CEHO

Engineer Pamphlet

870-1-13

Department of the Army

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Washington, DC 20314-1000

EP 870-1-13

July 1983

FINANCING WATER RESOURCES

DEVELOPMENT -

A BRIEF HISTORY

Distribution Restriction Statement

Approved for public release; distribution is 

unlimited.
Financing Water Resources 

Development 

A Brief History 

bY 

Martin Reuss 

Paul K. Walker 

US Army Corps 

of Engineers 

Office of the Chief 

of Engineers 
EP 870-l-13 

July 1983 

FINANCING WATER 

RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT 

A Brief History 

BY 

MARTIN REUSS 

PAUL K. WALKER 

HISTORICAL DIVISION 

OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE SEKVICES 

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS 
FOREWORD 

BY any reasonable indicator, the cost of future 

Civil Works projects exceeds the available Federal 

financial resources tlOW and for the foreseeable 

future. Consequently, it is essential that we plot a 

new course for financing Federal water development -- 

one which takes the limited Federal dollars and 

stretches them over a larger number of projects by 

capitalizing on the capabilities of the project 

beneficiaries to assemble financing packages and at 

the same time weeds out the less feasible projects. 

In order to have a better historical base with 

which to evaluate present water resources policies and 

to explore the potential for increased non-Federal 

participation in water resource development, the 

Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for 

Civil Works directed the Historical. Division of the 

Army Corps of Engineers to prepare this brief history. 

Written by Doctors Martin Reuss and Paul K. Walker, 

this history is a summary of an extraordinarily complex subject. Not only the Federal Government, but 

private investors, states, local communities, and 

various governmental bodies have financed water 

resources development. The projects themselves are of 

many different kinds: dredging, snagging, l~ocks, dams, 

levees, jetties, floodways, diversion channels, 

reservoirs, canals, and hydroelectric stations, to 

name only some. Also, many projects serve multiple 

purposes, including flood control, navigation, 

irrigation, water supply, hydroelectric power, and 

recreation. The primary and secondary project 

purposes often dictate the funding arrangement. 

While the financial history of water resources 

development is a rather complicated story, certain 

general themes emerge. Hy reading this history, one 

will gain a better appreciation for the socials, 

political, economic, and technological forces that 

helped to determine the past evolution of Federal 

water policy. I commend this work to all who wish a 

better understanding of a subject of continuing 

importance. 

WILLIAM R. GIANELLI 

Assistant Secretary of the Army 

(Civil Works) 
CONTENTS 

The Financial Cost of Water Resources Development: An Overview 1 

Navigation Improveqents Before the Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 

Navigation Improvements From the Civil War to World War II . . . 12 

Canal Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 

The Evolution of Federal Flood Control Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 

Federal Involvement in Port and Harbor Development . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 

The Development of Hydroelectric Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 

Tables ........................................................ 

Annual Expenditures on Aids to Navigation, 1936-1975 ........ 45 

Federal Land Grants in Aid of Canal Constructton and River 

Improvement ................................................. 46 

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 
THE FINANCIAL COST OF WATER RESOUKCES DEVELOPMENT: AN OVERVIEW 

As of 1955 

In the mid-1950s, the Hoover Commission attempted to evaluate 

the role and impact of the federal government in the development of 

U.S. water resources. For two years, the task force reviewed data 

and held public hearings around the country. In 1955, it presented 

its report offering an overview of federal participation in the 

development of water resources. 

The task force estimated that for the period 1824-1954 the 

total investment in water resources in this country amounted to 

about $85 billion. No attempt was made to convert historical 

expenditures into 1955 dollars. Of the total amount, the federal 

government contributed approximately $14.3 billion (17 percent). 

Nonfederal interests, including private investors and local and 

state governments and instrumentalities, accounted for the rest. 

About 80 percent of the $14.3 billion had been invested in capital 

outlay. The rest had been used for planning, maintenance, and 

operation. Most of the federal expenditures for water resources 

development came after 1930. The task force's breakdown follows: 

1824-1920 $ 1.15 billion (8% of total) 

1920-1930 .86 billion (6%) 

1930-1945 2.58 billion (18%) 

1945-1954 9.73 billion (68%) 

$14.32 billion (100%) 

Historically, navigation and flood control projects account for 

the bulk of federal water resources investment. Irrigation and 

hydropower development remained, as of 1955, still largely in the 

hands of private, local, or state entities; but federal investment 

and involvement in these areas were growing. In 1933, federally 

installed hydropower capacity was less than 1 percent of the 

total. Twenty years later, in 1953, the figure had climbed to 12.4 

percent, accounting for a little over 13 percent of electrical 

energy produced in the United States. The federal government had 

become, by 1953, the largest single electrical producer in the 

country. 

According to the Hoover Commission task force, more often than 

not, where the federal government did invest, it required little or 

no direct nonfederal contributions (irrigation was a major 

exception, although even here the amount of local contributions was 

declining). The federal government had borne almost the entire 

burden of clearing, channeling, and improving navigation in rivers 

and harbors. The major contribution of local interests was to 

provide free of cost to the federal government all necessary land, 

easements, and rights-of-way. The task force also noted that 

1 
nonfederal contributions had financed the larger share of several 

important navigation projects: the Houston Ship Channel, the 

Sabine-Neches Canal, the New York State Barge Canal, and several 

Great Lakes harbors. Altogether, the federal government had spent 

approximately $4.5 billion to improve, maintain, and operate its 

navigation system. This system included 286 coastal harbors, 131 

Great Lakes harbors and channels, the intracoastal canals, and 

numerous rivers. As of 1954, 22,500 miles of navigable rivers had 

actually been improved for navigation. An additional 6,000 miles 

had been authorized for improvement. The Corps of Engineers was 

operating and maintaining 312 locks and 219 dams for navigation 

purposes. 

As of 1950, the federal flood control program comprised 996 

projects in 46 states (all except Delaware and Maine) and in the 

District of Columbia, Alaska, and Hawaii. Most of these projects 

were multipurpose in nature. They ranged from small levee projects 

for local protection to the Mississippi River and Tributaries 

project to control flooding in the 1OWS Mississippi basin. 

According to Corps figures, the federal government had spent about 

$3.7 billion for flood control by 1950. Of this amount, $3.2 

billion had been spent on construction, $212.5 million on 

maintenance and operation, and $189.7 million on flood fighting, 

repair of damaged works, surveys, and contingencies. Local 

interests had spent about $52.6 million through fiscal year 1950 on 

operation and maintenance of flood control projects. The Corps 

estimated that local contributions would total nearly $480 million 

before the authorized flood control program was completed. 

Most federally sponsored flood control projects required little 

investment from nonfederal sources, although local flood control 

projects generally required cost-sharing. The major nonfederal 

requirement for flood control projects remained the 1936 flood 

control act "a, b, c" requirements. Local investment in flood 

control projects averaged about 20 percent through the mid-1950s. 

If one totaled the nonfederal investment in both large and localprotection flood control projects, he would find the average 

nonfederal investment to be about 7.4 percent. If anything, the 

amount of nonfederal investment declined during the post-World War 

II period. 

