Appendix 7

THE KINGS RIVER PROJECT IN THE BASIN OF THE GREAT CENTRAL VALLEY—A CASE STUDY 1

In February 1940 Congress received two separate reports recommending construction of a multiple-purpose reservoir on the Kings River in California— one prepared by the Corps of Engineers and the other by the Bureau of Reclamation. The reports were dissimilar in several important respects. Each report had acquired proponents and opponents among the local interests, and the two Federal agencies were put in competition with one another to obtain the support of the California beneficiaries.

Why did two Federal water development agencies plan similar multiplepurpose projects on the same river? Why were not the conflicts between the two agencies reconciled at an early stage in the planning process, and the competition between the two put to an end by the President's office? What have been the results of this uncoordinated conflict? What has been the effect on the public interest of agency competition to win the support of local groups of water users? A case history of the Kings River project offers an excellent illustration of the type of uncoordinated water resource development which calls for immediate remedial action in the public interest. Such a case history may indicate the broad outlines of necessary reform.

Description of Area

California is traversed lengthwise by two parallel ranges of mountains-the Sierra Nevada on the east and the coast range on the west-which converge at Mount Shasta on the north and are joined by the Tehachapi Mountains on the south to enclose the Central Valley Basin. The basin is nearly 500 miles long, averages 120 miles in width, and includes more than one-third of California. The main valley floor, comprising nearly one-third of the basin area, is a gently sloping, practically unbroken, alluvial area 400 miles long and averaging 45 miles in width. Sacramento River drains the northern portion of the basin and San Joaquin River the southern portion. The confluence of these two streams is in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from which they find a common outlet to the ocean through San Francisco Bay.

Water supply and water requirements in the Central Valley Basin are unbalanced geographically. Available water supplies decrease from north to south. Conversely, the water requirements are greater in the south by reason of larger irrigable areas, less rainfall, and greater evaporation. As a result, the total run-off into Sacramento Valley far exceeds its ultimate water requirements, while in the southern or upper San Joaquin Valley local supplies are inadequate to meet local demands. On the east side of the upper San Joaquin Valley irrigation

1 This report was prepared for the committee by Arthur A. Maass, member of the committee's staff.

has reached a stage where dependable stream flow has long since been completetly used and in many cases the draft on ground water greatly exceeds the natural replenishment. An alarming lowering of the ground water table has brought this overdraft forcibly to the attention of the water users of the area. For some time it has been realized that unless additional water is secured, pumping depths will become so great that considerable areas of land now irrigated will have to be abandoned because of excessive water costs.

One of the principal objectives of the Central Valley project of the Bureau of Reclamation is to remedy this situation. An initial phase of the project, now under construction and in partial operation, is designed to effect a transfer of surplus water from the northern to the southern portions of the basin. The Delta-Mendota Canal and two additional canals proposed for future authorization and construction will carry surplus Sacramento River water 120 to 140 miles southerly from the Delta to Mendota pool on the San Joaquin River. Here the water will be used to meet the demands of crop lands on the west side of the San Joaquin River now irrigated by diversions from the San Joaquin.

By this exchange of water the run-off of the San Joaquin River can be stored in Millerton Lake behind Friant Dam, on the east side of the valley near the headwaters of the San Joaquin, and from there it can be made available for diversion north and south, through the Madera and Friant-Kern Canals, to irrigate lands in east side upper San Joaquin Valley.

Friant Dam, Madera, and Friant-Kern Canals are initial units of a comprehensive plan prepared by Bureau of Reclamation for utilizing practically the entire run-off tributary to the southern Central Valley Basin. Additional features include planned reservoirs on each of the principal streams flowing west from the mountains into the basin, south of Friant Dam and the San Joaquin River. The primary objective of the prospective reservoirs is temporary storage of surplus winter and snow-melt run-off until it can be released to existing and prospective conals for direct irrigation use or for ground water replenishment. Such water regulation will be of value not only for irrigation but also for flood control. The principal flood damage in the area results from large volumes of water which in wet years flow into the closed basin of Tulare Lake, south of the San Joaquin River. Extensive areas of agricultural land are flooded, but the water is subsequently used beneficially for irrigation. The reservoirs and canals proposed for east side upper San Joaquin Valley would greatly reduce this damage by temporarily storing, and then diverting for irrigation use, water which would otherwise cause flood damage in the Tulare Lake area. Reservoirs are proposed for the Kings, Kaweah, Tule, and Kern Rivers which are all tributary to Tulare Lake, except that Kings River can in part now be diverted by means of control works either north to San Joaquin River or south to Tulare Lake. It is with the project on the Kings River that we are primarily concerned in this case study.

Early Planning 1

As early as 1937 both the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation undertook investigations of the Kings River area. The investigation of the

1 Most of the information on early planning obtained from the following:

a. Files of the National Resources Planning Board available for public inspection at the National Archives; especially files NA-NRPB 516.22, 579.7.

b. 76th Cong., 3d sess., House Committee on Flood Control, hearings on comprehensive flood control plans (H. R. 9640), pp. 560–562.

c. The printed survey reports of the two agencies: Corps of Engineers, 76th Cong., 3d sess., H. Doc. 630; Bureau of Reclamation, 76th Cong., 3d sess., H. Doc. 631.

