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By the end of 1946 the second great world war had ended and American industry was gathering itself for the production demande of a material and personnel starved industrial economy. In the Missouri Basin, personnel was being recruited; contracts were beinc let, plans were being finalized, and an effort was being made tc get key units of the authorized Missouri Basin Project into construction status. Two large flood control dams on the main stem of the Missouri, Garrison and Fort Randall were in the initial construction stages and Kortes Dam on the North Platte River in Wyoming had been placed in the construction stage. Although not units of the Missouri Basin Project, Heart Mountain Power Plant on the Shoshone River in Wyoming, and two plants on the Colorado-Big Thompson Project were under construction by the Bureau of Reclamation, but no significant progress had been made constructionwise, on the gigantic plan to control and use the waters of the "Big Muddy". At the close of fiscal year 1949 Heart Mountain Pouer Plant has been completed to swell the capacity figure for plant:! within the Missouri Basin to about 122,400 kilowatts. This energy was generated at plants at Seminoe on the K6ndriek Project, Guernsey and Lingle on the North Platte Project, Pilot Butte on the Riverton Project, Shoshone and Heart Mountain on the Shoshone Project, and includes the installa- tion at Fort Peck, and Green Mountain plant on thc Colorado-Big Thomp- son Project, the energy from which is sold by the Bureau. Although only one power plant has been completed in the' Basin by the close of fiscal year 1949, considerable progress is evident on the over-all plan and its power features. Sixteen major dams under the Missouri Basin Project are under construction, five of them with po,lGr features totalling 633,.000 k\l; two other structures on the Colo- rado-Big Thompson Project with power facilities totalling 53,100,kw. are also under construction in the Basin. Transmission lines total- ling 290 miles have been completed in the Basin during t'iscal year 1949 and construction contracts are now outstanding on an additional 775 miles. The Federal Pouer Commission estimates that demands for electri~ power in the l1issouri Basin area \/ill grO\/ from 13,507 million Idle-. watt-hours in 1946 to 29,016 million in 1960 and to 42,994 million in 1970. Peak demands for power in the same areas are expected to rise from 3,354,000 kilowatts in 1946 to 6,611,000 ldlo\/atts in 1960 and to 9,442,000 kilowatts in 1970. If the above estimates of future power demands are anywhere near correct, it is obvious that the delnands for power in the Missouri River Basin cannot be wholly met by proposed hydro 'installations of the 56