224 Broader Bases for Choice: The Next Key Move 



Wengert has stated, we should welcome such indecision and friction 

 so far as they reflect searching and experimenting with promising lines 

 of action. We should be dissatisfied only when the choices are not 

 made from the full range that could be marshalled with our potentially 

 available stock of knowledge and skills. 



The conclusion may be applied to the water resources situation and 

 remedies with which we began. In terms of maximizing public returns 

 from public investments and of achieving the intended results with 

 minimum delays, there is need to improve the organization for plan- 

 ning, construction, and operation of river basin works for multiple 

 purposes. Most of the remedies which have been suggested, short of 

 wholesale unification of policy, would offer only slight hope of im- 

 provement so long as the basis for choosing among possible river 

 basin programs and their alternatives is limited to the proposals that 

 the agencies are expected to produce under existing law. Organized 

 efforts to appraise the choices and their effects before programs reach 

 the budget stage would help set the criteria and widen the basis for 

 choice. It also would permit more reasonable decision as to what 

 programs should be adopted, and as to the efficacy of different organ- 

 izational arrangements to carry them out. Controversy would be 

 heightened, agency reorganization would be stimulated, and interest 

 groups would be given new ammunition and fresh perspectives. Par- 

 ticipation — both financial and administrative — by state and local 

 agencies would become more practicable. I find it difficult to imagine 

 any circumstances in which a Missouri or Upper Colorado basin com- 

 mitment would be simply abandoned because it was judged unsound; 

 more likely is its being replaced by a constructive alternative which 

 promised wider and more lasting benefits. 



Assessment of effects of not only one resource development pro- 

 gram but a number of multiple-purpose programs would require dras- 

 tic changes in present procedures. But several current factors are cre- 

 ating a more favorable climate for some such effort at appraisal. 



One is the pressure of urban activity and population on the land. 

 The second is the prospect for shortages in various sectors of material 

 supply in our country. The third is the hard fact that as our income 

 increases in the United States the gap between our income and the 

 income per capita of most other countries in the world is widening 



