Deep Water for Dixon-Yates

Opponents of the Dixon-Yates power plan at Securities and Exchange Commission hearings, last week got around to the proposed location of the $105 million plant. President Thomas H. Allen of Memphis' municipal utility company, which will be served by the new plant, pointed out that its site across the Mississippi River near West Memphis, Ark. might be submerged by flood waters. Further, he said, a $10 million transmission line would be needed to bring the power across the river, an expense that would not be necessary if a plant were built on the Memphis side of the river. Said Allen: "The West Memphis site is the most undesirable location that could be selected for a plant to serve Memphis."

As an expert witness on power-plant sites. SEC called up University of Mississippi Engineering Dean Frederic H. Kellogg, a onetime Panama Canal geologist. Testified Kellogg: "A safe plant could be built at [West Memphis] but . . . foundation soil and river conditions . . . would make the overall substructure costs significantly higher than at other nearby locations." At a press conference, AEChair-man Lewis Strauss defended the site, saying that the Army Corps of Engineers had approved the West Memphis site as "a safe place" after surveying 16 proposed locations. But, as it turned out, the Army Engineers had nothing to do with the plant location. Said Major General Bernard L. Robinson, Acting Chief of Engineers: "I categorically deny that the Corps of Engineers inspected 16 sites or that we had anything to do with the selection of the site." Strauss blamed his error on "a slip of the tongue," admitted that only engineers retained by Dixon-Yates had made the recommendations.

Strauss defended the proposed contract, along with Edgar H. Dixon and Eugene A. Yates, heads of two of the utilities that will be in the group formed to build the plant. But to newsmen later he regretted "that [the Dixon-Yates contract] is not being negotiated directly between the Tennessee Valley Authority and the power companies," rather than with the AEC acting for TVA. When asked why it had not been negotiated directly, Strauss said that he did not know.

At week's end, SEC recessed the hearings until Jan. 19. If SEC approves the financing of the project, opponents may go to court to try to block it. Thus, even without any action by the hostile incoming Congress, a decision on Dixon-Yates may well drag on past Feb. 15, the deadline set by AEC for final approval. If Dixon-Yates does not have a final okay by then, both sides will have to decide whether to extend the deadline or cancel the contract.

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