Gilbert F. White
agency. I do recall Woodward telling with some embarrassment how he had
been ordered by the TVA board to go to the St. Louis office and tell them
that he was there to collect all the engineering material that the TVA now
wanted
q
Q: You didn't go back to Chicago immediately after you completed that report,
did you?
A: The National Planning Board became the National Resources Board on July
1, 1934, and the MVC became its Water Planning Committee, with Graves
dropping off. The NRB was abolished on June 7, 1935, and the National
Resources Committee was established in its place. There was established,
under the National Resources Committee, a series of specialty committees:
one on land, one on water, one on energy, and so on. The Water Resources
Committee then was appointed with Abel Wolman of Maryland as chairman
and with several of the members of the Mississippi Valley Committee on the
new Water Resources Committee. (A fine oral history by Wolman has been
prepared by Walter Hollander, Jr.)
A number of the Mississippi Valley Committee people didn't transfer over.
Barrows did, as did the representative of the Corps, with William Snow
replacing Edgerton. One representative each from the Bureau of Reclamation,
the Soil Conservation Service, Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Geological Survey,
U.S. Public Health, and Federal Power Commission came in. I was asked to
serve on the staff of the new committee, which I did. In time I became
secretary of the Water Resources Committee and stayed with it and its
successors until 1940, when I went over to the Bureau of the Budget.
Q: What was your initial assignment for the Water Planning Committee under the
National Resources Board?
A: The first task of the Water Planning Committee was to prepare a section of
the report of the National Resources Board. The National Resources Board
had been requested by the President to prepare a report on national planning
and public works in relation to natural resources, including land use and water
resources. This it did in December of' 34. It enlarged its activities and scope
of interest to the whole country, but proceeded then to examine all of the
problems of water policy, water data, and modes of making decisions about
public works which had been described by the Mississippi Valley Committee.
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