Transcript The Pick-Sloan Plan

The Pick-Sloan Plan
1944 Flood Control Act
Development and Implementation
The Old Muddy
“The Missouri River was located in the United States at last report. It
cuts corners, runs around at night, lunches on levees, and swallows
islands and small villages for dessert. Its perpetual dissatisfaction
with its bed is the greatest peculiarity of the Missouri. Time after
time it has gotten out of its bed in the middle of the night with no
apparent provocation, and has hunted a new bed, all littered with
forests, cornfields, brick houses, railroad ties, and telegraph poles.
Later it has suddenly taken a fancy to its old bed, which by this time
has been filled with suburban architecture, and back it has gone with
a whoop and a rush as if it had found something worthwhile. It
makes farming as fascinating as gambling. You never know whether
you are going to harvest corn or catfish.”
George Fitch, 1907
Taming the Big Muddy
•Twentieth century social values reflected
national trends to “Develop and Control”
rivers
•“Mile wide and 6 inches deep”, “Big
Muddy”, “Too thick to drink, too thin to
plow”
Background
• Drought of the 1930’s
• Economic Depression
• Unsustainable Agricultural Practices
• National Industrial Recovery Act
– 1933, authorized public works projects
– Fort Peck Dam completed in 1939
• 1943 Devastating Mo River Floods
• Nation Viewed Resources as Unlimited
October 1944
• Omaha meeting of BR and COE
• Interior Department and Army Collaborate
on 1944 priorities
• Focus on Development
• Support for single plan not unanimous
– Tribes particularly opposed
– Displaced thousands of
Native Americans
• Garrison Dam alone displaced
289 of 357 families
• Compensation never resolved
to tribes satisfaction
1944 Flood Control Act
Pick-Sloan Plan
• Represented a merger of Missouri River
Development Plans
– Corps of Engineers (Col. Lewis Pick):emphasized flood
control, navigation, dam building, industrial water use
– Bureau of Reclamation (William Sloan); emphasized
irrigation, hydro power, water conservation, wildlife
and recreation
– The separate plans merged in Dec., 1944 as part of
the Flood Control Act passed by Congress
– The flood events on the Missouri in 1935, 1942, 1943
and 1944 provided impetus to Congress for passage
of the FCA in 1944
Pick-Sloan Act
• Five Mainstem Dams Downstream of the existing Ft.
Peck Dam were constructed over the next 19 years by
the Corps. Of Engineers
– Ft. Peck Reservoir, Garrison Reservoir (Lake Sakakawea)
and Oahe Reservoir are three of the nations five largest
man made lakes – only Lake Powell and Lake Mead on the
Colorado River are larger.
– The 6 mainstem dams have the combined capacity to hold
roughly 73.4 million acre feet. The nations largest
reservoir system!
– The Pick-Sloan Plan caused more loss and/or damage to
Native American lands than any other public works project
in history.
Missouri River Changes
Oahe Dam area 1955
Future site of Oahe Dam
Missouri River Changes
Oahe Dam - Recent
Pick-Sloan Plan - Operation
• COE operates six of the Missouri River’s seven main stem
dams under the Missouri River Main Stem Reservoir System
Reservoir Regulation Manual (“Master Manual”)
• The waters stored serve “multiple purposes” under the 1944
Flood Control Act
– Beneficial Uses
• Flood Control
• Hydro Power
• Irrigation
• Fish & Wildlife
• Water Supply and Water Quality
• Navigation
• Recreation
Pick-Sloan Plan - Operation
Ongoing conflicts in the basin over which
“purposes” should take priority
– “Distribution of benefits”:
1) Missouri has biggest share of flood control &
2)
3)
navigation benefits
Nebraska has largest share of water supply &
hydro power benefits
North and South Dakota realize most of the
recreation and irrigation benefits
Pick-Sloan Plan - Operation
• Navigation (Lower Basin States) vs Recreation (Upper Basin States)
Navigation:
• Commercial barge traffic (grain & fertilizer) was expected to haul 12
•
•
•
•
million tons annually but peaked in 1977 at 3.3 million tons and has
trended downward since (USACE)
In 2006, barges moved only 0.2 million tons – the equivalent to
what is moved DAILY on the Mississippi River (GAO study 2010)
Commercial navigation traffic had a total annual benefit of $7.0
million in 1995 (USACE)
In 2006, at the height of the last 9 year drought, 5.7 million acre
feet of water was discharged exclusively for navigation support to
move 0.2 million tons of goods in the lower basin.
Smallest benefits among the “authorized purposes” are navigation
and irrigation.
Pick-Sloan Act - Operation
Recreation
•Pick-Sloan did not originally count recreation
benefits as “Prominent Benefits”
•Water based recreational uses and benefits have
grown substantially since the mid 1950’s
• 1950’s = 5 million visitor hours
• 1960’s = 15 million visitor hours
• 1970’s = 33 million visitor hours
• 1980’s = 43 million visitor hours
• 1990-2002 = 87 million visitor hours
• 2002-2012 = 112 million visitor hours
Pick-Sloan Act – Operation
Recreation
• South Dakota study in 1995-96 recreation on Lake Oahe and Lake
Sharpe = $36 to $40 million annual economic impact and growing (
National survey on fishing hunting and recreation)
• For comparison purposes, the major benefits of Pick-Sloan in the
past 30 years have come from hydro-power, water supply and
flood-damage reduction. Each has annual benefits measured in the
hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Recreation comes next with annual benefits measured in the 10’s of
millions of dollars
• Navigation and Irrigation follow recreation with annual benefits
measured in the millions.
“The question is whether the legitimate offspring of two programs which
matured in contrasting climates, wet and dry, have proved to be
adapted to the peculiar climate of the Missouri basin…The question is
whether the ten-year olds show promise of growing to maturity and
doing a man’s work.”
Henry Hart, The Dark Missouri - 1957