OCR Text |
Show 384 It should be noted that, for various reasons, two or more basins or one or more basins with adjacent areas have at times been treated as a single unit for development. Admittedly, there has often been vigorous disagreement as to the manner or means of achieving comprehensive develop- ment. It is not our purpose here to suggest which manner or means should be adopted. On the contrary, our purpose is to portray the trend toward comprehensive development, noting also the legislative framework to which must be fitted ad- ministrative efforts in the same direction. There is no single federal policy governing comprehensive development of water and land resources. Some statutes of uniform application separately control various aspects or func- tions. Others are geared to a comprehensive approach, but focus attention on individual projects, specific areas, or single rivers. But none is comprehensive and nation-wide in appli- cation. So far as it may now be achieved, therefore, compre- hensive development must depend upon such statutes passed at different times, devoted to individual segments, and admin- istered by separate agencies. Initially, direct participation of the Federal Government was usually discharged through the construction and opera- tion of individual small projects, each designed for a single purpose. Nonfederal developments authorized by direct ac- tion of Congress generally had development of power as their single purpose. A fragmentary legislative approach then seemed adequate. But as the size of river-development struc- tures increased, the potentiality of their use for many integrated purposes became obvious. At the same time, as sheer physical dominion over the rivers was extended, there came a growing recognition of the interrelationship between the various struc- tures on the same river system, of the fact that the storage or release of water at one dam directly affects uses and operations downstream, and of the fact that electrical and hydraulic in- tegration permits a series of dams to do more than the same dams operated independently. And beyond the river itself, there developed an increasing awareness of the inseparable |