Special Message to the Congress on the Folsom Dam.

To the Congress of the United States:

The estimates of appropriation for civil functions of the Corps of Engineers, Department of the Army, in the 1949 Budget include $3,370,000 for beginning construction of the Folsom Dam on the American River in California. This project was authorized for construction by the Corps of Engineers in the Flood Control Act approved December 22, 1944, "substantially in accordance with the plans contained in House Document Numbered 649, Seventy-eighth Congress, second session, with such modifications thereof as in the discretion of the Secretary of War and the Chief of Engineers may be advisable . . .".

The Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior, and the State of California are agreed that the initial plans, for a reservoir of 355,000 acre-feet capacity, should be revised to provide a reservoir of 1,000,000 acre-feet. This will not only provide more adequate storage for flood control but will also provide adequate storage at the Folsom Dam site for irrigation, hydroelectric power production and other uses consistent with the conservation of water resources in the Central Valley area. The Corps of Engineers is completing construction plans for the dam on this revised basis and work can be started promptly.

The Folsom Dam and Reservoir is a key unit in any plan for the full development of the water resources of the Central Valley. There is an urgent need for this structure, not only from the standpoint of flood control, but also to provide additional electric energy and conservation of water to meet growing demands in the area. The Corps of Engineers should therefore be given funds to start building the dam at once under the authority of existing legislation. At the same time the authority contained in existing law for the construction of Folsom Dam should be expanded to permit the Bureau of Reclamation to construct and operate a power plant.

The power plant at Folsom must be integrated with the hydroelectric power plants at Shasta and Keswick, constructed and operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, and with the Delta-Mendota pumping plant of the Central Valley project--all of which must be operated as a unit. To achieve such coordinated operation the Folsom Dam and Reservoir, once constructed, should be transferred to the Bureau of Reclamation for operation and maintenance. After the transfer the dam would be operated for flood control in accordance with criteria established by the Secretary of the Army, as provided in section 7 of the Flood Control Act of 1944.

The transfer to the Bureau of Reclamation would assure that Folsom Dam and its important related developments would be operated in coordination with other Federal conservation structures in the Central Valley to yield the greatest possible benefits. Power produced at the Folsom Dam would be used as a second source of energy for the Delta-Mendota pumping plant and for other irrigation pumping. The income from the disposition, under Federal reclamation laws, of the power there produced would assist not only in amortizing the cost of the Folsom Dam and Power Plant, but also in paying an appropriate share of the cost of irrigation canals and other works needed to distribute water from Folsom Reservoir to irrigation districts, cities and suburban areas. Unless this income from power revenues is provided for in accordance with established practice under reclamation law, many related developments proposed in the Central Valley, particularly in the American River basin and nearby areas of California, will not be financially feasible.

I recommend therefore that the Congress expand the present authorization for the construction of Folsom Dam to provide, (1) for the transfer of the dam and reservoir, upon its completion, to the Bureau of Reclamation for operation and maintenance as a coordinated unit of the Central Valley project under the Federal reclamation law; (2) for construction by the Bureau of Reclamation of a power plant, afterbay and necessary transmission lines, and (3) for construction by the Bureau of Reclamation of irrigation canals and related works needed to deliver water from the reservoir to irrigation districts, cities, and suburban areas. There are pending in the Congress two bills (H.R. 4152 and H.R. 4157), either one of which, if enacted into law with appropriate amendments, would accomplish these purposes.

HARRY S. TRUMAN