As of 1973 

In its 1973 report to the President, the National Water 

Commission attempted to calculate the total historical expenditures 

for water resources development. It converted all figures to the 

1972 dollar value. It estimated the total federal financial 

investment through 1969 for hydropower, flood control, navigation, 

and recreation to be approximately $52.5 billion. State and local 

investment amounted to $8.7 billion, while private investment 

totaled $10.8 billion. (According to the Corps, total federal 

expenditures for navigation improvements from the early 19th century 

2 
to 1975 amounted to more than $13 billion.) The National Water 

Commission pointed out that state and local interests have spent far 

more money than the federal government on municipal water and sewage 

facilities. Total state and local investment in these water 

projects amounted to about $180 billion. The commission concluded 

that the federal government had spent a total of $87.7 billion on 

water projects, whereas state and local interests had invested 

$194.5 billion, and private interests had spent $56.5 billion. me 

grand total for water resources investment through 1972 (in 1972 

dollars) was about $340 billion. 

3 
NAVIGATION IMPROVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR 

Early internal improvements were hampered by two 

difficulties: the lack of capital and the absence of technical or 

engineering expertise and equipment. Americans were wealthy in 

ships and land, but as late as 1800 only three corporations in the 

United States had a capital of a million dollars--the Bank of the 

United states, the Bank of North America, and the Bank of 

Pennsylvania. After the American Revolution and before the creation 

of the present federal system in 1789, private investors carried out 

internal improvements. The role of state governments was limited to 

the chartering of specific projects and, usually, to providing some 

degree of funding, either through the direct granting of sums of 

money or through the purchase of shares of stock. The scope of 

internal improvements work within the states varied greatly. 

Customs revenues and other fees, duties, or tolls were generally the 

source of state monies for internal improvements. 

During this period, Americans debated the federal government's 

relation to the states. In this regard, the question of the role of 

a central government in fostering commerce arose early, as did the 

question of its role in developing the western lands. I* 1784 

George Washington, writing to Richard Henry Lee, urged the necessity 

of surveying western waters (at this time, primarily the Ohio and 

Mississippi rivers). Washington's concern was partly defense, but 

he was also aware of the need for commercial routes to link west and 

east. Without suct~ routes, Washington feared, the western settlers 

would direct their trade either down the Mississippi (to trade with 

the Spanish) or up it (to trade with the British in Canada). 

At the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin became the 

principal advocate of federal sponsorship for internal improvements. He, too, urged the necessity of linking east and west in the 

newly founded republic. But Franklin lost the battle. The 

Constitution gave the new federal government the power to "provide 

for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States"; 

but it limited explicit construction authority to military 

structures such as arsenals and fortifications, lighthouses, and-- 

thanks in large mea?.ure to Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts--post 

roads, post offices, dockyards, and "other needful buildings." 

The Constitution basically reserved to the states the role of 

fostering internal improvements. Consequently, there was no 

appreciable difference in the way things were done in the 1790s from 

the way they were done in the 1780s. The new Constitution did have 

one significant negative effect upon state internal improvement 

programs. It deprived the states of an important source for their 

own funding of these improvements by reserving customs revenues to 

4 
the national government. By the end of the 179&z., state politicians 

and private investors exerted increased pressure for grants of 

federal aid to internal improvements. Many of the projects charted 

in the 1780s or early 1790s were foundering because of bad economic 

conditions. Federal assistance came to be viewed as a practical 

necessity. 

In response, Congress in 1802 began the practice of 

appropriating money for specific internal improvement projects 

within the states. It authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, in 

that year, to pay a maximum of $30,000 for the repair and erection 

of public piers in the Delaware River. In 1805 nearly $6,000 more 

was appropriated for the project. 

These appropriations scarcely opened a sluice gate of federal 

grants. President Thomas Jefferson and Congress retained doubts 

about the constitutionality of the appropriations. Nevertheless, 

political lobbying for aid increased, and Jefferson himself realized 

that some sort of national system for internal improvements was 

required. The states could not adequately provide the internal 

improvement necessary for American prosperity. In 1808, Jefferson's 

Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, submitted his famous 

report recommending federal aid for a great system of roads and 

canals to link the Atlantic Ocean and the interior of the country. 

The following year, Congress appropriated the first sum strictly for 

water development--$25,000 to lengthen the Carondelet Canal and to 

deepen the Mississippi channel at New Orleans. However, the project 

was justified as necgssary for defense; no one spoke of commercial 

river and harbor improvements. 

It was from the westernmost states and territories that 

Congress would hear most loudly the call for help with internal 

improvements, and the power of Congress to construct internal 

improvements in the territories was never seriously challenged. 

Typical of these appeals was an editorial in the Kentucky Gazette of 

Lexington on March 25, 1816: "The western waters are our canals and 

from the simplicity of their wanted improvements are entitled to the 

first application of moneys and subscriptions from the national 

treasury." The states formed from the interior were often conscious 

of a special responsibility to promote internal improvements. The 

Missouri state constitution (1820) stated that "Internal 

improvements shall forever be encouraged by the government of this 

state, and it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as 

may be, to make provision by law for ascertaining the most proper 

objects of improvements in relation both to roads and navigable 

rivers. . . ." Michigan and Arkansas expressed similar sentiments 

in their state constitutions. The state of Maryland recommended an 

amendment to the Constitution which would allow federal sponsorship 

of internal improvements and introduced, in 1823, a resolution 

calling for federal-state cooperation in developing internal 

improvements. 

5 
After a long period of inactivity, caused partly by the War of 

1812, Congress once more authorized funding for water resources. In 

1819 it appropriated $6,500 for a survey of the tributaries of the 

Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The following year it extended the 

survey activities to include the lower Mississippi and appropriated 

$9,500 more. In both cases, the funds were included in military 

appropriations bills. 

Appropriations for the older sections of the country also 

increased. In 1821, Congress authorized a survey of the Maine-New 

Hampshire coast and appropriated $2,500 to repair seawalls and build 

lighthouses. Another $22,700 was appropriated the following year 

for similar projects elsewhere. In 1823, Congress authorized $6,000 

to remove obstacles in Gloucester Harbor and $150 to survey the 

harbor entrance at Presque Isle, Pennsylvania. The total value for 

"river and harbor" projects from 1802 to 1823 was just over 

$85,500. Most of these expenditures were clearly within the 

recognized purview of the federal government. The surveys in the 

territories, the lighthouse and seawall work, and the Carondelet 

Canal could all be justified as matters of national defense. A few 

projects did seem to stretch the limits of federal authority, but 

the first significant redefining of federal authority came in 1824. 

In 1824, President James Monroe signed the General Survey 

Bill. It authorized him to have surveys made of routes for roads 

and canals "of national importance, in a commercial or military 

point of view, or necessary for the transportation of public 

mail." Within two months, Congress passed and the President signed 

the first true rivers and harbors bill. This act appropriated 

$75,000 to improve navigation on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers by 

removing sand~bars, snags, and other obstacles (as early as 1811 

Congress had declared the Mississippi to be a "national public 

highway" and had forbidden states to levy tolls or duties upon its 

traffic). Military as well as commercial req&rements justified the 

project. The War of 1812 had shown the importance of good interior 

lines of communication. The General Survey Act and the act to 

improve the Mississippi and Ohio rivers mark the beginning of 

continuous Corps of Engineers involvement in navigation 

improvement. Congress clearly intended t&t the involvement be 

ongoing; it ordered the engineers to report back their progress so 

that the need for further appropriations might be determined. 

