CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE
October 23, 1967
Page 29670
IN PRAISE OF MORGAN DUBROW -- FATHER OF DICKEY-LINCOLN PROJECT
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, since the first proposal for the development of the Dickey-Lincoln School hydroelectric project in Maine, Mr. Morgan Dubrow of the Interior Department has been an invaluable friend to New England.
Mr. Dubrow's expertise on multipurpose water conservation projects was crucially important to the Maine congressional delegation in our work to gain congressional authorization of Dickey.
Without his enthusiasm for the project, and his convictions on its value, Dickey may never have reached President Johnson's desk or the Congress.
His analyses of Dickey's benefits and feasibility have withstood the stiffest campaign against a Federal power project ever raised by the private power industry. His findings have been substantiated by the only special House study of a Federal power project in memory. His conclusions have been justified by the Bureau of the Budget, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Power Commission, and every other agency which has reviewed Dickey's merits.
In short, no Federal project has ever received as much preconstruction study as has Dickey, and the fact that Mr. Dubrow's analyses have stood up against this unprecedented review demonstrate both his professional skills and the value of the project itself.
In a recent article published in the Portland Sunday Telegram, Washington correspondent Donald R. Larrabee reviews Mr. Dubrow's work for Dickey and recognizes his contribution to the project, and I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Portland (Maine) Sunday Telegram, Oct. 8, 1967]
DUBROW: FATHER OF DICKEY (By Don Larrabee)
WASHINGTON. The name of Morgan Dubrow probably doesn't mean much to anyone in Maine, even the most ardent supporters of the Dickey-Lincoln School hydroelectric power development for which he has labored a great deal during the past six years. But it is doubtless true that without Dubrow's personal and professional involvement in the Upper St. John River project, the Dickey plan would not have moved to its present advanced state of approval in Congress.
Dubrow has been the Interior Department's chief engineering adviser on Dickey from the beginning. He has been through every major private vs. public power controversy in the past quarter-century, having been associated with the Bonneville Power Administration and the Bureau of Reclamation, as well as the Corps of Engineers and the Federal Power Commission.
As Interior's top man in engineering and hydrology, he was asked in 1961 to head up an evaluation study that led to the Dickey-Lincoln School proposal. At the time, the Maine Congressional Delegation's long battle for Federally assisted water resource development had received a setback from the International Joint Commission which questioned the feasibility of the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power project.
Sen. Edmund Muskie prevailed on President Kennedy to order a review of the Commission's report by the Interior Department. Secretary Udall handed the job to a team headed by Dubrow.
Out of this study two years later came a package deal which substituted Dickey and Lincoln School sites on the St. John river for the old Rankin Rapids site. For years, Rankin Rapids was regarded as the ideal power site because it would have used the full flow of the Allagash.
It was this decision that made it possible for the Interior Department to work out its partnership plan with Maine to preserve the superb recreational areas of the Allagash from flooding.
Looking back on this history, the mild mannered Dubrow fairly erupts these days when he hears outcrys from those who say the Government has not considered conservation aspects in its pell-mell rush to build New England's first Federal power dams.
"Why," Dubrow said, "we could have produced about $3,500,000 a year more in power from Rankin Rapids but we would never have been able to preserve the Allagash as a free flowing stream for recreational use. Secretary Udall made an absolute decision that we were going to protect it.
"One of the first things we did was to look at the conservation question. At the original meeting, the Secretary made it crystal clear to me that despite substantial additional power benefits from Rankin Rapids, he considered himself the keeper of the Nation's wild rivers and the Government official most responsible for conservation. The Secretary laid down the ground rules that we were to come up with a reasonable substitute that would preserve the Allagash."
It is often overlooked, but the Interior Department, rather than the Corps of Army Engineers, has carried the ball for Dickey in the Johnson Administration. This is the agency that handles transmission of public power but it is also the Department most involved in preserving our natural resources and environment. And it is headed by an ardent conservationist, Udall, who has seen the Allagash and the St. John River and believes in the proposal now awaiting final planning money from Congress.
Congressman William Hathaway is surprised by the recent surge of conservationist opposition to the Dickey project. When the matter was before Congress for authorization two years ago, there wasn't a witness against it from such groups as the National Parks Association, the Sierra Club, the Izaak Walton League or the Wilderness Society. These organizations are vigilant, active and vocal in their opposition to hydroelectric projects which threaten recreational and scenic resources.
"I'm flabbergasted," Dubrow remarked a few days ago. "For anyone to say we haven't paid attention to conservation is sheer madness." He said the Fish and Wildlife Service has made basic studies on the fisheries and protective language will be written into the treaty agreement with Canada which is now in the final drafting stages.
As soon as the Army Engineers receive the first construction funds, a comprehensive recreation plan for the Dickey and Lincoln Reservoirs will be developed, according to Dubrow. The project is expected to flood some 135 square miles or 86,000 acres of timberland. In its stead, there will be a huge lake for fishing and other forms of recreation.
The Agriculture Department, in a separate report on the Dickey project two years ago, foresaw one additional benefit for Maine farmers deriving from the flood control aspects of the project. Assistant Secretary John Baker noted that the plains along the St. John River between St. Francis and Van Buren were so prone to flooding that several thousand acres of high quality farm land had been abandoned by owners.
The Dickey project is expected to give a high degree of flood protection to the whole river plain and this should make it possible to develop and improve the flood plain land for more intensive agricultural use.