Our Nation's Water Resources; J. Chamberlain

[262 ] were all there in thousands of reports anyway. More im portant, it approached the job with the genius for con ceptual thinking. Patriotic beyond the call of duty, it took a completely serious view of the mandate handed it by Congress to provide philosophic criticism of our sprawling, hit-or-miss and frequently wantonly socialistic federal water policies. Naturally, since Admiral Moreell and his mates are partisans of the libertarian philosophy (Madison and Jefferson were, too), the framing· of the report has had the public power associations up in arms. Admiral MoreeIl realizes that his "six principles" of freedom as applied to the control and uses of water are C:'poorlyde signed to attract the support of those who believe in special privilege for political pressure groups." Neverthe less, he hews to his line and, to mix the metaphors, damns the torpedoes. Just how merrily the chips fly and the torpedoes ex plode is apparent in his new book, OUf' Nation s Water Resources-Policies and PoZitics (published by the Law School, the University of Chicago, $3.50). Originally de signed as a series of lectures, the book contains much sober history of the evolution of our federal water poli cies. There is also a clear exposition of the way the federal government is organized to handle water re sources development. The conclusions that are to be drawn from Admiral Moreell's sober juxtaposition of in controvertible facts are, however, not exactly conducive to a sober state of mind. In fact, the implications of the conclusions are frequently hair-raising.

[263 ] Upper Colorado Profect Take, for one example, Admiral Moreell's treatment of the recently authorized Upper Colorado River Storage Project. On the face of it nobody could object to con serving Rocky Mountain water for use in the more arid reaches of the Colorado-Utah uplands. The full Upper Colorado project would consist of ten storage dams for impounding water for c;'riverregulation" and development of power, and thirty-three participating irrigation proj ects. Four of the dams and eleven of the irrigation proj ects are ticketed for early construction and development, at an initial expense of $760 million. Although estimated at $3 billion, the full Upper Colorado project will prob ably chew up the better part of $6 billion, given the in flationary bias of the American political economy. What earthly objection is there to going ahead with the UpperColorado dams? Well, in the first place, the proposed reservoirs will not be needed for river regula tion for at least twenty-five years. (This is a statement made by the Department of the Interior, not something dreamed up by Admiral Moreell.) The sole function of the dams for many years to come will be to provide revenue from the sale of power to subsidize the irriga tion projects which are to be operated independently of the dams.

So what, you may ask, is wrong about bringing life giving water to dry Colorado acres? There would be nothing wrong about it if it were economically justified. The truth is, however, that the capital costs for direct [264 ] llTigation investments in the Upper Colorado region would range from $200 to $800 an acre. This is so far in excess of the present $150-an-acre selling price of comparable land that is already irrigated that it would be a true .give-away to large and small realty interests. It would be much more practicable and intelligent to hand the money to Georgia or Pennsylvania farmers to improve soil that is far closer to big urban markets. There is a further irony to the whole Upper Colorado irrigation project: the land that is to be fructified at a cost of $200 to $800 an acre would produce grains, sugar beets, and sheep, all of which are in sufficient superabundance to be under the price support program.

Water for Industry Though he thinks it a silly waste of money, the prospect of putting water on soil that would only add to un wanted agricultural surpluses is not what really causes Ben Moreell~s blood pressure to rise. His scorn derives its full force from his positive conviction that Colorado will someday need all the water it can get to develop and utilize its oil, oil shale, coal, uranium, titanium, and manganese deposits. With .such a plentiful supply of the raw materials of industry, Colorado could support a far greater industrial development than she has at present. Where one thousand gallons of water will grow ten cents worth of crops in Colorado, the same thousand gallons would permit the production of $5.00 worth of industrial products. Once precious water is committed to sugar [265 ] beets or grain, however, it would be politically impossible to take it for any other purpose.

