Appendix 6 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSOURI BASIN RESOURCES-A CASE STUDY IN THE ORGANIZATION OF FEDERAL ACTIVITIES This study was prepared for the committee by Edward A. Ackerman, consultant to the committee. Acknowledgement is made to Richard Watson for assistance, particularly in the preparation of the statistical tables; to Charles McKinley for many helpful suggestions; and to a number of agency officials for supplying information and comment. Summary Federal Government programs for development and conservation of resources in the Missouri Basin form an appropriate case for organizational analysis because of the size of the area involved, the scope of the authorized operations, and the past public controversy concerning them. The basic problems of the Missouri area, toward which action is directed, include: Stabilization of the economy of the drought areas on the Great Plains; elimination of flood damage in the lower basin; prevention of unnecessary loss of productivity from regional resources; and construction of a better social environment for many communities in the basin. Although public action has been undertaken for many years, basin-wide development and conservation have received attention only since the authorization of the Pick-Sloan plan and associated programs. It is now estimated that the Pick-Sloan plan and associated programs will cost $6,360,000,000 before completion. While the Missouri Basin will benefit greatly from the works to be constructed, and other Federal activities in the area, the procedure is not recommended as a pattern for similar development in other areas because: 1. It has not been sufficiently evaluated in terms of national interest. 2. Planning was not undertaken in the proper order, especially because of a lack of basic data. Operations have been commenced in the face of uncertainties. 3. Organization for the administration of the program lacks flexibility. 4. Congress and the President are the only effective coordinating authorities. 5. There is no complete program for the valley as a whole. 6. The procedure leaves causes for future sectionalism. 7. The system of accounting is complex and difficult to understand. Objectives of Analysis For many years Missouri River Basin development has been the subject of an intermittent, but fierce struggle between seemingly irreconcilable groups in the United States. The still unsettled dust raised by this battle involving various Government bureaus and private groups has obscured the average American citizen's view of this part of recent Federal activities. Work on Missouri Basin projects is not an unimportant part of those activities, since it concerns one-sixth of the land area of the Nation, while the estimated cost of the 6-year program is $6,360,000,000. Especially in view of the existing controversy, the present Missouri Basin program deserves analysis for the light it may throw on the effectiveness of Federal Government activities in the field of resource development, and the suitability of Executive Branch organization for the efficient prosecution of those activities. The citizens of the United States and their representatives may well be concerned about four major aspects of the Missouri Basin program: (1) Have the planning and execution of the authorized projects taken into account all important aspects of national interest? (2) How effective will the program be in promoting the welfare of the people living in the Missouri Basin? (3) Is the pattern of planning and execution a desirable one to follow in similar succeeding programs for resource development elsewhere in the country? (4) What revisions in the organization of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government might have enabled the United States and the Missouri Basin States to reach the social, economic, and physical goals of a desirable program 'with less friction, within less time, and with less expense than are now probable? The following analysis is undertaken with those four questions in mind. General Character of Missouri Basin Problems The Missouri Basin, like so many other regions of the world, is faced with a twofold resource problem: The need for conservation and the need for development. The conservation problems are traceable principally to the climate and hydrology of the basin, while the need for development is urgent because of the population losses and the acute distress regularly experienced west of the 20inch rainfall line during the recurrent dry cycles to which the northern Great Plains are subject. In most cases, however, problems of conservation and development of the region are closely tied together. 1. CONSERVATION Conservational problems in the Missouri Basin are familiar to many Americans, for the basin has appeared intermittently in the headlines as the scene of natural disasters since the early 1930's, and even before. Those disasters mainly have been concerned with water, of which periodically there is too much in the lower basin (Iowa, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, Missouri) and periodically too little in the upper basin (western Kansas, western Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana). Serious droughts were experienced in the Plains States (upper basin) during 1860-63, 1874-76, 1887-90, 1893-95, 1910-14, 1916-18, and 1931–36. Evidence obtained from the interpretation of tree rings suggests that similar, or more extended droughts recurred for centuries before the arrival of white men.' Recurring droughts therefore are a normal feature of the Plains environment, and they have been by far the most troublesome natural handicap of the basin as a whole. Years during which the Plains have had adequate rainfall have often brought other difficulties for the lower basin. Serious floods were experienced along the Missouri River in 1844, 1881, 1903, 1908, 1909, 1915, 1927, 1935, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1947. In latter years 1,800,000 acres of cultivable land have been in the path of these floods, as well as sections of 5 cities, and over 50 smaller communities. The 1947 flood is estimated to have caused damages of $111,000,000.3 Impressive as it is, this bill is dwarfed by the estimated cost of the great drought of the 1930's, considered to have been over $1,246,000,000 in the basin area. These figures alone show why water conservation became an inevitable subject of political pressure from the basin, and an object of consideration by many public-spirited citizens outside the region. In a sense drought relief and flood control are facets of a single conservational problem. If some of the water which descends on the lower valley during moist years could be stored for use of the upper valley during the dry periods, the feeling has been