After 1824, federal programs on rivers and harbors increased, 

although states and private interests still carried the greater 

financial burden. Most of the federal focus was on the "public 

highways"--that is, the great rivers such as the Mississippi, Ohio, 

Missouri, and Arkansas--and on river and harbor work close to or on 

ocean ports. The period from 1824 to the Civil War is marked by a 

general inconsistency in national policy and a growing public debate 

over the federal role in internal improvements. The debate and 

6 
inconsistency must be set in the context of American expansion 

westward and increasing sectional and regional friction--and, after 

1848, a rising national debt caused by the Mexican War. COlllUl~rCid 

rivalries between river and canal interests on one hand and 

railroads on the other also fired the debate. By the 185Os, the 

issue of federal involvement in internal improvements was a partisan 

matter. In 1852, the Wbig Party championed the cause of federal 

assistance by proclaiming Congress's power to improve and maintain 

all navigable rivers either for defense or for the protection of 

commerce. The Democrats maintained the positions set forth in their 

party platform of 1848, that Congress had no power to carry on a 

general system of internal improvements (one scholar notes wryly 

that the platform did not prevent Democratic congressmen from voting 

for appropriations). The Republican Party, by contrast, in 1856 

declared that "appropriations by Congress for the improvement of 

rivers and harbors of a national character, required for the 

accommodation and security of our existing commerce, are authorized 

by the Constitution, and justified by the obligation of the 

government to protect the lives and property of its citizens." This 

national debate was sidetracked by the Civil War. Afterwards, the 

necessity of government involvement was uncontested. 

In the 1820s and 183Os, the states and private investors also 

carried out a great deal of internal improvement work. The best 

known of these state projects is the Erie Canal, but there were 

other canal projects (some of them never completed) in New Jersey, 

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and South 

Carolina. States also contributed to private canal projects by 

investing money in them--as did some of the larger cities, such as 

Baltimore and Philadelphia. In some instances, states took over a 

foundering canal enterprise (for example, the James River and 

Kanawha Canal Company in Virginia). In some states (for example, 

New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky) internal improvements 

programs for canals or river work were substantial. To many of 

these programs, the federal government's assistance was limited 

mainly to the granting of financial aid or land, or to technical 

assistance. In a few cases there was state-federal cooperative 

development--as in the Dismal Swamp Canal project. The number of 

federal projects also grew, in part because of national expansion 

and in part because of growing political competition among 

congressmen for federal funds. During his term of office, President 

Andrew Jackson attempted to stem the rising tide of projects whose 

"general or national" character was dubious: he noted in 1834 that 

there were pending before Congress proposals which altogether must 

have exceeded in cost $100 million. Equally important, however, for 

the rising cry for federal assistance was the Panic of 1837, which 

severely crippled the economies of many states and localities, as 

well as private investors. Still another factor, beginning in the 

184Os, was the emergence of railroads. 

7 
Judicial interpretations significantly affected federal 

,navigation policies. In 1824, the Supreme Court in Gibbons v. Ogden 

ruled that federal power over interstate commerce included riverine 

navigation "so far that navigation may be in any manner connected 

with commerce." The decision inevitably raised the question of the 

limits of state versus federal responsibilities for navigation. 

Common law furnished the original answer: only tidal streams were 

under federal jurisdiction. Andrew Jackson changed the policy by 

deciding that improvements below a port of entry would be made by 

the federal government and all others would be the responsibility of 

the states. Congress effectively subverted Jackson's policy when it 

began declaring inland ports to be "ports of entry" and 

appropriating money for their improvement. President Franklin 

Pierce resisted the practice in the mid-18506, but he was the last 

President to do so. 

In short, federal jurisdiction over rivers expanded. In the 

period from 1840 to 1870, Congress effectively extended federal 

jurisdiction over the inland waters. In a famous 1870 decision 

(Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Co.), the Supreme Court declared 

that 

Those rivers must be regarded as public 

navigable rivers in law which are navigable in 

fact. And they are navigable in fact when 

they are used, or are susceptible of being 

used, in their ordinary condition as highways 

of commerce, over which trade and travel are 

or may' be conducted in the customary modes of 

trade and travel on water. And they 

constitute navigable waters of the United 

states within the meaning of the acts of 

Congress, in contradistinction from the 

navigable waters of the States, when they form 

in their ordinary condition by themselves, or 

by uniting with other waters, a continued 

highway over which commerce is or may be 

carried on with other States or foreign 

Countries. . . . 

In this decision the Supreme Court merely confirmed what Congress 

and private interests had long taken for granted: the right to 

regulate navigable waters includes the right to improve them. 

Although federal jurisdiction was expanding, the states and 

other entities were still responsible for a great deal of the 

construction during the period before the Civil War, and they were 

often assisted by federal grants. The grants were generally land 

grants, or funds of money derived from the sale of public land. In 

1819 Congress set aside 5 percent of the monies received from sale 

of public lands in Alabama to be returned to the state as a fund for 

internal improvements. It continued the practice (though generally 

8 
at 2 or 3 percent for other new states entering the union). In 1827 

Congress initiated the practice of granting rights-of-way through 

public lands for state canal projects, granting such lands to 

Illinois and Indiana. In 1828 Congress granted 400,000 acres of 

public lands to Alabama to finance improvement of the Tennessee 

River at Muscle Shoals and Colbert's Shoals. 

By the 1840s Congress had given substantial acreage to the 

states--over a million acres, for example, to Ohio and Indiana 

ZilOlE. In 1841, Congress enacted the 500,000-acre land grants for 

public improvements. Under this act, eight specific states and 

every public-land state thereafter admitted to the Union were to 

receive a grant of 500,000 acres of public lands to use for 

specified improvements. By the time the program was terminated in 

1889, 15 states had each received the full 500,000 acres, and two 

more, Illinois and Alabama, had received 209,086 and 97,469 acres, 

respectively. The uses of this land were various--some states used 

it to finance public education, others for railroad construction or 

irrigation; some applied a portion to river improvements, canals, or 

roads; one state, Minnesota, liquidated state bonds previously 

loaned to railroads. 

In 1849 and 1850, Congress authorized another series of land 

grants to aid states with internal improvements. The 1849 Swamp 

Lands Act granted to Louisiana all swamp and overflowed lands owned 

by the federal government within that state. The purpose of the act 

was to assist the state in the construction of levees and other 

flood prote,ction meas+res and in the drainage and reclamation of the 

lands. In 1850, Congress extended the act to cover other states, 

and another extension in 1860 included Minnesota and Oregon in the 

act. Eventually 15 states received a total of 64,853,922 acres of 

land--or 101,334 siuare miles, an area slightly smaller than the 

state of Colorado. 

Another form of federal assistance to state, local, or private 

internal improvements projects was the purchase of stock in canal 

companies. The figst such investment came in 1825, when Congress 

authorized the purchase of 1,500 shares in the Chesapeake and 

Delaware Canal Company. This investment was followed by four 

others; the total investment was $1.88 million. (In addition, the 

federal government eventually assumed some of the costs of 

constructing and operating at least one of these canals, the Great 

Dismal Swamp Cana1.j 

Gradually, as the role of states in internal improvements 

projects declined, the role of the federal government increased. 

