283 



Continental Shelf Act.« The adjacent states were to 

 be the "owner" of the resources and reap exclusively 

 the economic benefits of resources in the tidelands 

 and have full control over management and exploita- 

 tion. The Federal government, on the other hand, was 

 given exclusive ownership and control vis-a-vis the 

 states in the Outer Continental Shelf. 



Although it was easy to make this division, the na- 

 ture of the physical area of the controversy presented 

 immediate operational problems growing out of the 

 water. The Federal government's traditional concern 

 with navigation, especially on the high seas, its later 

 but then quite extensive concern in flood control, hydro- 

 electric power production, and the frequent combina- 

 tion of both under grandiose projects of a Corps of 

 Engineers, raised specific probleins calling for accom- 

 modation of the (i) sweeping Federal divestiture and 

 (ii) the continued fulfillment of the Federal govern- 

 ment's role in these activities. Thus, for example, the 

 states' exclusive right to grant exploration privileges, 

 determine the location and spacing of development 

 wells or drilling platforms posed prospects of mari- 

 tintie hazards. Without imposing its own notions of how 

 development ought to be conducted, restricted, expand- 

 ed, or controlled, the Federal government had to have, 

 and reserved expressly this power even to prohibit 

 a drilling rig platform at a particular location These 

 specific reservations eliminated these frequent and ex- 

 tensive activities as a source of further state versus 

 national controversy. 



•43 V.S.CJ^. § 1331. et seq. 