that both ends of the valley would greatly benefit. From the point of view of the lower end the objective has been simple, storage capacity along streams of sufficient volume to reduce the flood peaks, equalize the river's flow, and eliminate flood damage. That is the first, although not necessarily the most important, conservational problem in the basin. The objective of the dominantly agricultural upper end of the basin is equally simple-retention and use of water as near as possible to the place where it comes to earth, and the survival of solvent agricultural enterprise through drought years in as large numbers as possible. However, the problem of reaching this objective is extremely complex, and reaches into every aspect of. life in the Plains States. The trouble lies in white men's failure, thus far, to adopt a mode of life in the upper basin which consistently is in harmony with the harsh facts of the plains environment. With methods and attitudes generally suited to more humid regions they have tried to subdue the land, and as one observer puts it, the land fought back. The land fights back because we have as yet accepted neither the cyclical nature of rainfall and water supply on the plains, with its certainty of serious droughts, nor the unsuitability of many sections of the upper basin to permanent, or even temporary cropping. The customary land-use succession has been: (1) Expansion of cultivated acreage during moist periods (principally wheat or other small grains). This happens particularly if high grain prices coincide with the wet years, as they have since the beginning of the last war. The expansion takes place on former grazing lands. On the grazing lands which remain, herds are expanded, particularly if high meat and wool prices coincide with the wet years, as they have since the beginning of the last war. (2) In response to declining yields (as rainfall lessens) or lower prices, cultivation may expand still further, to maintain the level of income. In the last two decades increasingly efficient farm mechanization has been another predisposing cause. In any event land goes under the plow which would better remain undisturbed 1 Statement by George F. Will, Bismarck, N. D., hearings of a Subcommittee of the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation, on S. 1915, Sept. 26, and Oct. 2, 1944, p. 132. 278th Cong., 2d sess., H. Doc. 475, p. 19. 3 Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, The Development and Control of the Missouri River, p. 2. 478th Cong., 2d sess., hearings of a Subcommittee of the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation on H. R. 4795, Dec. 1, 1944. letter of Secretary Harold Ickes on p. 1. 578th Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. 191, p. 143. from a conservational point of view. (3) The drought comes, as it did during the 1930's. The cultivators who advanced onto the dry plains during the wet years must beat a retreat, and the grazer must retrench, adjusting to the reduced capacity of his ranges. But it always has been, and may be again, a retreat and retrenchment with confusion and wholesale destruction. Because of the impossibility of forecasting the onset or duration of the drought, most individual operators continue their farming, or maintain their herds as long into the drought as they can. The result at worst has been wind erosion of terrible intensity, and on a huge scale, destroying the topsoil and ranges in whole districts. At the least it has meant the migration of families, many of them proverty stricken, on a wholesale scale. The cost to the Nation and the region has been high, socially, financially, and in the permanent loss of part of its productive plant. 2. DEVELOPMENT Because of the violent fluctuations in agricultural productivity the ultimate goal for the whole Basin, a reasonably stable economy, free from the major losses and dislocations caused by floods and droughts, can never be achieved without further development of the region's water and other resources. Likewise certain social improvements, which are considered essential by people within and without the region, are not likely to proceed satisfactorily unless further resource development is undertaken. Rural electrification, adequate public recreational facilities, diversified opportunities for employment, a larger and more diversified tax base (therefore better community services) all fall short of the desirable minimum, in spite of the region's recent wet-period prosperity in the upper Basin. Development means above all provision of basic facilities for the attraction and growth of some manufacturing industry, for in it are real opportunities of cushioning the depressions which drought or low agricultural prices can bring. Furthermore the experience of longer occupied areas show that a permanently prosperous agriculture itself can be assured only in combination with nearby industry. Availability of fertilizers, and nearby markets for diversified agricultural produce are only two examples from a long list of mutual advantages in this interrelationship. Low-cost electric power, from water or mineral sources, adequate transportation on a competitive level with other regions, the development of mineral raw material sources within the region, and the provision of adequate water for processing, all call for attention if these basic facilities are forthcoming. There are within the region possibilities for the development of all of these facilities, with the exception of water, the provision of which for industry probably must depend on the success of conservation and wise allocation. Water power from the Missouri River and its tributaries, large lignite and coal deposits on the plains, petroleum and natural gas in combination should be able to furnish sufficient power and fuel. Mineral raw materials known in deposits of the region include: Phosphates, gypsum, fluorspar, sulfur, kaolin, vermiculite, bentonite, asbestos, graphite, gold, silver, platinum, iron, antimony, chromite, lead, copper, zinc, tungsten, manganese, nickel, and molybdenum." National forests on the western fringes of the Basin can furnish a continuing modest raw material supply for wood-using industries. Raw materials from agricultural sourceswool, hides, hair, flax, and materials for food processing are not to be forgotten. While not all of these materials are within the range of commercially practical operations at the present time, their existence indicates possibilities which bear 78th Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. 191, Washington, 1944, pp. 36, and others following. Estimated potential yield 250 million board feet. U. S. Department of Agriculture, A Proposed Program of the U. S. Department of Agriculture within the Missouri Basin, 1918, p. 7. |