OCR Text |
Show 318 Excepting direct financial aid, the foregoing drainage responsibilities are therefore divided between the Army Engi- neers and the Soil Conservation Service. But the division is unclear, for the foregoing statutes make the partition depend- ent largely upon the meaning of "channel and major drainage improvements." And there is no statutory definition of this term, or of any of its components. Hence, the jurisdictional division seems to be the difference between "major," and whatever is minor. . This lack of statutory clarity apparently underlies a 1948 Memorandum of Understanding, whereby the two agencies agreed that: 15 The Soil Conservation Service is authorized to provide assistance to soil conservation districts and other State and local instrumentalities acceptable to the Secretary of Agriculture on drainage and related problems in con- nection with the conservation of soil and water resources, and the Corps of Engineers is authorized to provide channel and major drainage improvements on rivers and other waterways. In general, drainage for a watershed area consists of two complementary parts; one, the system required to utilize, manage, or remove surplus water from farms or groups of farms and two, the necessary channel and major drainage improvements required to control, carry off, and utilize these surplus waters. Therefore, in soil conservation districts or other State or locally organized areas, the activities of the Corps of Engineers and the Soil Conservation Service, in cooperation with the local districts or agencies provide for consideration of both of these complementary parts of drainage. Bureau of Reclamation.-The Bureau of Reclamation fre- quently performs drainage work as a part of irrigation project 15 Unpublished Memorandum of Understanding between the Corps of En- gineers, Department of the Army, and the Soil Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture, with Respect to Drainage Activities (June 1948). |