then we think if the Federal Government assumes the right to set forth regulations, that the regulations should contain very definite restrictions. We propose as a method of reaching that, before legislation is passed, that further consideration should be given by the committee itself or by a commission or through the Department of the Interior and that definite recommendations in the form of proposed legislation should come to the Congress based on the preconceived and agreed to conclusions of the mineworkers, the human element involved, the coal operators who have the human element, and the gas companies whose primary consideration in this is purely economical.

I might, for the edification of the committee, say that my organization has attempted to reach an understanding on this problem. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get the gas companies to come forward.

Senator PURTELL. Did you have certain specific suggestions to make to the gas companies in this relation?

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes.

Senator PURTELL. Had you? You said you could not get together? Mr. FERGUSON. Oh, very definitely. We had not come to the point of being able to make any suggestions.

I might point out this, that no later than last week in Pittsburgh, Pa., I attended a meeting of the mining section of the National Safety Council and I am attempting to use the facilities of that safety council to call into a meeting representatives of the gas industry, the coal industry, and the mineworkers for some attempt to sit down and iron out this problem. I do not agree with some of the statements here that this problem cannot be solved. We realize that it is sometimes to our interest to have gas stored so that they won't dump it on us when we have a chance to get some coal production. That is economic.

But so far the gas companies have not come forward. I have not had one communication in my capacity as safety director from any gas company in America, realizing that we have a problem and offering to sit down with me and try to solve it.

I think that the only sensible solution to this problem, and pointing out a concrete example, in the passage of Public Law 552, the initial bill was introduced and it had the opposition of almost the entire coal industry. The committee adopted a procedure of aiding representatives of industry, the mineworkers and Federal and State departments of the mines sit down with them and give their opinions on this proposed legislation, and as a result we came out with what we think is not something that the mineworkers expect to get, but it is a workable, practical Federal statute, and it does not in any way interfere with the police powers of the state, but rather implements the functions of the State department of mines.

If the committee feels at some future date that that is the approach to this problem you may be assured that my organization will have practical, competent men representing our union at the conference.

Senator PURTELL. You have been studying this, I imagine, since January or probably shortly thereafter when the bill was introduced. Have you or your organization any recommendations to make now to this committee?

Mr. FERGUSON. Only on the basis that I think before any action is taken there should be some delegation by the committee to a commission composed of representatives of the Interior Department to make

a further study and to call into conference the various segments involved in this controversy. We can try to reach some understanding and come back to the committee with concrete recommendations of what can be done to provide for the safety of the employees involved. We subscribe to that.

Senator PURTELL. I know that your organization has certainly made some very complete studies of some of the problems facing your workers.

Have you and idea as to what the minimum distance you believe it is safe to allow the underground storage of gas in the mines should be?

Mr. FERGUSON. As a practical matter, I cannot tell you that. Senator PURTELL. That question may have been too specific. Mr. FERGUSON. It is a matter of geological condition. We will take a mine, we will say because of conditions of mining and barrier pillars that might be left, we will say that 1,000 feet away from a coal mine might be a practical solution. On the other hand where you have various size pillars there might be a smaller minimum distance required. Then again there may be pillars that are subject to be crushed out when the coal is mined, and then you would want additional protection either under or away from it to preclude the possibility of the removal of the coal and the subsequent subsiding of the earth, creating cracks and strains in the rock strata. Those are practical considerations. Whether it is to be worked out here, or through a commission, the latter will be our position, and we think that this is the way it should be done.

Senator PURTELL. Can the limits of a coalfield be scientifically established?

Mr. FERGUSON. Very definitely.

Senator PURTELL. They can be scientifically established?
Mr. FERGUSON. There is no question about it.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. I think it is well to have in the record at this time, with reference to what Mr. Ferguson said, the statement that appeared in a letter dated February 11, 1954, from the Department of the Interior, signed by Mr. F. E. Wormser, where he had this to say in the letter he addressed to the chairman of the committee:

We therefore recommend that the Congress, in extending the right of eminent domain for the purpose of underground gas storage, should restrict that right to areas where such storage would not increase the hazard to the safety or the health of mineworkers. The right of eminent domain for gas storage should therefore not be extended to facilitate the storage of gas in the vicinity of active underground mining areas. To accomplish this recommendation, it is suggested that the bill be amended by deleting

And the Department there made some recommendations.
Then again Mr. Wormser said:

We assume that the enactment of this legislation would not give a public utility, which exercises the power of eminent domain under this bill, any immunity from applicable State laws and regulations concerning the safety, health, and protection of property of citizens of that State, particularly miners and operators of coal mines.

