Lake. I have lived at Shell Knob since February 1955. My wife, sons, and I operate a coin-operated laundry, general merchandise store, and farm in partnership with my father-in-law, who has lived at Shell Knob for 79 years.

First I want to thank this committee for taking time from their busy schedule to hear our complaints on the fees, rentals, and other unaccountable charges that are being assessed on the use of Table Rock Lake. Having lived in the area since before the lake was established, I have seen the assessed valuation of the lake area go to a very low value in our district. We increased taxes and held on to keep our community going until the lake was finished and new developments came in to pick up this loss in revenue. This was about a 6-year period of time. The land was bought from the farmers with the understanding put forth from the Real Estate Division of the Corps of Engineers that there would be no charges, rents, or fees on the land surrounding the lake or the lake itself for privaate use. According to them, this would make the land left around the lake valuable for development purposes. Now we have built summer homes and summer recreation facilities on and adjacent to the lake at our own expense. We have followed the Corps of Engineers instructions to the letter, knowing that to do otherwise would cause us to lose our permits and have to remove the facility from the lake. Not before we built these facilities but now we are told we are to pay fees.

We are informed that the lakes were built by the Federal Government and controlled by the Army Engineers for three reasons to make them feasible, (1) flood control, (2) power, and (3) recreation. We know that to make Table Rock feasible, recreation was one of the purposes, but no rules and regulations were established by Congress to keep the Corps of Engineers or other agencies from adding unjust fees or regulations to hold down recreation and lakeside developments.

May I give you a few of the fees paid direct or indirect on private docks, boating facilities, and recreation equipment on Table Rock Lake:

1. Apply for permit to build private dock, duckblind, or any other facility on the lake, make sure you got plans and specifications approved by Corps of Engineers. Receive permit at no charge.

2. Make sure you have someone that will be responsible for dock. People who live away from lake and have summer and weekend cottages hire a local person to care for their dock.

3. Ask for permit for boat if it is to be in lake over 24 hours or launch and remove boat each time it is used.

4. Missouri State license on both boat and motor at $5 each. 5. Personal property tax on dock, boat, motor.

6. Federal and State gas tax on motor fuel.

Now they are asking us to pay on assessment of over $3,000 per year per acre rent on land that was purchased for less than $25 an acre. An example of this is the land where our dock is now anchored. It was bought for $17.50 per acre from my father-in-law. The yearly rent on our 16- by 22-foot boat dock is $22.23. We receive no services whatsoever for this fee. We cannot prohibit others from using this dock and the increased fees being charged at public use areas are forcing the public into these privately financed and owned facilities. We must

maintain the roads to these docks, keep the woods cut on the lakeshore. We must get a permit to even cut a dead tree under or around our dock. An example of the fees collected at public use areas is that we local people cannot even visit friends who have paid a fee for camping at the public use areas without being charged. I have in my possession a permit issued my wife at the cost of $1 for the privilege of visiting relatives at a camping area.

I have in my possession letters from other private boat dock clubs and individuals that I would like entered into the record, giving their position on fees and charges on this lake.

Mr. JONES. Without objection, it will be received. (The documents referred to follow :)

JOHNSTON'S CASSVILLE HARDWARE & VARIETY, INC.,

Cassville, Mo., October 31, 1967.

This announces that Mr. John Cupps is representing me as a personal envoy to protect me and my property. It is with extreme regret that I feel I must need someone to protect the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States to prevent the government of said nation from using confiscatory means to take my property.

Sincerely,

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE,
Washington, D.C.

K. R. JOHNSTON.

GARRISON LUMBER CO., Pierce City, Mo., November 2, 1967.

GENTLEMEN: I wish to express my views on the proposed charges for private and public docks on the empoundments under the supervision of the Corps of Engineers.

One of the major enterprises in this area is the inducement of tourists and retired people to settle in the Ozarks. This charge will certainly discourage them settling on these lakes that have these charges and cause them to go to such lakes as are not under the supervision of the Corps of Engineers.

Another point is that if we were getting some service in return for the fee it might seem more justified. These lakes are built with public tax money and I thought for the purpose of flood control and recreation and not to be a source of income only from the sale of electricity that is generated from the water power.

Furthermore there is no guarantee that next year they will not come back and ask for an additional fee, nor have I been able to find out what the money from the fees will be used for, or will it be like the Golden Eagle fees, that costs more to collect than the fee brings in.

In conclusion I feel that this is a very unjust fee and will do a great deal of harm to the recreation area around the lakes and ask your consideration in dropping these fees.

Very truly yours,

L. H. GARRISON.

RUDY NAUMAN ELECTRIC CO.,
St. Joseph, Mo., November 2, 1967.

JOHN E. CUPPS, Jr.,

Shell Knob, Mo.

DEAR JOHN: As you know I very strongly resent the system of fees proposed by the Corps of Engineers to be levied against the private boat dock owners on Table Rock Lake. I feel that the proposed fees are not only excessive but unduly complicated in their method of computation. If this plan is carried out it will certainly discourage people like myself from planning a retirement home in these lake areas.

Please act as my representative in the above matter while on your trip to Washington.

Sincerely,

W. R. RUDY NAUMAN.

RIBBING PLUMBING AND REPAIR,
Aurora, Mo., October 31, 1967.

DEAR MR. JOHN H. CUPPS, Jr.: As secretary of the Lakeside Boat Dock, I was endorsed to send you a letter in regards to protest the Corps of Engineers fees on private boat dock facilities in your area.

