Statement of the Problem 9 



among different sections of the basin and to exploit non-coincident 

 peak requirements seasonally and geographically. Complementary 

 facilities would have to be used to distribute the projects' output 

 to ultimate users. Existing local distribution systems could be 

 utilized to distribute project outputs — whether irrigation water to 

 supplement existing inadequate sources, or power to service 

 increased consumption of existing but growing communities. A 

 host of new distribution systems, however, might have to be organ- 

 ized, financed, and launched to serve the new areas brought into 

 productive uses and settled over time. Reservoir areas might be 

 exploited feasibly to provide recreational facilities for the urban 

 areas of the basin; and programs in the tributary watersheds might 

 be needed to prevent soil erosion, and thus protect reservoirs 

 against sedimentation. 



An integrated plan of these dimensions would differ radically, in 

 a number of significant respects, from previous locally sponsored 

 efforts. Technically, it represented a higher order of interdependent 

 system. Local supply and distribution systems, up to this point, 

 had restricted themselves to exploiting the possibilities in single 

 segments of the basin's total water potential. Pooling the network 

 of streams into an integrated system, and combining ground and 

 surface water management as an integral part of the plan for water 

 development, would add enormously to the technical possibilities 

 for development and exploitation. 



Large-scale economies are suggested by integration into a single 

 system. Storage facilities required to accomplish any one of a 

 number of separate purposes can be used to achieve equally well 

 other common purposes. Capacity to impound water for agricul- 

 tural, industrial, and residential requirements during seasonal sur- 

 pluses can protect agricultural lands, industrial sites, and residential 

 areas in the flood plain. Water released for navigation purposes 

 during seasonally dry periods also can abate pollution and salinity 

 intrusion. 



Although technically and economically the integrated water 

 development plan for Grand Basin represented an advance in con- 

 ception, the institutional machinery for carrying it out was not 

 readily at hand. Given the physical, economic, and institutional 

 factors involved, the reasons for the difficulty in implementation 

 are not difficult to understand. First, none of the public enter- 

 prises established for developing water resources was empowered 



