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Show 118 NAVIGABLE WATERS power of the United States over its water is not limited to control for navigation in the sense that navigation means no more than operation of boats and improvement of the waterway itself. The authority of the United States is the regulation of commerce on its waters-prescribing the rule by which commerce is to be governed-in which sense technical navigability is but a part of this whole. "Flood protection, watershed development, recovery of the cost of improvements through utilization of power are likewise parts of commerce control." The authority of the Federal Government over a navigable stream is as broad as the needs of commerce; and in the broad regulation of commerce, navigable waters are subject to national planning and control. And so, possessing this plenary power over structures in the flowage of navigable waters, "the United States may make the erection or maintenance of a structure in a navigable stream dependent upon a license." In the following year, referring to the holding in the New River decision that flood control is a part of commerce control,87 the Court said that:88 And we now add that the power of flood control extends to the tributaries of navigable streams. For, just as control over the non-navigable parts of a river may be essential or desirable in the interests of the navigable portions, so may the key to flood control on a navigable stream be found in whole or in part in flood control on its tributaries. As repeatedly recognized by this Court * * *, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce may be aided by appropriate and needful control of activities and agencies which, though intrastate, affect that commerce. The court further indicated that one phase of a project, such as power, may carry some of the cost of another phase, such as flood control, and that the several phases need not be of equal importance.89 In the Gerlach Live Stock Company case, noted briefly at the beginning of this subtopic, the Supreme Court expressed itself as without doubt that the totality of a plan so comprehensive as the Central Valley Project of California has some legitimate relation to control of inland navigation, or that particular components might be described without pretense as navigation and flood control projects.90 This made it appropriate that Congress should justify this undertaking by general reference to its control over commerce and navigation; and the general direction of the purpose of Congress in this legislation, the Court believed, was intended to help meet any objection to its constitutional authority to undertake this array of big projects. Noting that the custom of invoking the commerce clause in authorizing improvements arose when the power to make internal improvements was still in doubt, the Court now agreed "Oklahoma v. Guy F. Atkinson Co., 313 U. S. 508, 525-530 (1941). 8sId. at 525-526. 89Id. at 530-534. 90 United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725, 736-739 (1950). |