Statement of the Problem 



The purpose of this study is to help clarify some of the complex 

 problems involved in river basin development. The popular bases 

 for careful analyses have been inadequate; this study seeks to fill, 

 at least partially, the need for more adequate bases. Moreover, on 

 no important issue of natural resources has the discussion been 

 more confused by preconceptions and emotionalism. On the one 

 hand, one hears the epigram: "While the Tennessee River drains 

 the seven Tennessee Valley states, the Tennessee Valley Authority 

 drains the remaining forty-one states of the Union." On the other 

 hand, co-operative arrangements involving private development of 

 the nation's river basins have been likened to "a partnership, 

 wherein the government operates the escalators, drinking fountains, 

 and other such unprofitable appurtenances, while the private 

 partners man the sales counters and cash registers." Neither state- 

 ment is distinguished for its objective content. Both derive from 

 only one significant issue in the problem of developing the nation's 

 river basins. That issue is the equity considerations involved when- 

 ever income is redistributed, as a result either of the raising and 

 spending of governmental funds or the dispensation of privileges 

 for the use of the public's natural resource assets. 



A second issue which is not reflected in these statements, and may 

 in fact be relatively neglected, involves the matter of efficiency in 

 developing the nation's water resources as well as the efficient use 

 of public funds. Often these two matters are not clearly distin- 

 guished in public debate. Since, theoretically, only the second can 

 be handled with objectivity, the controversy over some aspects of 

 water resources development, even though couched in "efficiency" 

 terms, has often involved a conflict of interests — a conflict on equity 

 considerations, whose relative merits are not technically susceptible 

 of objective evaluation. 