According to the Hoover Commission Task Force on Water Resources and 

Power (1954), the rble of states or their political subdivisions in 

navigation improvement projects has been, since 1850, "comparatively 

rare." The history of federal participation in water resources 

developments in the 19th century is one of increasing activity, in 

9 
terms of both kind and degree, in navigation improvement--and of 

increasing calls from the states and private interests for ever more 

assistance. 

Just how large was the federal contribution to the development 

of internal improvements and, more specifically, to river, harbor, 

and canal improvements? Altogether, by 1860 Congress had 

appropriated about $14.5 million for river and harbor improvements, 

and another $2.5 million for canals. These amounts include the 

subscriptions to canal companies and the monies from the 2 and 3 

percent funds. Of that $14.5 million spent for rivers and harbors 

projects, roughly $5 million had been spent on the Atlantic coast, 

$1 million on the Gulf coast, $3 million on the Great Lakes, and $3 

[million on the great inland rivers--the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, 

and Arkansas. A small amount (about $30,000) had been spent on the 

Pacific coast. Approximately $1 million of appropriated funds had 

not been spent. 

The value of the land grants is more difficult to calculate, 

since state records are not complete and since the lands were used, 

in some cases, for various (or multiple?) purposes. Certainly the 

federal government gave the states a substantial amount of 

acreage. Federal land grants for canals, according to figures 

compiled by the Department of Commerce, totaled 4,597,668 acres. 

Grants for river improvement projects amounted to 1,742,671 acres. 

The Swamp Land Act grants came to 64,853,922 acres, of which 

51,252,945 acres seem to have been used at least partly for purposes 

of reclamation or flood control (13,600,977 acres of these lands 

were donated by the states to railroads). Of the 7,806,555 acres 

eventually granted under the 500,000-acre land grants described 

above, it can be safely assumed that a considerable part of the 

grant was used for river, harbor, and canal work. 

These grants and appropriations were not insignificant; but 

they represent a modest amount of aid compared to the assistance 

which came after the Civil War. By the 18506, indeed, river 

interests in the interior were agitating for far more aid than they 

were receiving. St. Louis rivermen calculated that river obstacles 

such as snags and sandbars resulted in the loss of boats and cargo 

in the amount of $3,631,000 just for the years 1822-1841. This is 

inore than the total federal appropriations, from 1824 to 1860, for 

the four great inland rivers. By the mid-18406, the first of the 

river conventions had met at Memphis to organize lobbying efforts 

for more federal aid. It would be followed by many others. The 

Civil War brought almost all internal improvements projects to a 

halt. It also destroyed the commerce on the Z4ississippi River. 

When work resumed after the war, it would be on a scale far greater 

than before. 

How large a share of the total burden for waterway development 

did the federal government actually bear during the pre-Civil War 

10 
period? Unfortunately, figures are simply not complete. Estimates, 

however, which vary, suggest that states and private interests spent 

well over $185 million for canals by 1860. While it is true that 

the federal government assumed increasing responsibility for 

navigation improvements in this period, ,the federal work was 

concentrated mainly on ports and larger rivers. states, localities, 

and private interests continued to bear responsibility for improvements on minor rivers and all costs for flood control or the 

construction of terminals, wharves, and docks at ports. Nor was the 

federal government involved, except indirectly through land grants, 

in reclamation or drainage efforts. Although federal appropriations 

increased during this period, they never did so on a scale matching 

the work to be done--federal aid, moreover, was inconsistent: 

periods of (relative) generosity alternated with periods of 

stinginess. No appropriation, for example, was made for the lake 

ports after 1852; they were left, as the Chief of Engineers 

described them after the Civil War, "abandoned, and the works left 

to subserve the purposes intended as long as the timber and other 

lnaterial used in their construction might resist decay and the heavy 

storm waves for the lake." What seems most important in this 

period, however, is not the amount of federal assistance, but the 

practices which were being established. 

11 
NAVIGATION IMPROVEMENTS FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO WORLD WAR II 

The years following the Civil War were heady for champions of 

rivers and harbors improvements. From 1866 to 1882, the President 

signed 16 rivers and harbors bills. The consequent increase in 

federal river and harbor work was enormous. The 1866 rivers and 

harbors act appropriated $3.7 million for 49 projects and 26 

surveys. The 1882 act appropriated $18.7 million for 371 projects 

and 135 surveys. By 1882, federal appropriations for all rivers 

and harbors projects since the beginning of the century had 

escalated to over $111 million. Of that amount, approximately 

$95.5 million had been appropriated in the period since the Civil 

War ended. Actual expenditures over the entire period totaled 

about $106 million, of which over $91 million had been expended 

since 1866. By 1882, dS0, federal appropriations for canal 

construction totaled.nearly $2.8 million. 

Tiiere were several reasons for the post-Civil War increase. 

Few denied the importance of commerce on the Mississippi to the 

economic health of the nation, and the river had suffered from 

years of neglect. Indeed, the last major rivers and harbors act 

had been passed in 1852. Since that time, there had been little 

done on the river in the way of snagging and clearing 

operations. Problems were compounded, moreover, by Confederate 

efforts to block the river by scuttling vessels, and by the Union 

Army's destruction of levees, which created both navigation and 

flood control problems. After the war, commercial interests along 

the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri rivers once again gathered at 

river conventions to petition Congress for aid. state 

legislatures likewise requested aid from Congress to improve the 

rivers. 

Although railroads opposed any significant aid for river 

improvements, the Civil War had demonstrated vividly that 

railroads alone were not adequate to handle the nation's freight 

and commerce. Congress expressed a general concern for the 

improvement of national transportation facilities, and in 1872 the 

Senate authorized the creation of a Select Committee on 

Transportation Routes to the Seaboard. Composed eventually of 

nine senators, the committee was headed by Senator William Windom 

of Minnesota and was known popularly as the Windom Committee. Its 

report of 1873 acknowledged the rivalry of watermys and 

railroads, and observed that "water routes, when properly located, 

not only afford the cheapest and best-known means of transport for 

all heavy, bulky, and cheap commodities, but . . . are also the 

natural competitors, and most effective regulators of rail way 

transportation." 

12 
The committee complained: 

For the improvement of these great avenues of 

trade [20,000 miles of western rivers], which 

were designed by nature to afford the cheapest 

and most ample commercial facilities for the 

teeming millions who inhabit the richest 

country on the earth, we have expended an 

average of $133,100 per annum; while for 

public buildings we have appropriated an 

average of over $750,000 a year. Is it not 

high time that all expenditures not absolutely 

necessary be suspended, and that the 

imperative necessities of the country receive 

attention? 

By 1907, federal rivers and harbors appropriations had climbed 

to over one-half billion dollars, more than four times the 

cumulative total in 1882. Rivers and harbors improvement work on 

the major rivers of the country, particularly those in the 

Mississippi basin, accounted for most of the expenditures. The 

Mississippi River Commission, created by Congress in 1879, directed 

Army Fngineer officers in the construction of levees along the lower 

?lississippi. Beginning in the mid-1890s, this levee work (justified 

On the basis of navigation improvement, but obviously a major 

contribution to flood control) was complemented by dredging along 

selected portions of the river in order to prevent shoaling and 

reduce naaigation hazards. In 1896, Congress not only first 

authorized, but required, the construction of dredges "with the view 

of ultimately obtaining and maintaining a navigable channel from 

Cairo down, not less than two hundred and fifty feet in width and 

nine feet in depth at all periods of the year except when navigation 

is closed by ice." Despite the levee-building and the dredging, 

disastrous floods continued to plague the residents along the lower 

Mississippi. 

