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Show Council Speaks Out on Resources The Democratic Advisory Council this week issued a pamphlet, pam-phlet, "The Democratic Approach to America's Natural Resources" Re-sources" the second in its series on "Domestic Policies for a Growing and Balanced Economy." The Council's pamphlet charges the Republican Administration Adminis-tration with d "breakdown" in our natural resource policies and programs. The Council calls for new approaches to the problem and outlines what must be done to gain the largest public benefit from our resources. The policy pamphlet was drafted by a special subcommittee on Natural Resources headed by Dr. Gilbert F. White, chairman, chair-man, Department of Geography, the University of Chicago. The draft was then revised and approved for issuance by the Advisory Committee on Economic Policy and, finally, by the Advisory Council itself. The pamphlet deserves the serious consideration of all Democrats. i Among the. many pointse made by the Council are these: "If natural resources could be held like idealized bonds in a safety deposit vault without fear of injury, depreciation or obsolescence, the Eisenhower policies might have been lacking in imagination but not harmful. In fact, however, a period of inaction has caused serious harm in several ways. "One of the great transformations of our era is the tremendous tre-mendous urban sprawl which shows itself in the creeping borders of subdivisions, the long tentacles of highway construction,the spoilage of intervening lands, and the sudden invasion of rural countryside by industrial and military installations. A very broad and forward looking approach to national policy is in order. As our country becomes more urban and as leisure hours ' and disposable income are extended, the need for water and open space for recreation increases, and the aesthetic inspiration of natural beauty becomes more important. This shows itself around all of our growing cities and it is felt hundreds of miles away in reservoir areas and national forest camping grounds. With the currently swift advances in urban population, every year that is lost in setting aside space and natural monuments for recreational use is irrevocably wasted. To cut the modest pro-' pro-' grams of improving the already overburdened national forests and monuments is to sacrifice time in which valuable recreational resources might be preserved. Similarly, the decisions to terminate experimentation with pilot plants for processing petroleum from oil shale and coal lose the time in which economic oil substitutes might have been developed. The decision by the Eisenhower Administration to let private pri-vate interests take over three sites in Hells Canyon on the Snake River in Idaho for power development means that those places will be appropriated foro ne major purpose where as they might have been used more effectively for multiple purposes under public management. Much larger storage for downstream use might have been gained under alternative plans. Condoning this largely single purpose exploitation of our resources not only gives the private power interests control of the public power sites, but it curbs possible use of storage space for irrigation, navigation, low water control and flood control. It also imposes pressures on other parts of the stream system, as for example the Clearwater river,- to gain such storage as early as possible at heavy cost to wildlife and recreation values. The foreclosing of these key sites prevents later optimum developments. de-velopments. Wherever this policy of letting the private interests call the tune prevails, invaluable sites are being lost. Wilderness areas, once they are commercially exploited, are impossible to recapture, and power sites once yielded to a single purpose are lost to other purposes. |