But they actually got rights and sold water. They sold water to people based on their right
to the water, and then they would sell it to the various customers.
But the Corps never felt that they owned any of the water. Well, the Bureau didn't either
except that they owned the right to it. Once they got an appropriated right, they'd store
it in their project and they could sell it to other people like the irrigators and so forth. So
it was a little different deal with the Bureau than with the Corps.
The Corps didn't worry about whether it had a right to store the water or not. As long as
it was causing a flood! the laws allowed them to store it and reduce the floods. But,
anyway, it`s a complex subject, I guess, and kind of hard to explain all the weird things
that go on.
Q ..
Well, it certainly is one that is becoming more obvious, especially in a place like
California. I guess in places where you have the old Spanish water rights and people have
those rights that pre-date the states.
A ..
Well, the lawyers are fighting all about whether those rights are any good or not and it's
like they take away things from the Indians, probably taking away some of these Spanish
rights that they had too, a long time ago. It's what is fair, and some places it's a lot fairer
than others, I guess.
Q ..
I think it's something they call situational ethics. You were up in the upper Missouri basin
at the time that a lot of the work on the Pick-Sloan Plan was under way. The big main
stem dams, starting with the Garrison Dam, at Gavins Point, Fort Randall and all these
other ones. How much do you think that has changed that whole area from what you
knew when you were growing up there?
A
Well, the biggest thing that I can obviously see is the change in availability of electricity.
The REA [Rural Electrification Administration] handling of the electricity, using
electricity from all these big projects, to modernize farming. Most of the farmers had
[had] their own little power plants. Years ago when I was a kid anybody that had
electricity on a farm, they had their own little generators and made their own power.
They didn't have any power lines coming out to their house so that they could use electric
power for all kinds of things that they do now.
My brother-in-law is a farmer out there, and he uses a tremendous amount of electricity
for drying his grain, for all kinds of different things. He has all kinds of electrical
equipment that he uses in his farming operation. He wouldn't be able to do that if it
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