Message to Congress Presenting a Plan for Water Resources.

To the Congress:

In accordance with my message of August 13, 1937.(in returning without my approval Senate Joint Resolution 57), I am presenting herewith for your consideration a comprehensive national plan for the conservation and development of our water resources.

This report on Drainage Basin Problems and Programs has been prepared by the National Resources Committee in consultation with other Federal agencies. It suggests policies, investigations, and construction necessary to carry forward a broad national program for water conservation and utilization.

It is based upon the findings of 45 joint State-Federal basin committees, composed of more than 500 local, State, and Federal officials. These drainage basin committees have met in the field and have drafted plans for their local areas. Arrangements have been made to publish the detailed reports on individual drainage basins at a later date.

The proposals in the report provide a guide for authorizations of surveys and construction of irrigation, flood-control, navigation, rural water supply, wildlife conservation, beach erosion control, hydroelectric power, and other water projects. Because it was necessary to confine the program to projects that are primarily for water control and use, many related land-use projects are not included. Land policy has significant water implications, but it pertains to a large sphere of activities requiring separate though related treatment.

The preferred water projects have met the test of conformity to a general regional program, and, although they are set forth in terms of a six-year program, they are susceptible to completion during either a shorter or longer period, as fiscal policy may dictate. The total cost of the recommended work at both Federal and non-Federal levels is about equal to the average annual expenditures for these purposes during recent years. The six-year program suggested in the report should be read in the light of budgetary requirements and must, of course, be adjusted each year to correspond with budget recommendations and with action by the Congress.

Our knowledge of the Nation's water resources and our ideas on their best use and control change rapidly in the light of new investigations and of dynamic economic conditions. Water plans should be flexible. The history of flood-control plans for the alluvial valley of the Mississippi River affords many examples of plans, once considered comprehensive, which soon were replaced by others. Water plans should be revised annually.

Changing public interest, first in navigation, then in irrigation, and then in flood-control, water power or pollution, has produced a collection of unrelated water policies. The recommendations in this report define in broad strokes an integrated water policy for the country as a whole. Such a Federal water policy is needed.

Notwithstanding the small amount of time available for the revision of earlier Federal programs, the planning mechanism which was developed for this report seems to have given gratifying results. Starting with local and State groups, organized through the regional offices of the National Resources Committee, plans and programs have been prepared in the field and reviewed in Washington. The process has not interfered with the normal and established duties of the agencies charged by the Congress with construction and surveys of water conservation projects. Rather it has promoted cooperation among such agencies in Washington and with State and local interests as well.

I recommend careful study of these documents by the Congress because they present a frame of reference for legislative programs affecting water conservation, and because they illustrate an approach to the systematic husbandry of our natural resources on a democratic, regional basis.