Now, that is under his own signature and is involved in the hearing here today, and I assume you underscore and agree to that?

Mr. FERGUSON. Very definitely, and I think that the only failure in Mr. Wormser's statement is that before he sent it over here he should have had the very thing I am talking about, his experts, the experts

of the gas industry and the experts of the coal industry sit down and then he would have been able to make recommendations to the committee and I don't know if there are gasmen here-that they would have been able to make some very constructive recommendations as to the solution to this problem.

Senator MONRONEY. Since you said you can very definitely define a coal-mining area, even though some of the gas companies find it probably a little more economical to start to use the abandoned oil and gas fields, wouldn't it be almost as cheap to go away from the coal area and sink new wells as it would be to utilize the old dried out wells?

Mr. FERGUSON. I am unable to answer that from the economic side. But my thinking is that we know there are certain regulations that should be made and that have to be met on pressure, based on the testing period that the gas company now makes. They make these tests over a period of running the gas or air into the abandoned mines, for example, in case they are desirous of putting in 12 million cubic feet of gas. Now, do they put 12 million cubic feet of air in there with an odorant and do they put in 3,800 pounds of pressure and do they survey it to find out if there is any leakage? If a gas company stores gas in an area then the question resolves into the final adjudication of who gets out. If the coal mine gets to the point where the life of the men is in danger by the storage pool or the mining in proximity to the pool will have to be stopped to protect the coal miners from the gas, or will the storage operations have to be stopped because of the proximity of the coal miners in order to protect the coal miners from the same problem?

Those are things that I think we should be sitting around a table to determine rather than sitting here today in front of the Congress trying to work them out.

Senator MONRONEY. It seems to me if you are endangering the life of the coal miners and jeopardizing the coal operations, it would not be too expensive to move over to a completely nonbearing coal area and one that had been drilled out in, say, 1890, and put down a good, clean casing of cement right down at the bottom and proceed into the dry sands.

Mr. FERGUSON. I might point out that in part of my statement I said that we believe Senate bill 525 is in direct contravention of the action and intent of the Congress when it enacted Public Law 552. The Department of the Interior, through the Federal Bureau of Mines, is charged by Federal law with the safety and if an inspector enters a coal mine and in his own opinion he believes that there is an imminent danger of a coal-mine explosion he is required by law to close that mine, and I saw that in defense of the industry. The industry is between the devil and the deep blue sea on this, because I as safety director insist and will insist that if I believe there is imminent danger of a coal-mine explosion I will be after the Bureau of Mines to close up the mine. These things all run to the concrete question.

Senator PURTELL. It is not the intention of the chairman of this committee, and I am sure of any of the members of this committee, to endanger the life of the mineworkers or anyone else.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ferguson.

The next witness is Mr. Charles Tillson, superintendent of mines, Crucible Steel Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES TILLSON, SUPERINTENDENT OF MINES, CRUCIBLE STEEL CO., PITTSBURGH, PA.

Mr. TILLSON. I am superintendent of Crucible Steel Co., coalmining division, which has a total of 800 employees. I am a graduate mining engineer and had my mining engineering training at Lehigh University. I have been with Crucible Steel for the past 2 years, and for 15 years prior to that time I was with Bethlehem Steel coal mine in an official capacity at some of their large properties. All of these properties were in the Pittsburgh seam, all gaseous mines.

Crucible Steel, as I mentioned, has 800 employees, which covers about 2,500 square miles. Most of these people live in Crucible. We ship our coal by river barge on the Monongahela and the Ohio River to the point where we make coke which is used in turn for steel and pig iron.

This steel process is used at our other plants and also at Midland. Crucible Steel is a specialty steel producer. Its steel has varied product use. For example, some of our steel finds its way into jet engines, conductor pipe in the atomic-energy program, agricultural implement use, tool steel, aircraft landing gear.