I think as well as the other nine owners, that this is an unnecessary, unjust and uncalled for fee.

We are all in favor of having this and all fees placed on this lake at Table Rock or any other lake used for recreation abolished.

Very truly yours,

DEAN RIBBING.

CARTHAGE, Mo., October 31, 1967.

Mr. JOHN E. CUPPS, Jr., Shell Knob, Mo.

DEAR MR. CUPPS: The members of Riverside Park Boat Club would like for you to represent use before the Public Works Committee in Washington, D.C., on November 7th.

We have a dock with ten slips on Table Rock Lake and we feel the Corps of Engineer's recent assessment to keep the dock on this public lake is unfair and unwarranted.

Yours truly,

M. FOSTER WHITTEN, M.D., President, Riverside Park Boat Club.

Hon. GEORGE H. FALLON,

Chairman, Public Works Committee,

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

NEEDLE'S EYE BEACH,

TABLE ROCK LAKE,

Shell Knob, Mo., November 1, 1967.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN FALLON: May we have the privilege to direct your Committee's attention to a specific example of the Corps of Engineers attempt to exact onerous fees for a private boat dock on the Table Rock Lake.

In 1959 we owners of lake front homes, mostly retired residents, were encouraged to build private docks under guidelines set by the Corps of Engineers. After our construction and inspection we were issued a permit (#14) and were mailed a complimentary letter on its construction and appearance from the resident engineer at Branson, Mo.

The dock as it appears today with its specifications is shown in the picture attached to this letter.

You will note that the total area of the dock and its approach is 4625.28 sq. ft. Under the proposed assessment of the Corps of Engineers they expect to exact from us the sum of $341.89 yearly or cancel our permit.

With 43,560 sq. ft. in an acre and our dock area of 4625.28 sq. ft., or approximately 1/10 of an acre, they are proposing to assess us on the basis of $3,418.96 per acre per year fee.

We vigorously protest such an arbitrary and unjustified penalty upon we retired people with limited incomes and plead for your action in averting their proposed penalties.

We respectfully request that our letter be read to your Committee and that it be entered in the records of your Committee meeting.

Sincerely yours,

R. E. CALLAWAY.

Mr. CUPPS. I wish to thank you for your time and consideration. The private boat dock owners I represent and I ask you as a representative body of the U.S. Government to right these wrongs and give us laws, rules, and regulations that will make our area develop to its full potential.

If you have any questions which I can answer, I would appreciate them now.

Are there any questions?

Mr. EDWARDS. We are having a discussion, which maybe you can clear up. You are not speaking about people who are building docks and rent space to other people?

Mr. CUPPS. No, sir. I am speaking principally of private

Mr. EDWARDS. You are talking about a man who builds a private dock, no one else uses it, and no revenue derived from it, used just for your personal use?

Mr. CUPPS. Just for personal use.

Dr. HALL. I think the point might be made in connection with Mr. Edward's question, that even though you sail out of your own private docks, that sometimes as the point was made by Mr. Cupps, you have

to pay a fee to put in at another dock to visit a friend that may be camping there, in addition to the friend paying that fee. That was the main import of the testimony.

Mr. Chairman, I would expressly like to compliment Mr. Cupps. I have known his father-in-law not all of his 79 years, but almost that long, and he is a former postmaster and builder of the community down there.

Mr. CUPPS. This is a private dock facility that we have built on the lake for our own private use.

Mr. OLSEN. What frontage on the lake do you have for exclusive private use?

Mr. CUPPS. This land was obtained from my father-in-law at this procurement fee, and it was bought to a take level. The land above that take level was sold for private development.

Mr. OLSEN. So the take level includes what kind of shoreline? Mr. CUPPS. On this one dock, 250 feet of frontage.

Mr. OLSEN. That you have private use of 250 feet?

Mr. CUPPS. No, sir. We do not have private use. We have the privilege to set our dock in there.

Mr. HAMMERSCHMIDT. Would the gentleman yield on that point? I am very familiar with this situation down there. Let me explain to my colleague, Mr. Olsen, how this works.

There is no exclusive use of the land in front of these boat docks. Only out of common courtesy do people respect the fact that your dock is adjacent to the land. Therefore, they do not encroach on it very much.

It is certainly still public property. There is no exclusive use of the land.

Mr. OLSEN. In effect the public is being fenced out of some of the public property?

Mr. CUPPS. No, sir. We have no rights whatsoever.

Mr. OLSEN. It is a private dock; is it not?

Mr. CUPPS. We cannot make a private dock. We have no legal right. We cannot keep anyone from using our dock.

Mr. OLSEN. I was under the impression that the man just ahead of you said that he wanted to exclude the public.

Mr. HAMMERSCHMIDT. May I say further, Mr. Olsen, if I may, Mr. Chairman, that this land is open to the public. You are not excluded from it in any way as far as the shoreline. I do not know whether you understand how it works; but there are no exclusions to the land by any of the public around this lake.

Dr. HALL. I think the key was when he said down to the take level. What he meant was the area laid out as according to metes and bounds taken by the Corps of Engineers in the original land acquisition, and your land is back behind that, and the take levels include the shoreline and certain distance, sometimes a full section back from the shore. Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Dr. Hall a question here. There is a certain amount of land that is involved here that is considered necessary for project purposes. Beyond that, it is private land.