects just discussed are, you might say, kindred projects. The colonel just called to your attention the fact that the menhaden boats and other fishing boats use that area to make their living.

They are by no means all, or even the greater number of boats that use Ocracoke Inlet. I do not know how many of you keep up with the fishing business, sport fishing and otherwise, but in that area from Ocracoke Inlet down around Cape Lookout and below Morehead City it is nationally known to the fishing industry. That is because it is no secret that there are more fish products and seafood taken from the area of Carteret County than any county, I believe, from Delaware to Texas.

Nobody ever belittles Texas as having less of anything for fear of an argument. So I just stop at the borders of Texas in the interests of time.

Right now there is a boat breaking into pieces at the mouth of that inlet. It is a very expensive boat that went aground.

If you see Neuse River and the way it goes down into Pamlico Sound, you will understand it better. Of course, coming in here, if the boats go across here then the outlets are available. Up to Newport and Oriental and the other points, that is where they go, and they either hit the railroad or the highways.

By the way, I would say the railroads have just about quit hauling fish and seafood because it is not fast enough. They have found that sea food is much better if it is gotten to the market and to the table quickly. Some time ago I experienced about 2 days of rather severe trouble with my health on account of getting hold of some fish that did not get to the table quick enough.

I am not going to spend any time arguing on this because it is just so self-evident. It is so practical and means so much. The engineers have estimated very conservatively on the number of boats that use that. More will use it if the element of safety is available.

I do not know whether any of you have ever been out in this area in a storm, but I have been, and there is not but one thing for you to do if you are caught out here. That is just make it as hard as you can around Cape Lookout Point which goes about 10 miles out there before you can get around in here. Then you have to double back in and go into Beaufort Inlet, or to Cape Lookout Harbor.

So, from the standpoint of safety and the standpoint of service to the industry and the general public convenience, all of those things justify the project.

I am so sure that you gentlemen see that from the map and from the colonel's statement that I will not indulge myself with encroaching upon your time any longer.

Few people know that around this point here, during World War II, there was an average of 14 ships that hit the bottom every week. I have been along in this area here and here and seen as many as 3 big tankers and 3 big ships burning at one time. That is how hot this water was around here. You might say, "Well, why do you mention that?" Well, it looks like there will be some good coming from most anything. The Gulf Stream is off here and comes around this point within 20 miles of these sunken ships-and there are 75 or 80 of them-and virtually every fish of the type that you catch off Florida has gathered around those old sunken hulls of those old ships, and it has just become quite a paradise for sports fishing as well as the commercial fishing in here.

Mr. Chairman, this is the Peltier Creek project. The colonel made reference to the fact that there were 12 boats, I think he said, or something like that, using it all of the time.

This creek comes right up here to the Highway No. 70 which traverses the whole State of North Carolina. I passed there about a month and a half ago and I guess that there were probably from 100 to 125 boats from here to along in here that came in on high tide for reasons of safety, and that is where they left their boats. Of course, the tide had gone out and the boats were lying partly on their sides. I do not have to tell you gentlemen the damages that result from that when they are pushed in the mud.

This is exposed area here. This operates as a spur or side track from the Intracoastal Waterway.

I want to say this to the credit of the Army engineers. For a long time they were very reluctant to take to these small projects. Then they began to realize the importance of them and the importance of these seafood products getting to the markets, and so forth, and they have put in some of these small spur tracks, you might say, from the Intracoastal Waterway, and there is not one of them they have ap

proved it in on that coast that has not paid for itself hundreds of times.

I will give you one example of a project up there that I think cost $17,000 to do the dredging, and so forth, to get the water in to where they could contact the highway. The first afternoon it was open more edible fish were landed on the dock, or rather the fish landed on the dock were of greater value and brought more money than the entire project cost. That is how valuable they are to the men who make their living from the sea and from the waters in this area

This area here is exposed. It is about 4 miles, I believe, from here to Morehead City, which is always congested as you know. There are docks along in there. The prevailing winds are, of course, from the sea and the southwest in the summertime; and when September and those fall months come along the northeaster is here. There just is nothing to do then but get that boat out of there to somewhere and put it in some safe place. Otherwise you might this afternoon have a $30,000 boat and tomorrow morning it would not be worth 30 cents.

