OCR Text |
Show in which the objective of unified, multiple-pur- pose development finds practical expression. The Commission believes that such cooperative effort is essential to sound programming. River basins are not perfect units for studying or operating water resources programs, but in most regions they are better suited to the task than other units, such as States or geological provinces. As alrea.dy noted, a basin is a naturally organized transportation system for water. Its parts are related to each other by the flow of water. At best, however, a basin's watershed boundaries overlap many natural areas such as forest and mineral regions and cut directly across some political boundaries and areas of unified economy such as crop regions. Basins vary tremendously, both in physical size and in diversity. Their value as planning and operating units depends partly upon size. The Connecticut is too small to serve as a unit in electric power studies and should be considered as a part of the New England region. The Mississippi is too large for many purposes. Not- withstanding these limitations, the river basin re- mains the obvious core of water planning and accordingly is used not alone in the Commission studies but in virtually all Government studies of water problems. A Cooperative Task It is necessary to consider intensively how, with- in the larger national setting, the people of each region may constructively utilize the full poten- tialities of the resources which nature placed under their feet. If any region falls short of the full reaJization of its efficient economic possi- bilities, the whole Nation is that much poorer. It loses directly those additional goods and serv- ices that; are foregone which might have become availabLe to people without as well as within the region. Living as we do without serious barriers to interstate commerce, with free movement of people Avith their varying skills and professions throughout the land, with a myriad of institu- tions-economic, political, and cultural-that tie us into a single national community, the pros- perity or poverty of any single region advances or retards our total national welfare. The people within the region are, however, the special victims of regional inefficiency or instability. The great depression of the thirties, coinciding as it did with a 10-year drought in large areas of the United States, aroused a new widespread consciousness of the problems of people in differ- ent regions where snow and rainfall were either too low or too erratic, and where man's use had aggravated the resulting wind and water erosion. It also highlighted the chronic disadvantages in levels of living in some of our regions, as measured by comparative incomes. It witnessed the en- forced mass migration of families from the drought-stricken Great Plains. It saw the return to rural poverty, in the South and elsewhere, of young men and women thrown out of work in the cities, and the slamming of the door of op- portunity for city-bound rural youth who have always, in considerable volume, steadily moved from the farms to the expanding career oppor- tunities afforded by rapid city growth. Everywhere men and women began to look closely at their own communities to discover how their resources could be managed for their own advantage. This community stock taking, ex- pressed in county, State, and regional planning boards or councils, laid special emphasis in many parts of the Nation, including all the regions west of the Mississippi, on the potential values of water development and river control when related to land and industrial uses. While the war and the postwar prosperity checked and somewhat obscured the new appre- ciation of the importance of regional self- examination and redirection of community effort, this movement is here to stay. It deserves and has received the potent assistance of Congress ex- pressed through the field programs of the water and land management agencies (the Corps of Engineers,1 the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fed- eral Power Commission, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Southwest Power Adminis- tration, the Forest Service, the Soil Conservation 1 Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, hereafter referred to as Army Engineers. 20 |