Theodore M.
trying to use the Flood Control Act as a means of getting federal hydroelectric
power-Morris Cook and others-and, as your historian friends say, there was
a hidden agenda there in the first Flood Control Act to keep that from
happening. Well, whether there was or not, I don't know.
But it was not so much in the 1936 Flood Control Act but in the `38 act, when
they changed the policy on
Q: Right.
A: -so that you could build power.
Anyway, that was the gist of the fight between the Corps and the Bureau but
when I went out to Boise in early 1948 to finish the Hells Canyon report, we
were also fighting to get it done because Idaho Power Company had filed an
application with the FPC to build five small run-of-the-river plants in that same
reach of the river, which would have completely lost any flood control benefit,
as well as kept either the Corps or the Bureau out of there, and there would be
no navigation benefit of any kind.
Eventually, then, we negotiated an agreement with the Corps of Engineers on
the Columbia River basin, which gave Hells Canyon to the Bureau. We got the
report finished and sent it on up to the Congress. Authorizing legislation was
introduced and there were hearings on it. Wayne Morse gave speech after
speech on the Senate floor which we wrote for him. He would make those
speeches late in the evening, and he'd go on for hours sometime. We'd write
and
and
speeches for him to give-all the background on Hells
Canyon, as to why the federal project was needed. I really think that that is one
project that should have been built, because of its role in flood control, and the
minimal adverse effect on the environment that would result.
Fortunately, we haven't had a big flood come out of the Snake River in recent
years. I don't know what happened when the water from the Teton Dam failure
came down the Snake. By the time it got down there, I guess the flood was
pretty well attenuated. But if you ever have a repetition of those floods where
the Snake peaks at the same time as the upper Columbia River-you could have
a lot more damage, all the way down to Portland.
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