Meanwhile, in 1888 Congress authorized the extension of the 

six-foot navigation project down the Ohio River. This authorization 

came after the successful completion in 1885 of the Davis Island 

project, just five miles south of Pittsburgh, which employed 

rnoveable wickets and had a lOO-by-600-foot lock. Following 

congressional authorization, the Corps began constructing other 

locks and dams along the Ohio. By 1904, two locks and dams had 

been completed, seven were under construction, and five more were 

funded. At this time, before further work was done, Chief of 

Engineers Alexander Mackenzie decided to conduct another complete 

review of the project (the first one had been done in the 1870s). 

At issue was extension of the project down the lower Ohio, 

particularly in view of generally declining commerce on inland 

waterways. The review board recommended a nine-foot channel along 

the entire course of the Ohio River, based upon its finding that the 

probable cost pee ton-mile for a six-foot project would be .0653 

13 
cents, whereas for the nine-foot project it would be .0447 cents. 

In the 1910 Rivers and Harbors Act, Congress authorized the ninefoot project. At a cost of about $125 million, the project was 

completed in 1929. 

Authorizations and appropriations during this period reflect 

some of the worst evils of pork-barrel legislation. Projects were 

poorly chosen, piecemeal appropriations were commonplace, and the 

Corps of Engineers often gave very unreliable estimates. About the 

turn of the century, matters briefly took a turn for the better, 

mainly as a result of the work of Ohio Representative Theodore 

Burton. Burton, chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee, 

forced through Congress a bill establishing a Board of Engineers for 

Rivers and Harbors to examine "the amount and character of commerce 

existing or reasonably prospective which will be benefited by the 

improvement, and the relation of the ultimate cost of such work, 

both as to cost of construction and maintenance, to the public 

commercial interest involved, and the public necessity for the work 

and propriety of its construction, continuance, or maintenance at 

the expense of the United States." In the 1907 Act, Burton did not 

allow one new project to be added unless the entire cost of the 

project was authorized. Less than five hundred dollars was 

appropriated for local streams, and not one appropriation was made 

unless the project had the approval of the Engineers. Bad this 

practice of avoiding piecemeal appropriations and unjustified 

projects continued, some of the worst examples of traditional porkbarrel legislation would no doubt have never been approved. 

Instead, after Burton's departure in 1909, Congress quickly reverted 

to its old ways. The 1910 Rivers and Harbors Act appropriated funds 

for projects in 226 of the 391 congressional districts. 

One improvisation which took place under Burton was costsharing for navigation projects. Dallas, Texas, became the first 

political entity in the nation forced to contribute funds to a 

rivers and harbors project. The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1905 

required the city to contribute $66,000 toward the Trinity River 

project before the authorized federal appropriation of up to 

$161,300 could be used. The idea of requiring local contributions 

to projects of essentially a local nature did not, however, entirely 

succeed. The promise of local cooperation induced Congress to 

approve many projects of dubious merit. Moreover, richer sections 

of the country could finance projects more easily than poorer 

ones. Twenty-one projects requiring local financial contributions 

were authorized by the 1910 Rivers and Harbors Act, and more were 

added in subsequent years; but no standard procedure was developed 

to determine which projects should entail local contributions. 

Partly in response to this situation, Congress in 1920 inserted a 

clause in the annual appropriations bill requiring Army Engineers to 

report the local benefits of a project as well as its general 

benefits, and to recommend whether local cooperation should be 

required. 

14 
I.* 1925, the policy of local cooperation for small navigation 

projects "as discontinued. Instead, Congress declared in one of the 

few rivers and harbors acts passed that decade that whenever local 

interests advance funds for rivers and harbors work, such funds may 

be accepted and expended by the secretary of W.SC "in his 

discretion." Regardless, the Secretary "as "hereby authorized and 

directed to repay without interest . . . the moneys so contributed 

and expended." By this time, Congress and the Executive Branch had 

carved out a new relationship that dramatically affected the future 

of rivers and harbors legislation. In 1921, the Bureau of the 

Budget "as established. Ge1E?rC311y, rivers and harbors 

appropriations were no longer considered separately. Rather, they 

were included in the Army Appropriation Bill as determined by the 

Bureau of the Budget, the President, and the committees on 

Appropriations. Once the amount of the appropriations "as approved, 

the Secretary of War and the Chief of Engineers apportioned the 

funds as they thought best. Under this procedure, there were annual 

appropriations for rivers and harbors work that ranged fron $40 

million to $60 million. 

Although a significant amount "as spent on navigation 

improvements during the last quarter of the 19th century, the 

general enthusiasm for internal waterway improvements actually 

declined. One major reason for the decline "as railroad 

competition. HO”E!Ver, by the turn of the century renewed interest 

in navigation improvements developed. The railroads continued to be 

inadequate for the country's growing needs, and a number of railroad 

companies were riddled with corruption and mismanagement. This was 

also a time when advocates of lnultipurpose river development first 

gained attention: rivers should be developed in a manner best 

suited to serve power, irrigation, water supply, and flood control, 

as well as navigation, needs. President Theodore Roosevelt, an 

active conservationist, appointed an Inland Waterways Commission in 

1907 to study the issue of river development. Not unexpectedly, 

considering the commission's members and Roosevelt's own 

predilections, the commission strongly favored multipurpose 

development in its 1908 preliminary report to Congress. A National 

Waterways Commission, appointed in 1909, developed a more detailed 

plan for national waterways improvements. The Chief of Engineers, 

Brigadier General Alexander Mackenzie, opposed multipurpose river 

development because he felt that navigation must remain the 

paramount federal interest. 

Waterway advocates pushed two grandiose schemes at this time. 

One "as a deep intercoastal waterway from Boston to the Rio Grande 

via a sea-level cross-Florida canal. The other projected a deep 

channel from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico capable of being 

navigated by ocean-going vessels. Although neither of these plans 

was fully realized, the interest they generated resulted in the 

expansion of the intracoastal waterway on the Atlantic and Gulf 

15 
coasts and, as we have noted, the 1910 authorization of the ninefoot Ohio River channel. 

Of all U.S. navigation projects constructed prior to World War 

I, certainly the most impressive was the Panama Canal connecting the 

Atlantic and Pacific oceans. With Colonel George W. Goethals as 

chief engineer, Lieutenant Colonel William L. Sibert supervising 

construction on the Atlantic side, and Lieutenant Colonel David D. 

Gaillard in charge of construction on the Culebra Cut, Corps of 

Engineers officers were vital to the construction effort. However, 

final responsibility for building the canal rested with the Panama 

Canal Commission and not the Army Corps of Engineers. 