Admiral Moreell's Hair for devastating statistical an alysis gets free play in his treatment of the TVA. Accord ing to the Army Engineers, once in 500 years a Hood occurs in the Tennessee Valley which would cover some 666,000 acres of land if there were no dams to impound the water. It would seem, then, that the TVA can be credited with offering protection to a lot of soil. But the TVA's value as a soil protector becomes a trifle elusive when one considers that to save 666,000 acres from a once-every-half-millenium Hood it has been necessary to submerge 463,000 acres of land below the normal level of the reservoirs. In addition, 128,000 more acres of river lands must be reserved by the TVA for Hood discharge. Thus the TVA has effectively drowned 591,000 acres of the 666,000 it was created to protect. If this makes sense, then Count Screwloose of Toulouse ought to be sitting in the White House!

Admiral Moreell is not suggesting that it would be wise to tear down Norris and Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams. What he is suggesting is that Congress should count the true costs of the water control programs which it initiates. He is willing to admit the federal gov ernment has some responsibility in the fields of flood damage abatement and reclamation. But the ultimate objective of the federal government should be to "assess against beneficiaries" the full cost of providing benefits. There is no reason why Georgia or Ohio farmers should be assessed to aid competitors on desert acres in Utah. [266 ] RegulatoryConfumon According to the findings of Admiral Moreell's Task Force, there are so many overlapping agencies and authorities in the public water and power fields that it is impossible to find any consistent pattern or purpose in the way things :;lre being done. Lacking coordination, government agencies compete with each other for the right to build dams and irrigation ditches. Things are always being put over under wrong names; power is sub sidized in the name of navigation, reclamation is in stituted in the name of flood control, etcetera, etcetera.

The federal government often uses water resources and power development projects not for economic purposes but to accomplish indirect social and political ends. Pro grams are undertaken without sufficient analysis of data, the federal government is hit-or-miss in its requirement of adequate contributions for the use of its money for capital outlay, and the states are seldom given enough consideration in planning for the use of water and water power. Admiral Moreell is particularly critical of the "yard stick" theory of federal power. There can be no "yard stick" when tax exemption and cheap government money make impossible a sound comparison of costs between investor-financed utilities and government projects. Fed eral power, the Admiral says, "is always subsidized and the rates do not include all of the real costs." When power is disposed under preference clauses to cooperatives and municipally-owned systems, the favored groups get two [ 267] unfair advantages, price and priority, over other citizens.

But the nonpreference customers contribute to the cost of the subsidies. If the "privileges and immunities" of the citizens are supposed to be equal, then the "preference clause" must be an illegal thing. Even the old saw that water power projects are usually "too big" to be handled by the states or by private groups fails to survive Admiral Moreell's withering treatment. Says Moreell: the Wisconsin Valley Improvement Com pany "furnishes an excellent example of an integrated and complete river development undertaken without gov ernment subsidy. Here is a privately owned, taxpaying organization which has constructed a series of twenty-one reservoirs on the Wisconsin River." The improvement is "subject to regulation, pays full local, state, and federal taxes, and provides for a 6 per cent return on invest ments." As for irrigation, "over three-quarters of the irri gation in the West and all of the irrigation in the East has been provided by private enterprise."

Thus the cliches fall like trees in a hurricane in Admiral Moreell's pages. The biggest cliche to bite the dust is the one about the unconscionable private power lobby which is supposed to be mulcting the citizens of hard-earned cash. Ben Moreell brings out the statistic that the cost of power to the average U.S. householder is about 1 per cent of his family budget as against 29 per cent for food and 2 per cent for tobacco. A reduction of 3 per cent in the citizen's tax bill would pay for all of his power I [268 ] ECONOMIC ENDS AND MEANS IN THE current debate over federal farm policy, those who express concern at the governmenfs mountainous holdings of surplus agricultural products are accused of lacking sympathy with the plight of the farmer. When the full-employment bill was under consideration, its opponents were charged with desiring a "pool" of unem ployed so that plenty of labor would be available at low wages. Similar accusations are heard in connection with housing, Social Security, "public" power, and many other politico-economic questions. Whenever it is proposed to exert governmental authority for the supposed economic benefit of one group or another, those who question the wisdom of such action tend to be branded as selfish, callous, and indifferent to thewel£are of the beneficiary group.