OCR Text |
Show Any review of the three volumes issued by the President's Water Resources Policy Commission must, among other things, take into account that the Commission had but a limited time within which to work. It began its work in January of 1950 and it completed at least Volume I thereof (which comprises its recommendations) in December of the same year. During that limited period of time it held hearings in various parts of the country and it must have received thousands of pages of material. If, therefore, it appears to have, from time to time, an inadequate grasp of the significance of existing policies which have resulted from many years of experience and evolution in the field of water resources development, it is not to be criticized too severely. The criticisms, if any, must be leveled at those who naively supposed that any group, no matter how well composed, could do, in less than 12 months, an adequate job of analytical survey of such existing policies in order to find their weaknesses and to suggest improvement. It would appear, from a statement made in the Introduction (See page 4, under the heading "Evolution of Water Resources Policy") that one of the purposes of the Commission was to arrive at "a restatement of national water resources policy" and also to set forth in'orderly fashion and perhaps carry a step forward "a policy which has developed as a result of the constructive thinking of many able people in Government agencies and departments, special commissions, congressional committees, on the floor of Congress, and in the White House over a period extending back more than a century and a half." In no sense, however, can the Commission be said, at any point, to have achieved "a restatement of national water resources policy." It has, on the other hand, set forth from place to place its notions regarding changes in existing policy. The introduction to Volume I summarizes its position thus: "This Commission is convinced that the next step forward must be the application of unified responsibility to the planning of multiple-purpose basin-wide developments. This need not be in accordance with the Tennessee Valley Authority pattern so far as organization is concerned. But it must take advantage of what the country has learned from that experiment in unified development of the water resources of basins." The respectful bow which the Commission makes in the general direction of the Tennessee Valley Authority might, it may be expected, have been somewhat less obsequious had the Commission realized (as it most certainly would if it had had time within which to make more thorough investigations) that the job which the TV A -15- |