After 11 years of effort, the Panama Canal was opened to 

traffic on 15 August 1914. The cost of construction was $352 

million, including $10 million paid to Panama and $40 million paid 

to the New French Panama Canal Company. If one were to include the 

expenditures of the two unsuccessful French companies that had 

attempted to build the Canal in the 1880s and 189Os, the total 

investment would climb to $639 million. Although a relatively small 

sum by today's standards, the cost of the Panama Canal was four 

times more than for building the Suez Canal and far more than for 

any other previous American construction effort. Had Congress 

realized what the ultimate cost would be, it probably would never 

have approved building the canal. The excavating of the Culebra Cut 

alone cost $90 million, or $10 million per mile. Still, the final 

cost for the canal was $23 million below what engineers had 

estimated in 1907. 

By law, the Panama Canal is designed to be self-sustaining. 

Expenditures cannot exceed revenues. In 1914, about $4 million was 

collected in tolls. By 1970, tolls exceeded $100 million, even 

though the rates had remained unchanged. In 1973, the Panama Canal 

Company suffered its first loss as a result of rising operating and 

maintenance costs. Consequently, the following year the company 

raised the toll rate from 90 cents per cargo ton to $1.08, a 20 

percent increase. In the late 197Os, annual revenues from tolls 

exceeded $14U million. 

World war I deepened government concern with waterway 

development. Wartime exigencies demanded that rail transportation 

be supplemented by a reliable barge fleet OR the major U.S. 

rivers. The Federal Control Act of 1918 authorized the government 

to commandeer vessels on the Mississippi and Warrior rivers and the 

New York Barge Canal. It also provided $12 million for new 

construction. The Railroad Administration ran the barge fleet until 

1920, when it was turned over to the Secretary of ,War. However, the 

War Department was no more successful in showing profits for the 

fleet, and in 1924 Congress authorized the creation of a wholly 

government-owned operation, the Inland Waterways Corporation (IWC), 

to run the barge fleet. The IWC made important advances in the 

16 
design and size of barges. It also successfully promoted the 

establishment of nonfederal terminal facilities. From 1924 to 1935, 

when the program ceased, the IWC loaned some $1.1 million to states, 

municipalities, and private industries to support terminal 

construction. Most of this aid went for facilities on the lower 

Mississippi. Perhaps most impressive, the IWC actually showed a 

profit for the first 15 years of its existence. Its operations 

complemented Corps of Engineers river improvement projects and 

attracted private carriers to the Warrior, Mississippi, and other 

rivers. In a sense, its very success doomed it. Private barge 

companies and railroad interests began to oppose it vehemently. The 

expansion of private barge and railroad facilities did, in fact, beg 

the question of the necessity for the IWC's continued existence. In 

1953, the entire fleet was sold to the Federal Waterways 

Corporation, and the name was changed to Federal Barge Lines, Inc. 

It had taken over a hundred years for the federal government to 

spend the first half-billion dollars on river and harbor 

improvements. In the 13 years from 1907 to 1920, however, the 

government doubled the amount, so that by 1920 the total 

appropriations for river and harbor work exceeded one billion 

dollars. Within 13 years, this figure doubled again. By 1936, the 

cumulative appropriations figure for navigation improvements was 

$2.1 billion. By that time, another $800 million had been spent on 

flood control and nonnavigation related activities. During World 

War II, as part of the military construction program, several 

million dollars was spent on port improvements, including terminals, 

warehouses, docks, and wharves. This construction was not part of 

rivers and harbors iark, although the facilities built under this 

program, justified in the interest of national defense, obviously 

benefited commerce after the war ended. 

Expenditures by states and nonfederal interests are exceedingly 

difficult to calculate. One estimate places the total figure for 

state support of canal construction and maintenance alone at over 

one half million dollars by 1930. This figure, evidently, does not 

include any nonfederal monies spent for flood control and drainage. 

The Great Depression ended hopes that the number and cost of 

navigation improvements might be reduced. In 1926, the Chief of 

Engineers reported that 139 projects had become obsolete or had 

never developed sufficient traffic to justify their maintenance. He 

recommended their abandonment. Congress did not respond to this 

recommendation at that time or any time thereafter. Three years 

later, when the depression began, both Congress and the 

administration sought ways to create jobs, although President 

Herbert Hoover opposed deficit spending for additional public 

works. In 1930, Congress increased the Corps' civil works budget, 

not only because of commercial demands, but "to carry out the 

purposeful plan of the administration to alleviate unemployment." 

17 
Although unable to give specific numbers, Chief of Engineers Lytle 

Brown maintained that Corps projects had "furnished employment to 

thousands of people who otherwise might have been idle." Pursuant 

to the 1930 Emergency Construction Act, the first public works 

legislation of the depression era, the Corps received $22.5 million 

for rivers and harbors work and an additional $3 million for the 

Mississippi River and Tributaries project, a flood control project 

initiated two years earlier. In the three years 1931-1933, the 

Corps received over $270 million in work relief funds. With the 

beginning of the New Deal, this sum--and the number of projects 

funded--expanded considerably. 

18 
CANAL DEVELOPMENT 

Even before achieving nationhood, Americans linked internal 

improvements with westward expansion, defense, and national union. 

Thus, after 1789 attention focused increasingly on developing better 

transportation routes along the eastern seaboard and in the 

interior. Projects included roads, turnpikes, bridges, and 

canals. In Maryland and Virginia the Potomac Canal Company and the 

Dismal Swamp Company completed canal projects by the mid-1790s. A 

flurry of canal building activity followed in Pennsylvania, New 

York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Ohio. 

AS they sought to improve transportation through canals, 

Americans looked to earlier successes in Britain. The British had 

built their canal sys ten almost entirely without government 

assistance, but the United States did not enjoy the conditions which 

had made this possible. In America the terrain, existing patterns 

of settlement, and a shortage of investment capital and skilled 

engineers assured public participation in internal improvement 

projects. As a result, by the turn of the 19th century state 

governments began to assist private investors in canals by 

authorizing lotteries and subscribing stock. 

The possible role of the federal government came under scrutiny 

in 1807 when Congress authorized Secretary of the Treasury Albert 

Gallatin to conduct-. a study of the nation's transportation 

problems. The result was Gallatin's "Report on Roads and Canals" 

issued in 1808. In presenting the first comprehensive plan for 

internal improvements, 

the Atlantic co&t, 

Gallatin identified a series of canals along 

canals to connect the Atlantic with rivers in 

the West and with the Great Lakes, and roads and additional canals 

in the interior whose completion he deemed essential to the nation's 

future. In most cases Gallatin concluded that the financial 

requirements of these projects exceeded private resources. He 

proposed financing them with surplus funds from the United States 

treasury either through loans or stock subscriptions. 

Beset by state and local jealousies and required to draw upon 

the budget surplus in preparing for war, Congress failed to enact 

Gallatin's plan. However, the War of 1812 underscored the 

importance of d&eloping the nation's transportation system. A 

"Transportation Revolution" began after the war ended in 1815 and 

lasted until the Civil War. Canal development was a major factor in 

that revolution. At the beginning of the period canals totaling 

barely 1,000 miles in length notched the landscape from New 

Hampshire to So& Carolina. By 1860 this figure had ballooned to 

more than 4,200 miles for projects that ranged west to Illinois, 

north to the Upper Michigan peninsula, and south to Texas. 

