WATER 117 



DIVISION OF COSTS OF FLOOD CONTROL 



Who should pay the cost of flood control in the Mississippi 

 basin, for example? The people who are protected cannot afford 

 to carry the whole cost. On the other hand, the taxpayers in the 

 rest of the country receive no direct benefit from money spent on 

 Mississippi flood control. The federal government takes the 

 point of view that since the whole nation loses when one section 

 is in difficulty, therefore the whole nation is benefited when aid 

 is given to those sections which are in trouble. On the basis of 

 that reasoning, the federal government has paid the largest part 

 of the cost of flood control. The states and communities have 

 borne only that share of the cost of lands and damages spent for 

 purely local protection works. In addition to regular funds spent 

 for flood control, much relief money has been spent to protect 

 flood endangered areas by the Public Works Administration 

 and the Civilian Conservation Corps. 



The federal government flood control dam projects on the 

 Tennessee River are the largest of their kind in the nation. 

 Here the federal government is bearing all the cost. In Ohio 

 the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District is a local 

 project for flood control. Its dams and reservoirs are concen 

 trated in one state. However, this cost is also borne by the 

 federal government under the flood control act of 1938. 



FEDERAL CONTROL OF NAVIGATION 



The Constitution gave Congress power over interstate com 

 merce, and Congress has assumed that navigable streams were 

 an important factor in interstate commerce. This is one side of 

 water use which from the outset was realized to be a regional 

 rather than a local problem. Out of this power to regulate 

 navigable waters has grown the power to regulate streams which 

 affect navigable waters. On the grounds that the construction of 

 dams to create electric power affects the navigability of streams, 



