WSP09219

• File Number: 8030
• Description: Section D General Compact Issues - US Water Resources Council
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 6/23/1969
• Author: US Water Resources C
• Title: Interstate Conference on Water Problems and Federal Water Resources Council - Proceedings of the Third National Conference of State and Federal Water Officials
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

00278"

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4gers, and that is, we want cuts made in all of the other 49 states but
not. in our own state. Now, I don't think that most membe:rs of Congress,
at least in the House, are 4gers, but we do need to establish priorities.
Water development people need to establish priorities on what should be
done. You folks seated in this room can lead the way to help do that.
Now, I am convinced that this is not. always going to be good enough.just
to. let Congress operate through the democratic process and see what
comes out. This has been a fairly workable policy in years past, but
as this development of priorities and as this national problem in water
descends upon us, I am not sure that happenchance and by-golly and
by-guess is going to be good enough. We need you.r help. We need
facts and figures and tools. There are distinct signs that the increasing
reluctance of the executive branch to emphasize water problems and the
r'apidly growing voting strength of the urban cities are jointly strangling
the 'Federal water resources development effort.

While I am' on. this subject, I would like to say that those of us who are
interested in reclamation in the West are having, year by year, an
increasingly harder time in convincing some of our Eastern brethren
that these projects are justifiable and should be continued. I had the
opportunity last year of visiting a particularly hostile member to recla-
mation, buf a friend of mine, visiting his district and touring around it,
a'nd it seemed like everywhere we went, there was a Corps of Engineers'
lake or power plant, nonreimbursable, and I have nothing against the
Corps of Engineers. I think they are doing. a great job, but somebody
has to start developing some facts and figures that we can take to these
people to say that 90 per cent of your projects are nonreimbursable, and
90 per cent of mine are. They object to the fact that the reclamation
program only applies to about a third of the states of the Union, not
understanding, I think, fully and fairly, what engineers and rivers and.
harbors do in their states they can't do in mine. And frankly, I'veused
some of these trends with considerable gravity. First of all, in their
absolute short-term effect, they are delaying the attainment of authorized
goals with the accompanying stultification of our regional economies and
are causing a most unfortunate liquidation of the institutional staffs which
have built up overtime in the action-pr'ogram agencies. Perhaps more
ominous than this short-term effect, however, are the implications on the
sense of values that would forego nominal investments of growth capital
in deference to other objectives which are so completely speculative
of return as to defy credulity. Reversal of this dangerous attitude will
not be easy and I have no formula for bringing it about except for c,ontin-
uing, diligent effort by all. of us who believe that water and related land
resource utilization is one effective avenue to economic strength and
well-being. I might add, too, building up the tax base of Federal and
State governments.

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