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Show appropriations for river and harbor improvements were increased. The Secretary of the Army, through the Army Engineers, and the Federal Power Commission were jointly authorized and directed to prepare and submit to Congress an estimate of the cost of making examinations and surveys of those navi- gable streams of the United States and their tribu- taries where power development appeared feasible and practicable, with a view to the formulation of general plans for improvement of such streams for purposes of navigation and the prosecution of such improvement in combination with efficient development of potential water power, the con- trol of floods, and the needs of irrigation. The Colorado River was excepted. The cost esti- mates requested above were made and reported to Congress and are contained in House Docu- ment No. 308, Sixty-ninth Congress. The sur- veys were authorized in 1927 and begun in 1928. The surveys made up to 1934 formed the basis of the over-all water resources development pro- gram of the National Resources Board, reported to the President and published in House Docu- ment No. 395, Seventy-third Congress, second session. Total Federal Expenditures for rivers and harbors improvements from the beginning in 1824 through June 30, 1948, are shown in the following table. The figures should be read with TABLE 1.-Federal expenditures for river and harbor improvement [In thousands of dollars] Location Construction Operation and maintenance Total Seacoast harbors and channels...... Great Lakes harbors and channels. . Inland and intracoastal waterways - $792,826 223,852 1,184,093 $482,816 139.627 605,898 $1,275.642 363,479 1,789,991 Total......................... 2.200,771 1,228,341 3, 429,112 Source: Chief of Engineers, Department of the Army. the fact in mind that Federal expenditures an- nually reported by the Chief of Engineers include both operation and maintenance as well as con- struction costs; nothing is deducted for deprecia- tion or obsolescence, so that the aggregate costs reported are not a fair index of present net investment. Our Present Waterways System Figure 14, on pages 206 and 207, gives the loca- tion and depth of the principal completed and projected waterways. Those of 9-foot and greater depth, which comprise the commercially important waterways, now form an intercon- nected chain from the Great Lakes and Minne- apolis to the Gulf. They connect with the Gulf- Intracoastal Canal (a series of interconnected channels and estuaries forming a continuous pro- tected waterway for light-draft traffic along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts), and the Warrior, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Kanawha, and the Tennessee Rivers, the New York State canal sys- tem, connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario with the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway extending into Florida. In addition there are a number of short Atlantic coastal rivers, and on the Pacific coast, the Sacramento and Columbia Rivers. The 9- foot waterways of the Mississippi system and the Gulf and Atlantic intracoastal canals have all been constructed since World War I. The number of river and harbor navigation improvement projects currently listed in the an- nual report of the Chief of Engineers is 1,301. The total figure includes 595 projects classed as structurally incomplete, and 706 classed as com- plete, among which 131 have been recommended for abandonment as obsolete. Among the exist- ing completed and uncompleted projects, 639 cur- rently sustain substantial volumes of water-borne commerce. TABLE 2.-Commercially active river and harbor projects Location Harbors Waterways Total Atlantic coast . . . 105 26 54 79 12 187 69 56 6 45 292 95 110 85 12 45 Gulf coast Pacific coast____. . ________ Great Lakes_________________ Insular possessions................ Inland system Total . 276 363 639 »11609-50-------16 199 |