19 
Both private and public sources, including the federal 

government, provided the $188 million invested in canals between 

1815 and 1860. Aid from state and local governments was the 

decisive factor. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 

and Virginia invested $114.3 million in constructing and operating 

their own canals. Local municipalities joined eight states and the 

federal government and through stock subscriptions, gifts, and loans 

invested another $22.2 million in mixed enterprises. Of this amount 

the federal government made $1.9 million in stock purchases and 

$400,000 in loans. The $136.5 million public investment represented 

73.4 percent of the total $188-million investment in canals. 

The 365-mile-long Erie Canal, completed between 1817 and 1825, 

was the largest of the state-owned ventures. After failing to get 

federal support, New York State financed the entire project through 

special taxes, loans, and toll revenues. For all projects, 

including the Erie, loans were the largest single source of funds. 

Loans accounted for about $127 million, or more than 90 percent of 

government contributions to canal building. At least three-fourths 

of the loan money was obtained through bond sales to financial 

institutions, both domestic and foreign. 

Toll revenues on the Erie Canal were substantial. New York 

collected more than $1 million in tolls before the canal was 

finished. The tolls, usually based on the weight of the cargo, 

became part of the Canal Fund and as such were used to reduce the 

debt, make repairs, construct new canals, and enlarge the original 

canal. By 1836 toll income from the Erie and Champlain canals 

exceeded expenditures by more than $1 million annually. 

The federal purchases of stock in canal companies, all made 

between 1825 and 1829, followed renewed debate on the federal role 

in internal improvements. After 1815, John C. Calhoun, first as a 

congressman from South Carolina and then as Secretary of War, was a 

leading advocate of internal improvements. In 1816-1817, he pushed 

through Congress the so-called Bonus Bill to provide funds for the 

improvements. The bill, vetoed by President James Madison on 

constitutional grounds, would have created a permanent fund for 

building roads and canals using the bonus and annual dividends from 

the Second Bank of the United States. 

In 1819, Calhoun, as Secretary of War, presented his own plan 

for constructing public works. His proposal drew heavily upon the 

earlier Gallatin plan. Like Gallatin, Calhoun conceded that many 

projects could be left to local entities, but he maintained that 

certain essential projects were beyond the capacities of the 

individual states. Calhoun, as had Gallatin, placed primary 

emphasis on the need to develop the line of communications along the 

Atlantic coast. "It must be perfected by the general government," 

Calhoun maintained, "or not be perfected at all." In regard to 

20 
communications with the interior, Calhoun argued that the government 

ought to "at least bear a proportional share of the expense of their 

construction." Again echoing Gallatin, Calhoun proposed that 

federal funds be channeled through stock subscriptions to state or 

privately owned companies that were undertaking approved projects. 

When Congress finally made the stock purchases, it viewed them 

favorably. The appropriations required were comparatively small; 

and, with private investors involved, Congress hoped the projects 

would be chosen wisely and the funds would be spent economically. 

The largest mixed enterprise was the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 

to which the federal government subscribed $1 million in stock; 

Maryland $6 million; Georgetown, Alexandria, and Washington $1.6 

million; and Virginia $82O,OOU. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 

another mixed enterprise, sold $1.2 million in stock, about twothirds of which came from state and private sources. The federal 

share was $450,000. The United States also purchased $200,000 in 

Dismal Swamp Canal stock and $235,000 in Louisville and Portland 

Canal stock. In 1837 Congress agreed to loan $300,000 to the 

Alexandria Canal Company in exchange for stock in the company 

provided by the city of Alexandria, Virginia. This loan, in 

addition to an earlier $lUO,OOO loan to the Alexandria company, was 

the only instance of a federal loan to finance canal development. 

The legislation authorizing stock purchases in canal companies 

stipulated that the federal government would periodically receive 

its proportion of the canal tolls. In reality, however, dividends 

were rare.. One. exception among the canals in which the federal 

government invested was the Louisville and Portland Canal. In the 

first 10 years of the canal's operation, the government received 

$257,778 in dividends on its stock. This amount was greater than 

the original purchase price. From the record, "it appears the 

United States collected more in tolls at the Louisville Canal prior 

to 1860 than it expended on the improvement of the entire Ohio 

River." 

During Andrew Jackson's presidency, the federal government 

abandoned the practice of purchasing stock in improvement 

companies. Land grants, another form of federal canal aid, had 

begun in 1827 and continued until after the Civil War. These grants 

were made in addition to rights-of-way and were designed to give the 

states and private companies involved the means to raise capital for 

canal construction through the sale of land. The first grant of 1.5 

million acres of public land went to Indiana for the Wabash RiverLake Erie Canal. The last grant for 100,000 acres went to Michigan 

for the Lac La Belle Ship Canal in 1866. In total, the government 

gave away nearly 4.6 million acres to Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, 

Wisconsin, and Michigan. 

21 
In making these grants Congress stipulated that each canal was 

"to remain a public highway for the use of the government of the 

United States, free from any toll, or other charge, whatever, for 

any property of the United States, or persons in their service 

passing through." This policy predated the Constitution. The 

Ordinance of 1787, which provided territorial government for the Old 

Northwest, declared that the Mississippi River, the navigable waters 

leading into it and the Saint Lawrence, and "the carrying places 

between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free." 

Broadening this language, the Constitution stated: "No preference 

shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports 

of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or 

from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in 

another." Later, enabling acts admitting new states and state 

constitutions carried on the policy. The canal land grants were 

contingent upon construction commencing within five years and 

reaching completion within twenty years. 

Calculating the value of the federal land grants for canals is 

difficult given the lack of information on actual land prices at the 

time of sale. One method is to determine the price of public land 

per acre in each year that a grant was made and multiply that price 

by the percent of total land which was granted in that year. The 

result is a weighted average price of $1.058 per acre which should 

be regarded as the low estimate. Using this price, the total value 

of federal land grants for canal construction through 1866 is 

calculated to have been at least $4.9 million. Thus, for the first 

grant of 1.5 millionacres to Indiana for the Wabash and Erie Canal, 

the lowest value of the grant was $1.57 million. Compare this to the 

$8.2 million total cost of completing the canal. 

Beginning in 1841 Congress also made land grants of 500,000 

acres that were used for improvements that sometimes included 

canals. Acts admitting states with public lands to the Union also 

included provisions that set aside 5 percent of net proceeds from 

the sale of the lands for improvements, which for the acts passed 

before 1836 usually included canals. 

Calhoun's 1819 plan for internal improvements had also included 

a proposal that federal assistance include using Army Engineers to 

make the surveys and plans for the projects contemplated. Such 

technical advice was a particularly valuable form of assistance 

during the canal-building period because skilled civilian engineers 

were in scarce supply. Before Congress approved the idea in 1824, 

Calhoun used the existing Board of Engineers for Fortifications to 

make surveys along the Atlantic coast. ALSO, in 1823 President 

Monroe recommended that Army Engineers survey routes for the 

Chesapeake and Ohio and other canals. Monroe affirmed his support 

of federal aid for improvements of national value, but he drew the 

line when it came to construction and operation of the works. 

22 
3 

In 1824 Congress finally passed the General Survey Act. The 

act authorized the President to obtain surveys, plans, and cost 

estimates for the road and canal routes he deemed of national 

importance. He had authority to employ two or more civil engineers, 

Engineer officers, and line officers detailed to the Corps of 

Engineers to make the surveys. The initial appropriation was for 

$30,000. Notably, the act did not authorize federal construction. 

