Missouri Basin Blues

The heaviest floods in over 100 years burst over Missouri River banks last June, destroying lives, crops, property, and running up a tremendous bill of more than a quarter of a billion dollars. The floods also brought swift and angry demands from Missouri Valley citizens for relief action by the penny-wise U. S. Congress which had cut river control funds early in 1947. So once again, Congress found itself faced with the perplexing problem of what to do with the Missouri River. The piecemeal sandbag method evidently wasn't working. But although President Truman called for an ambitious program of flood control, Congress didn't feel inclined to do much about it.

Pick-Sloan vs. MVA

There were two plans for not only Missouri River flood control, but for navigation, irrigation, and electric power as well. One, the Pick-Sloan plan of the Army engineers and the U. S. Reclamation Bureau, was already in the blueprint stage, with some construction under way. The other, a Missouri Valley Authority following the general pattern of the TVA, was only on paper. The difference between them was that the Pick-Sloan plan was an amalgam of Federal and State agencies, and of compromises between proponents of irrigation and navigation, while the MVA would be an independent regional agency treating the river as a single problem transcending state boundaries.

The Fight in '44

Supporters of both the Army-Reclamation Bureau project and the MVA have been fighting it out ever since 1944. In August of that year, when Senator James Murray of Montana introduced a bill to set up an MVA, governors in eight of the nine Missouri Basin states came out cautiously for Army flood control proposals and the Reclamation Bureau's plans for irrigation development. In November, the Army and the Reclamation Bureau (headed by Major General Lewis Pick and W. G. Sloan) joined forces in a compromise; Senator Murray promptly accused them of hastening their agreement just to thwart MVA.

Flood Control Act

Of the billion dollar Flood Control Act signed by President Roosevelt in December, 1944, 400 million was carmarked for the Missouri River. Since all construction was to wait for the war's end, there was still a chance that MVA could be set up to do the administering. Murray brought his bill in to the new Congress in February, 1945, but there it was effectively snagged in a web of hostile committees. On the outside, opposition to MVA was sparked by private power companies, the coal industry, and conservative Mid Westerners fearful of what was termed "New Deal socialism," or, as the Midwest Manufacturers Associations Inc. put it, "intrusion by the Federal Government into the affairs of State and local governments."

MVA Committee Formed

MVA supporters fought back. Labor, farm, and business groups organized a Missouri Valley Regional Committee to promote MVA in July, 1945, and called for a million-name petition to be waved at the rocaleitrant Congress. One of the Committee's promoters, a state senator from Missouri, had just been converted to MVA by a tour through the Tennessee Valley, "The trip completely eliminated from my mind the erroncous idea that TVA was of a socialistic, regimenting, paternalistic character, dabbling in social service, character-building, folk dancing and other foreign fields," he said. But President Truman's original enthusiasm for MVA was waning, and Congress was happy to let the controversial Murray Bill gather dust.

Army Plans Worked Out

Meanwhile, the Army and the Reclamation Bureau were steadily working out their plans. Early in 1946, they set up an unofficial inter-agency committee, and held conferences with governors of various states. By November, the committee had been able to agree on plans for 105 dams and reservoirs, and Major General Pick said that the job could be done in 10 years--if Congress would appropriate the money. November was the month, however, of the elections in which the Republicans took over both Houses, and large sums of money for such a Federal project were out of the question.

Then came the '47 floods, and although little action followed, the battle between the Pick-Sloan group and the MVA-ers increased in vigor. One prominent MVA man said scornfully that "assigning the United States Army engineers to the job of controlling floods . . . is precisely like sending Typhoid Mary to stop a typhoid epidemic." Now, with a stingy Congress and international distractions, Pick's 10-year estimate on Missouri River control should probably be changed to 100 years. And MVA, for all its local support, is apparently on the shelf for a long time to come. the only thing that keeps rolling right along is the Missouri River, with excellent prospects for bigger, better, and more destructive floods in the future.