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Show (1) The cooperation and participation of State and local agencies has been effectively enlisted. Their initiative has been depended upon to develop the opportunities afforded by TVA's basic activi- ties. State extension services supervise agricultural improvement; city and cooperative power systems distribute electricity; State conservation commis- sions and park agencies develop the fish and wildlife and recreation opportunities made possible by TVA lakes. (2) The value of having centralized regional responsibility has been shown, both as a means of coordinating the efforts of many functional bu- reaus, and as an organization which the people of the region identify with their own interests. (3) How economic advantages and benefits can be made to flow from an electric power program which emphasizes low rates, abundant use, and public service also has been demonstrated. To the people of the Tennessee Valley and the surround- ing region this is an outstanding achievement. Although electric service is not directly competitive, being regarded as a "natural monopoly," experience in the valley region has led to a reduction in rates and increase in levels of electricity consumption in adjoining areas served by private utilities. (4) The development has enlisted the financial participation of the people of the valley and their State and local agencies. It has provided oppor- tunities for private investment. States have in- creased their expenditures for resource activities by departments cooperating with TVA and have ex- panded their technical facilities and staff. State expenditures by resource agencies with which TVA has cooperated increased from 11 million dollars to 59 million dollars between 1934 and 1948. State and local agencies have increasingly assumed re- sponsibility for the furtherance of resource activities with less and less dependence on TVA for tech- nical assistance and advice and for financial participation. (5) The problem of tax replacement when tax- paying private agencies are superseded by Federal or local public agencies has been met satisfactorily. The expedient of providing payments in lieu of taxation has been effective in the Tennessee Valley States. (6) In the valley the problem of the resettlement of reservoir lands residents, as lands were made sub- ject to inundation by water projects, was regarded by TVA as an opportunity to develop wholesome relations with local people, and as an opportunity for those families who had to be resettled to im- prove their economic position. TVA has done pioneering work in an effort to deal satisfactorily with this problem. There remain problems in the valley which must be solved before the people will reap the full value from their natural resources, and before water re- sources activities will be fully integrated. One is the need for an intensive watershed program, where relations of water and soil and the economic and social organizations they support may be intensively studied, and where all organizations responsible for activities influencing land treatment will be brought together in a common program. This is true of other regions also, for nowhere has this problem been solved. One further problem which as yet has not had to be met because of the uniqueness of the valley program in the national scene is that of coordinat- ing regional, valley, or basin administrations throughout the country. As integrated basin administration is developed elsewhere in the United States, coordination of activities in the several basins must be anticipated as a national problem. While record of the principal valley program includes shortcomings as well as accomplishments, on the whole the balance to a disinterested observer would seem very much on the credit side. The main program in the Tennessee attained its present stature and influence after weathering years of crucial conflict, through court controversies and other tests. In the face of often intense, acrimoni- ous, and well-organized opposition, the TVA pro- gram has been able to prove overwhelmingly to its most critical public-the people of the basin-the technical, social, and economic superiority of integrated or unified multiple-purpose water re- sources development. This is an achievement which must be considered one of the noteworthy advances in the technology of resources use. It also illustrates the value of the course recom- mended by this Commission: to change the multitude of water resources activities which are proceeding in all parts of the Nation into a series of integrated, complete programs, one for each region. Voluntary coordination of independent agency programs, while a step in the right direction, is not to be considered a substitute for clearly de- fined responsibility in a unified program. 797 |
