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Show 415 A 1938 report on Water Planning by the National Resources Committee pointed out that sound federal policy should be concerned, not with water by and for itself, but with the pro- motion of public safety, public health, public convenience and comfort, the economic welfare of the public, and the establish- ment or maintenance of a high standard of living.123 In addition, it observed that such a policy should promote the maximum integrated control and use of water; treat drain- age areas as units; observe the rights of the states; hold facts to be indispensable to sound action; assign costs among agen- cies concerned in general accordance with the distribution of benefits; and relate drainage-basin development to the over-all national development and to the business cycle.124 Specifically, the Committee agreed that a:125 unified plan of water control and development, in con- trast to a medley of unrelated projects, calls for an integrated Federal policy with respect to the various types of water problems in their interlocking relation- ships in contrast to a collection of more or less unrelated policies. Navigation and Flood-Control Projects.-In 1936, fol- lowing disastrous floods in the Mississippi Valley, Congress declared control of floods to be a national problem, expressly recognizing that:126 destructive floods upon the rivers of the United States, upsetting orderly processes and causing loss of life and property, including the erosion of lands, and impairing and obstructing navigation, highways, railroads, and other channels of commerce between the States, con- stitute a menace to the national welfare. It announced that flood control on navigable waters or their tributaries is a proper federal activity in cooperation with 123 u. p. 12. ™Id. pp. 12-16. mid. p. 11. 339 Act of June 22,1936, § 1, 49 Stat. 1570, 33 U. S. 0. 701a. 911611-51------28 |
