No one questions the desirability of a project intended to end the disastrous floods on the upper Allegheny River. But it is open to serious question whether the only way in which the Corps of Engineers can achieve this end is by dishonoring a treaty with the Seneca Indians signed in 1794 by George Washington-the oldest treaty, incidentally, to which the United States is a party and which is still in force.
- "Second Look at Kinzua", January 24, 1960Our home no longer belongs to us. It is the sole property of the Army Corps of Engineers. We are merely living in it because we have no other place to go. There is no money for us to put into a new home. We have just eight months left. Eight months to say good-bye to home, valley and a heritage I've known for eighteen years. How much harder it must be for those having to say good-by to generations of living, growing and dying inherited by a plot of ground called home.
-Brooks Atkinson, February 25, 1964Five alternative proposals have been found to be engineeringly sound but more costly than the authorized project. The sixth proposal, the Committee commented, "does not provide a solution to the water resource development problems of the Allegheny River Basin that compares favorably with the authorized plan." In addition, it would raise new problems, such as flooding of the Conewango watershed, a valuable agricultural area, and the complication of international jurisdiction.
-Senator Joseph S. Clark, January 30, 1960Completion of the 179-foot high dam, the largest in Pennsylvania, is schedules for 1965. The man-made lake will extend north to Salamanca, N.Y., and will inundate 9,000 acres or two-thirds of the usable land on the New York reservation of the Seneca nation of Indians. The project will displace more than 1,000 white persons and some 550 Indians.
-William G. Weart, August 13, 1961Does a sovereign nation have the right of eminent domain in a situation in which it has made a treaty that it will not exercise that right? Of course it is legal for the sovereign Government of the United States to break every treaty it ever agreed to, but it would not be ethical, and it would not improve our international relations.
-Theodore B. Hetzel, November 3, 1959