Now this is just a perfect harbor of refuge. It is a perfect place for them to moor boats. It is a perfect place for boats coming up from Florida to get them out of here when there is a windstorm.

There is nothing between this point and the ocean except sand. That is all there is. So in here they would come. People from upstate and all over the country, as far as that is concerned, and a lot of people from the North, take their yachts down and want to moor them and maybe go on somewhere else, and then come back and pick them up. There just is not any safe place to do it. But in here the shape and course of this creek makes about as near perfect a mooring basin as you could possibly have, and it ties right on to this main highway here.

As a matter of fact that blue water ought to go right up to the edge of the highway because you can step right off the highway into it if you were so disposed. This is the big summer hotel and resort.

That little improvement there will mean more to all of these fishing boats and smaller boats and trawlers that have to be moored somewhere than anything I know of that you can do there in that area. And that is the only safe place with as much water as you anticipate putting in here, anywhere in that whole area down there. Is that not so, Colonel?

So I again leave that with you gentlemen. And do not figure that it is just a few boats that are concerned in this. The only reason why more do not use it now is because they cannot get in, and if they get in they cannot get out if the tide goes down; and if they go in there and the tide goes down they go into the mud.

You know, I have had a lot of argument over tonnage on water improvements. They say that you cannot justify so-and-so because you cannot show the tonnage. Well, it has always been amusing to me because how are you going to prove tonnage if there is not water for the tonnage to move on? You have to estimate what it is going to be. With this number of boats that line this place, we see from here on down there is no other place they can go into. Because the damage done to them from sinking in the mud will be less than banging them up and beating them up and probably sinking them, they go in there.

Also it does away with these daily watchers they have to have. In a place of that kind they can moor the ship and probably save $200 a month for a man having to tend it every day.

The next project I want to take up is Smith Creek. Mr. Chairman, here is a small project the benefits from which per dollar expended I do not believe could be exceeded anywhere. I once took one of the Chief of Army Engineers in. We were coming up this river and I said, "I want you to see something that has been bothering me." And we came in here, and he said, "That is amazing." It speaks more loudly for itself than any project I have seen. You can see exactly what the good results will be.

Here is Neuse River off here. It is a little over 4 miles wide, is it not Colonel?

Colonel MILNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARDEN. And if you think that it cannot get rough when a southwester comes in there off that 4 miles of water, you are mistaken. They have not overemphasized this in this picture. The boats are crowded in there as close as they can stick together. You let a southwester hit them and the damage is simply terrific.

storm is

This past year, why, it would be hard to estimate the amount of damage that came from a quick southwest storm that caught this place almost full of boats. Of course, as it is now when brewing they just have to turn to. Because they can go through this highway bridge and go in here, or they can get closer to this shore. If they are a larger type of boat they must come out of there and seek cover either on the other side of the river, or the other inland waterway, or else go up or along the river 15 or 20 miles to where there is some safety.

In speaking of the shrimping industry during the shrimping season, there is not any such thing as getting in there except wherever there are landings at some of these receiving houses. They just put somebody out there and make them keep the channel clear so one boat can go in and unload and come out.

This project has been on the books, I think, from way back yonder. About 1910, was it not, Colonel?

Colonel MILNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARDEN. At that time there was no hard-surfaced road that came in there. Now there are two hard-surfaced roads in here; and the seafood products had a lot to do with justifying the construction of those. But back here these people had no way of marketing that seafood. They virtually had to give it away to keep it from spoiling. Also their boats were torn up. So they in conjunction with the engineers built a dirt breakwater from here out to about where this end shows here, and they bottled it up. I think it cost them about $7,000; did it not?

Colonel MILNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARDEN. The fishermen themselves spent $7,000 building a dirt breakwater around here. All right. That was fine until the first 2 or 3 storms hit it. Then the dirt, instead of doing good, did harm because it went into their other mooring basin.

Everybody that I have ever seen connected with the Army engineers and I have shown this same thing to many of the district engineers—just thinks it is so feasible, and so wise, and so practical to put