432 



multiple purpose projects were coordinated in the comprehensive 

 development of an entire river basin, toward goals expressed in terms 

 of benefits to the people of the region and the Nation, rather than in 

 terms of quantitative accomplishment of engineering functions. The 

 TVA was given a wide charter as a Government corporation to con- 

 struct dams and transmission lines, to produce and sell electric power 

 to consumers or to wholesalers of its own choosing, to use power to 

 operate experimental fertilizer production facilities and sell fertilizer, 

 to develop river commerce, encourage industry and agriculture, and 

 to help develop all natural resources in the region. The purposes of 

 TVA as stated in the Act were : 



To improve the navigability and to provide for the flood control of the Ten- 

 nessee River; to provide for reforestation and the proper use of marginal lands 

 in the Tennessee Valley ; to provide for the agricultural and industrial develop- 

 ment of said valley ; to provide for the national defense by the creation of a 

 corporation for the operation of Government properties at and near Muscle 

 Shoals in the State of Alabama, and for other purposes.* 



The TVA Act itself had such novel features as force account con- 

 struction, development of recreation facilities, construction of ship- 

 ping terminals, adjustment of dislocations of populations and com- 

 munity facilities, and tecluiological demonstration programs. The act 

 also provided that costs of all facilities acquired by TVA should 

 be". . . allocated and charged up to (1) flood control, (2) navigation, 

 (o) fertilizer, (4) national defense, and (5) the development of 

 power." 



The search for coherence in water planning 



Unprecedented activity occurred in the field of water projects dur- 

 ing the 9 years immediately preceding World War II, mainly as a 

 means of alleviating unemployment. In addition, the "multiplier" ef- 

 fect of public capital formation and investment, as described by John 

 Maynard Keynes, was beginning to win credence.^" During these years, 

 TVA undertook a series of major construction projects. Several great 

 dams were built on the Columbia River, and others on the Missouri, 

 in the Central Valley of California, and elsewhere. Elaborate pro- 

 grams of flood control were initiated. 



As a component of a very extensive planning program, a great 

 deal of planning of water resource development went on throughout 

 the depression years under the auspices of the National Resources 

 Committee (later the National Resources Planning Board; this plan- 

 ning program was terminated when the Congress withheld further 

 funding for the fiscal year 1943). This organization accepted many 

 of the approaches to river development that had first received prac- 

 tical and intensive demonstration in the TVA: the idea of total 

 planned engineering of a river basin, full use of multipurpose proj- 

 ects in such a system, recognition of the functional interaction of land 

 and water, and participation in the planning process by Stat« and 

 local "grassroots" representatives. However, the committee did not 

 explicitly embrace other TVA concepts, such as {a) the use of a sepa- 

 rate, semiautonomous, Government corporation as planning and 

 operational instrument in each river basin ; ( 5 ) programs of research 



» Tpnnessee Valley Act of 1933, approved May 18, 48 Stat. 58. 



i« John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. 

 (New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1935.) See especially ch. 10. 