Corps of Engineers was initiated under the Flood Control Act of 1936; that of the Bureau of Reclamation, under an allotment from an appropriation under the National Industrial Recovery Act. Both investigations were requested originally by the same water users' association in the Kings River area. The association apparently wanted to see what each agency would propose so that they would be in a position to express a preference for that plan which would afford them, as existing water users, the greatest benefits at the least costs. The likelihood of controversy between the two Federal agencies developed soon thereafter. Although the engineers of the Corps and Bureau effected an exchange of physical data, separate field investigations were conducted and each agency developed its conclusions and recommendations independently.

Through its drainage basin committee for the Central Valley area, the Water Resources Committee of the National Resources Planning Board was made aware of the developing agency conflict before the field reports were completed. The water committee was very much opposed to the submission of separate reports by the two agencies; they preferred that the survey organizations cooperate to deliver a single report reflecting the combined judgment of the water experts in the Executive Branch of the Government. From experience they knew that intergration of investigations is effective if undertaken at the initiation and field study stages of project investigations before findings are crystallized; it is largely and necessarily perfunctory if delayed until the basic conclusions have been reached independently by those concerned.

The committee, however, was unable to effect the desired cooperation before the field reports were completed and the valley water users, having learned of the conflicting recommendations of the two agencies, had begun to take sides for the Bureau or for the Corps depending largely on which plan would provide greatest benefits at least costs to them and under fewest operating restrictions. The survey report of the district engineer was submitted to Washington in April 1939, and soon thereafter the tentative field report of the Bureau of Reclamation was transmitted to Washington headquarters.

President Roosevelt was made aware of the developing conflict in the area. Although one would not expect that the President of the United States should take time to personally concern himself with an interagency conflict over a public works project, President Roosevelt viewed the Kings River controversy with such concern, particularly as regards any precedent it might set for irrigation and flood control policy, that he instructed the two agencies to keep their reports confidential insofar as their contents had not already become known to local interests and requested a conference in his office on the problem on July 19, 1939.

At this conference the President indicated his concern over the duplication of water resource development functions in the Central Valley and similar areas and stated his firm desire and intention to eliminate similar duplication in the future. As for the Kings River project, the President agreed to an arrangement whereby the two agencies would cooperate in preparing independent reports, but these reports should contain agreement on both design and economic features of the project. As for future areas of potential conflict, the President instructed the Departments of War, Interior, and Agriculture, in cooperation with the National Resources Planning Board, to draw up a memorandum of agreement which, by insuring consultation in the early stages of project planning, would preclude the possibility of similar conflicts.

The interagency agreement, negotiated in response to this request, and known as the tripartite agreement, authorized free interchange of information between the three agencies in the field in the preparation by any one of reports on multiple-purpose projects, and joint consultation in the field and in Wash

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ington on any such reports. At the time the agreement was negotiated many in the Executive Office of the President felt that it fell short of the requirements of the situation and of the desires of the President. Experience under the agreement confirmed these fears. Although it did contribute to some improvement in field cooperation, the agreement did not eliminate conflicts and divergencies in later reports.

The Water Resources Committee would have preferred that the arrangement on the Kings River project provide for the submission of a joint report by the two agencies rather than of separate, but reconciled, reports. However, the President requested the agencies to submit their revised reports to him, and it was the understanding of the two agencies that the reports would then be reviewed for the President by the Water Resources Committee before they were made public or submitted to the Congress. In this way some of the advantages of a joint report might be realized.

On January 23, 1940, the Secretary of the Interior submitted to the President, through the National Resources Planning Board, the revised report of the Bureau of Reclamation. Four days later the director of the Board informed the Chief of Engineers that the Secretary of the Interior had forwarded his report on the project "to the President through the Board" and stated that, "When your report on the project is received, the Board will then have an opportunity to comment upon any points of difference which may exist between the two sets of recommendations. This we will do promptly."

On January 31, the Chief of Engineers acknowledged receipt of the director's letter in writing and stated that he understood that the Reclamation report had been forwarded to the President, through the National Resources Planning Board. The Chief of Engineers, however, did not state that the report of his Department had been completed nor that it had been sent directly to the President on the preceding day. By the time the National Resources Planning Board heard that the Engineer Department report had been sent directly to the White House, and communicated with the President's executive clerk to catch up with it, they found that it had been allowed to pass directly to the Congress. Thus, the recommendations of the Corps of Engineers were made public without any opportunity for review by the Water Resources Committee and before they had been fully reconciled with those of the Bureau of Reclamation.

As for the action of the White House in allowing the War Department report to pass directly to the Congress, no definite explanation is available. However, it is believed that it was a clerical error; that the White House was under the impression that the report had cleared the Planning Board. As for the action of the Chief of Engineers, it may well be that the instructions of the President at the July conference had been to submit the revised and reconciled reports to him; but the Engineers knew that the reports were not fully reconciled and they knew that the Secretary of the Interior had transmitted the Reclamation report to the President through the National Resources Planning Board where it was being held, awaiting receipt of their report.

Whether or not the urgency of competition between the two executive agencies over matters relating to the Central Valley was in any way responsible for the actions of the Engineer Department surrounding transmittal of their report to the President, this competition may very well have been responsible for a significant variation from the uniform procedure for the preparation of Engineer survey reports. The procedure, as prescribed by orders and regulations, requires that the district engineer conduct the survey in the field and that the division engineer, the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors in Washington, and the Chief of Engineers, each review the survey report and state their conclusions and recommendations in an endorsement to the district