In the year 1953, 20 percent of our production, approximately, was used in the national-defense industry. In times of the recent national emergency this percentage approximated 100 percent.

Our economic position is very similar to that of Bethlehem Steel Co., as presented by Mr. Broeker, assistant vice president.

We also depend upon the natural-gas industry for both heating and the melting of our steel.

We depend heavily on this source of fuel, and therefore we are interested in having an adequate supply.

We are in full agreement with his statement regarding captive coal mines. However, our problem is even a little more serious. We have only one coal mine. If this one coal mine were condemned under the provisions of this bill S. 525, our whole operation of coal would be completely cut off. We would then have to turn elsewhere for a source of supply.

Metallurgical coal is today in short supply. It is doubtful that we could divide the source of supply where we could use our river transport such as we now have, but our primary concern is with the safety of our employees. Even if our mine was not condemned, new gas storage fields might be brought into adjacent areas, either under or adjacent to our property.

Right now we are worrying about a storage pool which is within 4 miles of our active workings.

To me as a coal-mine superintendent and one who is generally skilled in geology, this situation is already serious. Expert testimony we have heard this morning has indicated that it is not easy to define these pools, that they move, that the gas migrates. No one can be sure exactly how far they extend, as mentioned by Mr. Woomer. Therefore, if the condemnation of gas storage provided in this particular bill was possible, we could not know but what our particular property might be endangered by this gas migration.

We also, like several of these other operators, have had the experience of cutting into old, abandoned gas wells mentioned this morning. Fortunately for us these wells were all nonproducing, dry.

Had this happened at a time when gas was being stored underneath our property, it is altogether likely that we might have had a condition from which gas would have leaked, gushed out, and we probably would have had an explosion.

I should like to mention, in reply to Senator Schoeppel's remark of this morning regarding the risk, we cannot take a risk in a case like this where we have all of our men, as many, possibly, as 300 or many more underground at one time. It would be a national catastrophe if that many men were wiped out in one particular incident. Some of our neighboring properties have many more men than that in their mines.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. I wanted to correct the impression that someone might have gained that the safety factor should be overlooked in any situation. I want to allay your fears if you think that I, by reason of asking any questions on it, have that feeling. That is the one thing that we are gearing ourselves to on this, and that is one of the things I have said repeatedly, and I am an exponent of the rights of the States on this matter of centralization of authority which sometimes acts arbitrarily in overlooking some of these safeguards, and I do not think for one moment that a State, much less the Federal Government through any Federal agency, should attempt to minimize the most rigid requirements on safety factors in here. I do say that wherever we can in this legislation, by writing it in and implementing it by regulations of any department, we should go to the ultimate in the safety features involved and offer to protect the property rights, some of which you are now testifying to, which in my opinion would be completely out of the question to authorize or permit the acquiring of property and disregarding those economic factors that are so important in your business.

Senator PURTELL. I think Senator Schoeppel expressed the view, and I certainly took it that way, and it was my view too, that every possible safeguard should be had, but that it was impossible to guarantee that things would not happen and that is why occasionally with all the things that you have done on these safeguards you still have accidents. But I think the statement was that nobody can absolutely guarantee that there will not be accidents.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. We have had instances wherein, completely beyond the question of abandoned wells or anything else, in coal-mine operation, by some lapse of something or some physiological condition developing-unforeseen, of course, to be sure that terrific explosions have resulted in the loss of life, and that is the most regrettable thing that could happen. But we have instances of that sort that we cannot in the human element always anticipate.

Senator PURTELL. I am sure that Senator Monroney would like to go on record here on this matter, too.

Senator MONRONEY. That is one of the reasons for holding the hearing, to find ways of protecting the safety and the life of the miners. Mr. L'HEUREUX. Chairman Kuykendall stated, as I recall, on March 3, that the Federal Power Commission recommended that natural-gas companies must first get a certificate of necessity before they can proceed to condemn, and that, in his opinion, when they come before the Federal Power Commission, the Commission would not grant the certificate if there were danger to the health and safety of the miners.