Rural Electrification Administration 



The admirable program of this agency involved 

 the construction of a good many power lines across 

 national forest lands. This involved two conflicts. 



First, it was the policy of the Forest Service 

 to require power and telephone lines to be located 

 a reasonable distance away from roadsides in order 

 to preserve the natural appearance of the forest. 

 Like other power agencies, the REA objected to this 

 on the ground of additional cost and less convenience 

 in maintenance. We had to battle it out with them* 



Second, power lines located near our grounded 

 circuit (single wire) telephone lines caused the 

 telephone lines to become so noisy as to render them 

 virtually useless. We took the position that the 

 REA should bear the expense of converting our lines 

 to metallic circuit (two-wire) lines. This they 

 refused to do on the grounds that the courts had 

 decided in the case of other rural lines that the 

 owners of ground-circuit lines must bear the expense 

 of metallicizing their lines when the ground-cir 

 cuit type was put out of business by the installation 

 of paralleling power lines. We lost that battle! 



On our part we took the initiative in procuring 

 a decision by the Secretary of Agriculture that 



