OCR Text |
Show 403 Waterways Commission.-That same year, 1917, witnessed a significant legislative recognition of the comprehensive-devel- opment concept when Congress established the Waterways Commission.62 It authorized the Commission: to bring into coordination and cooperation the engineer- ing, scientific, and constructive services, bureaus, boards, and commissions of the several governmental depart- ments of the United States and commissions created by Congress that relate to study, development, or control of waterways and, water resources and subjects related thereto, or to the development and regulation of inter- state and foreign commerce, with a view to uniting such services in investigating, with respect to all watersheds in the United States, questions relating to the develop- ment, improvement, regulation, and control of naviga- tion as a part of interstate and foreign commerce, includ- ing therein the related questions of irrigation, drainage, forestry, arid and swamp land reclamation, clarification of streams, regulation of flow, control of floods, utiliza- tion of water power, prevention of soil erosion and waste, storage, and conservation of water for agricultural, in- dustrial, municipal, and domestic uses, cooperation of railways and waterways, and promotion of terminal and transfer facilities, to secure the necessary data, and to formulate and report to Congress, as early as practicable, a comprehensive plan or plans for the development of waterways and the water resources of the United States for the purposes of navigation and for every useful pur- pose, and recommendations for the modification or dis- continuance of any project herein or heretofore adopted. The Commission was also directed to give consideration to mat- ters to be undertaken by the United States alone or in coopera- tion with states and local entities and individuals, with a view to assigning to each such portions as belong to their respective "jurisdictions, rights, and interests." M Act of August 8,1917, § 18, 40 Stat. 250, 269. |