Water Resources People and Issues
Well, during this time, at least at the political level, the criticism of both the
Bureau of Reclamation, but more particularly the Corps of Engineers, was
centered within the so-called first Hoover Commission, which was organized
in 1947 basically in response, as I understand it, to an expansion of federal
agencies during World War II. It was not organized specifically, of course, to
pick on any particular agency and certainly not to pick necessarily on water
resources, but Hoover spent a fair amount of time looking at the water
agencies. And, as you know, one of the recommendations of the commission
was to consolidate the water resources agencies.
Can you tell me something about that and something about the Bureau of
Reclamation's response to that particular proposal?
A: Well, I was right in the middle of it as a representative of the Bureau on
various work groups. Of course, the Bureau generally favored that
recommendation because it was felt that for sure it would be the surviving
agency and because there was always the argument that water resources is not
a military function. So I was one of the people in the Interior Department that
was providing information for the staff of the Hoover Commission.
Now, that may have been how I got involved with Arthur Maass on the Pine
Flat project when he was in Washington working with the Hoover Commission.
But I do remember doing quite a bit of work for them on the Pine Flat
controversy. I was primarily involved in getting the agreement on how much
the local people would pay. I think it came out to million. That's why I
had the background in it. But I worked on background for both of the Hoover
Commissions, as well as for President Truman's Water Resources Policy
Commission, so unless I go back and really look into my files, I can't
remember exactly what I did for which one. But the Bureau was always in
favor of the consolidation, if the Bureau was going to be the surviving agency,
and the Bureau felt that it should be. The Bureau's position was that if you
have a Department of Natural Resources, which it favored, you certainly would
have water as a part of it, and the Bureau of Reclamation was there to take
over.
The Bureau, of course, always felt that its programs were more sound
economically than the Corps' because each project had to come up and be
authorized separately and was subject to the reimbursement provisions of the
reclamation law. They overlooked such items as interest on money, and even
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