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Show or natural gas reserves. Industrial growth on which high, stable income levels increasingly de- pend is therefore peculiarly tied to the very favor- able hydroelectric characteristics of the Columbia River System. One major adverse water factor must be set off against this use of the river, namely, the menace to the up-river salmon runs which supply the raw material for the lower river fishing industry and a nutritious food for domestic and world consumption. There is some hope that this disadvantage may be partly reduced or compensated for by river programs especially designed for that purpose. If so, it will be the result of Federal and State financed research and clearance of tributary streams in the lower part of the basin. There need be little doubt as to the far-reach- ing effect of a completed program of developing the water resources of the Columbia Basin. With its completion a region now heavily dependent upon extractive industry, and now dominated by destructive exploitation of resources, will have been transformed into one with a healthy balance between agriculture, forestry, and industry. Major, but still decentralized industrial districts, are likely to have grown along Puget Sound, the middle and lower Columbia, and on the Willa- mette. The region's already generous recrea- tional resources will have been improved by better distribution of opportunities. The central Wash- ington desert will be supporting some thousands of farm families where now there are none. Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest will be more closely tied economically than before, and mutually benefited. The region will be one of the Nation's major centers of energy produc- tion, and a center of strategic industry. Hazards to public health in many localities will have been removed. Factories, homes, businesses, banks, highways, railroads, and towns will exist where now there are none. It is not difficult to picture a region with at least twice the present popula- tion, and industrial centers which will make the West a balancing weight in national life as it never has been before. To obtain these results will require the con- struction and operation of an extensive system of projects. In brief, this program involves: a system of main-stem and tributary dams storing water for hydroelectric power, navigation, irri- gation, and flood control; the rehabilitation and extension of irrigation systems; the treatment of the tributary lands so as to minimize erosion, sediment flow, and runoff; the protection of the Columbia River fisheries; the treatment of in- dustrial and municipal wastes; and the develop- ment of water facilities for recreation. The required action is described in some detail in volume 2 and some features are shown on figure 2. Full accomplishment will demand careful engineering and economic work by local, State, and Federal agencies over a period of sev- eral decades. Funds, technical personnel, de- tailed research, and a large degree of coordina- tion among the cooperating agencies will be needed if the physical phases of the program are to be completed with economy, safety, and per- manence. The skills are available and the pro- gram already is under way. In a larger sense the successful completion of the Columbia Basin program depends upon en- lightened statesmanship on the part of Congress in setting the guide lines for future action and in regulating the speed of undertaking the sepa- rate parts. Unless discerning and firm guidance is given in those respects, the great program of works which ultimately will stand in concrete, in ditches, in vegetated slopes, in power transmis- sion towers across the basin, will fall short of con- tributing in the right degree and at the right time to the national welfare. Here is seen plainly the effect of national water policy upon the future of a great region. The power developed at the new dams must be marketed at uniform rates with preference to public bodies in order to make its maximum con- tribution to decentralization of industry and of associated residential land use. Similarly, unless the navigation system is operated and supple- mented by promotional measures so as to encour- age new freight movements in the basin, the: opportunities to reduce shipping costs and to dis- perse new manufacturing will have been reduced- The policy which the Commission is recommend- ing for power rates and irrigation costs in con- nection with multiple-purpose storage projects 25 |