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Show Calls 'Hydromania' Threat To U. S. Water Resources Expert Charges Disregardfor Natural Values In Engineering Projects; Sees Danger To Wild-Life Especially Acute. f By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator, WNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. As the prospects of fat public works budgets for the postwar area arise on the Washington scene, the planners, big and little, rush up to drop their pet blueprints into the hopper. Recently, I witnessed the preliminaries prelimi-naries of a counter-balancing move, something that might be called a prophylactic effort to save some of the beneficiaries of governmental projects from being killed by too much kindness. This effort is embodied em-bodied in a bill presented by Rep. Karl Mundt of South Dakota, and I heard a sort of informal preview of some of the testimony that will be offered before the committee on rivers riv-ers and harbors in its behalf. The bill is H.R. 519 and it deals with protection against pollution of the country's waterways.. It was in the course of the preview discussion that I heard another affliction, "hydromania," a cure for which may be harder to find. It is said to result from "overindulgence in damming." dam-ming." It is not mentioned in the Mundt bill but the connection is obvious. ob-vious. The purpose of Mr. Mundt's measure meas-ure is as follows: "To prevent pollution of the waters wa-ters of the United States and to correct cor-rect existing water pollution as a vital necessity to public health, economic eco-nomic welfare, healthful recreation, navigation, the support of invaluable invalu-able aquatic life, and as a logical and desirable postwar public works program." ( As I say, Mr. Mundt doesn't mention men-tion hydromania in his bill, but one of his close friends who had much to do with writing the legislation has. He is Kenneth Reid, executive secretary sec-retary of the Isaac Walton league. Since the proposed legislation has also to do with the problem of protecting pro-tecting our piscatorial and aquatic life, I want to quote a few of Mr. Reid's observations on one kind of "killing with kindness" which frequently fre-quently accompanies over-generous government spending. Mr. Reid I should call a "hydro-phile," "hydro-phile," for he ardently pleads the case for what he refers to as "the orphan stepchild" of our natural resources re-sources water. Conservation of the land is pretty well understood but water, says Mr. Reid, "has been dammed and diverted, drained and polluted, stolen and wasted, with utter ut-ter disregard of existing natural values, with bland unconcern for its biological functions and its public, aquatic and recreational values." "From the early days of our nation na-tion down to the present time," he continues (and this is where hydro-mania hydro-mania comes in), "water has run the gantlet of a horde of engineers (whether private or governmental, makes no difference) who see in a running stream or a sparkling lake only the material uses to which the water can be put." Existence of Fish Menaced Reid is an engineer himself and is not unsympathetic with the great achievements of his profession. But his colleagues sometimes outrun their zeal and he appears perturbed lest postwar public works activities threaten our lakes and rivers, their natural beauty and all that is in them. What he is fighting is the kind of engineering activity, stimulated by grants-in-aid from the federal government, gov-ernment, which will damage the waterways wa-terways and their inhabitants, flora and fauna. On the other hand, he is all for the encouragement of constructive con-structive construction which will work in the opposite direction. He thinks we have overdone the damming; he questions the economy of reclaiming land at a great capital cost per acre with certain irrigation projects. These, Reid opines, likewise like-wise often destroy fish by cutting them off from their spawning grounds. He mentions the dams in the Columbia river which, he says, threaten a ten million dollar annual salmon take. That is the effect of hydromania resulting from well-intentioned and unselfish but unwise use of the engineering engi-neering art. He points out that anything any-thing which kills fishes and interferes inter-feres with the nation's wildlife is interfering in-terfering with one of the nation's major industries. He estimates that the total expenditure in hunting and fishing, including licenses, equipment equip-ment and other incidentals, reaches a billion dollars a year and therefore constitutes a major American industry indus-try and one which should be protected. pro-tected. Reid also stresses the esthetic and recreational values destroyed in the building of great dams and reservoirs reser-voirs as well as by the pollution of streams. Pollution Health Peril The security feature which has been emphasized in the present war when the bombing of dams has caused such destruction, is another argument seized upon by Mr. Reid. His specific example of this phase of the argument sent a shudder down my back when he offered as an illustration il-lustration the construction of 14 major ma-jor dams in the Potomac watershed which was strongly advocated recently. re-cently. If this project had gone through, he told me, my home town and the seat of our government would have Been made "extremely vulnerable to air attack through breaching of the big dams that would be immediately above Washington." "The engineer's desire," says Mr. Reid solemnly, "to pour concrete in prodigious quantities, impound great areas of water behind magnificent monuments to engineering, dig ditches and canals, bore tunnels and otherwise remake the landscape of America, is quite irrepressible." However,' what he and his colleagues are now most concerned in eradicating is pollution and that, I think, will meet the approval of most people even if they won't go all the way with Mr. Reid concerning concern-ing hydromania. Protection against pollution, the proponents of the Mundt bill insist, "won't cost a thin dime" because the money saved by eliminating the need of purifying polluted water will more than make up for it. Besides destruction of aesthetic and property values, it is pointed out that pollution is a growing menace men-ace to health. The Mundt bill would give the states every chance to clean up their own situations but, it is argued, ar-gued, "since streams flow by gravity grav-ity without any regard for state boundaries pollution is logically and constitutionally a matter for federal control." Provisions to take care of these various angles are included in the Mundt bill. Such measures in the past have been opposed by some communities which thought it was cheaper to dump their sewage in the rivers, and by industrial plants that felt the same way. ' Although machines compete with humans and with horses and mules in this war, the dog, never before used officially by American forces, has become the competitor of mechanized mech-anized devices. A dog, by his sense of smell, can detect a strange presence at 500 feet. Up to October 1 of last year the army, coast guard and marines had used over 9,000 trained dogs. The first thing a K-9, as they are called, learns, is to be a one-man dog. They won't accept food from any but their masters nor will they allow anyone else to pet them. Then the training gets more complicated and includes even parachute jumping. jump-ing. But there is one thing that these otherwise clever animals cannot can-not be taught, namely, to tell enemy troops from their own. This has one advantage, however they don't treat a German wearing an American Ameri-can uniform any differently than if he weren't an enemy in disguise. Soldiers sometimes do. Demand for farm products is likely like-ly to continue at present wartime levels throughout most of 1945. Regardless Re-gardless of the course of the war the demand for many farm products, prod-ucts, at ceiling prices, may continue con-tinue to exceed supplies in 1945. Consumers' food costs in large cities in recent months have been slightly lower than they were in midsummer. mid-summer. The index for November, 1944, was 136.5 as compared with 137.7 in August and the peak of 143.0 in May, 1943. Nonfood costs have been following a somewhat diTar-ent diTar-ent trend. I |