To implement the surveys, President Monroe appointed a Board of 

Internal Improvements. Petitions for surveys flooded Washington. 

During its first year the board concentrated on canal surveys, with 

the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal given the most attention. The board 

also made reports on the Dismal Swamp and the Chesapeake and 

Delaware canals and examined proposed canal routes in Pennsylvania, 

Maryland, Indiana, Florida, and New England. By 1827 the area of 

consideration had broadened; it stretched from New England to 

Florida and from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico. 

For the period through 1 December 1828, nearly $74,000 was 

expended for surveys on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal route; $20,000 

for surveying a canal to link the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico across 

Florida; and nearly $17,000 for surveys in Indiana that included 

mapping possible canal routes and clearing river obstructions. 

Before the Topographical Bureau took over the surveys from the Board 

of Internal Improvements in 1831, government surveyors had examined 

all the main routes proposed by Gallatin and Calhoun and numerous 

others. The number of officers engaged in the surveys, initially 

authorized.at 24, inc.reased to 53 in 1826. 

The Topographical Bureau continued surveys under the General 

Survey Act until Congress repealed the act in 1838. During these 

last years, the nature of the surveys changed considerably. In 1831 

most surveys were for canals, but by 1835 surveys for roads, 

railroads, and river and harbor improvements predominated. There 

was one canal survey in 1836 and none the following year. Several 

factors accounted for the virtual disappearance of the canal 

surveys. President Jackson and his Secretary of War did not 

generally support such activity; and the growth of railroads, not 

canals, became the most significant manifestation of the ongoing 

transportation revolution. 

Despite the growth of canals in the pre-Civil War period and 

their impact on the developing American economy, the number of 

abandoned canals exceeded those constructed in the decade before 

1860. During the Civil War railroads enhanced still further their 

position as the preeminent mode of inland transportation, but the 

strongest canals survived. In fact both the Erie and the Chesapeake 

and Delaware canals experienced their highest tonnage to date in 

1872. Afterwards, however, a decline was also noted on these 

popular routes. 

23 
After the Civil War the appeal of waterways transportation 

persisted. In 1874 the Senate's Select Committee on Transportation 

Routes to the Seaboard, the Windom Committee, issued a report 

recommending the improvement of specific water routes to lessen 

overall transportation costs. In essence the committee saw 

competition from waterborne commerce as a means of checking railroad 

rates which were already deemed excessive. The committee envisioned 

a transportation network that would still include canals and rivers 

improved through canalization. 

In part the committee report focused attention on a water 

passage from the Tennessee River co the Atlantic, known as the 

Southern Route. Improvements at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, were an 

essential element of this project. The state had completed a canal 

at Big Muscle Shoals in 1837, but subsidiary canals above and below 

this location were not finished. Now, with Congress's blessing, the 

Army Corps of Engineers undertook to rebuild and expand the old 

canal and construct the subsidiary canals. The Muscle Shoals Canal 

opened in 1890, by which time federal expenditures totaled 

approximately $3.1 million. 

In 1874 the United States also took over full control of the 

Louisville and Portland Canal for $1.7 million. Ownership of the 

canal had actually passed to the United States in 1855 because the 

private investors involved had used the dividends due the federal 

government to buy out all but five shares of their stock. When 

Congress refused to take a greater role, the remaining stockholders 

continued to oversee -.the canal's operation. This canal had been the 

most profitable of those in which the United States held stock, but 

the high cost of recent improvements and strong objections to the 

tolls charged led to a complete federal takeover. In accordance 

with established practice on federally owned waterways, Congress 

eliminated the tolls on the Louisville and Portland Canal in 1880. 

Thereafter Congress paid the cost of operation and maintenance from 

the Treasury. 

In 1894 attention focused again on another canal in which the 

federal government held stock, the Chesapeake and Delaware. A 

movement began to construct a ship (Lock-free) canal linking the 

Delaware and Chesapeake bays. After much debate it was decided that 

the ship canal would follow the route of the existing lock canal. 

The canal had seen little use since the 1880s and had not paid 

dividends since 1877. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company 

lacked the funds to make the necessary enlargements for a ship 

canal. Thus in 1919 the federal government purchased the old canal 

in full for $2.5 million. The Corps of Engineers' Wilmington 

District Engineer directed reconstruction which was completed in 

1927 at a cost of $10.1 million for a 12-foot depth. No tolls were 

charged on the new waterway. 

24 
Another private company, the Cape Cod Canal Company, also 

lacked the funds to maintain its canal which stretched 17 miles 

between Buzzard's and Barnstable bays. After determining the 

canal's military and commercial value, the United States purchased 

the Cape Cod Canal in 1928 for $11.5 million. The government 

immediately abolished tolls on the waterways, and cargo tonnage rose 

dramatically in response. Between 1935 and 1940 the Corps of 

Engineers reconstructed the canal with Public Works Administration, 

Emergency Relief Administration, and regular improvement funds, 

which, when added to the original cost and maintenance, brought 

federal investment in the project to nearly $37 million by 1940. By 

1975 the federal investment had more than doubled, making the Cape 

Cod Canal the most costly single civil works project of the Corps of 

Engineers in New England. Today the Cape Cod Canal is the widest 

sea-level canal in the world and in the 1970s was carrying about 

11.7 million cargo-tons annually. 

The inability of the state of Illinois to complete improvements 

on its portion of the original Illinois Waterway between Lockport 

and Utica led to federal takeover without charge in April 1930. 

Thus the United States gained full control of an important water 

route from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, a route which 

included the canals of the Chicago Sanitary District. The state had 

appropriated $20 million for its portion of the waterway. Congress 

added $7.5 million and completed the project in 1933. 

During the New Deal the federal government also became involved 

in the prqject t? enJarge the existing network for New York canals, 

including the Erie, known then as the Barge Canal. In 1935 the 

Emergency Relief Appropriation Act allotted federal funds to New 

York to deepen the portion of the canal from Waterford on the Hudson 

to Oswego Harbor on Lake Ontario from 12 to 14 feet and to widen the 

canal so that it could be fully used at the new depth. The 

estimated cost of the project was $27 million of which $20 million 

was to come from the federal government. New York District of the 

Corps of Engineers supervised the work and completed it in 1968. 

As this study of canal development has shown, although 

America's great canal age occurred before the Civil War and even 

then gave way to a railroad boom, federal investment in canals in 

the late-19th and 20th centuries far outdistanced investment in the 

earlier period. Not only did the federal government make loans and 

outright grants of funds, direct construction to enlarge existing 

canals, and contribute to operation and maintenance, but the federal 

government also purchased several major canals and has continued to 

operate them. As held true earlier, state and local investment in 

canals continued to exceed federal investment. 

Obtaining complete figures on canal expenditures is extremely 

difficult. According to statistics reported by the Federal 

25 
Coordinator of Transportation in 1939, state costs for construction, 

maintenance, and other charges relating to canals, less the amount 

of tolls collected, were $530 million. Of this amount $330 million 

was expended after 1890 and most of that was for construction and 

operation of the New York State Barge Canal and the Chicago Sanitary 

and Ship Canal. As of 30 June 1929, the Chief of Engineers reported 

total federal expenditures of $96 million as a separate item, 

"operating and care of canals." This figure is below the amount 

actually spent because some canal costs have been included in 

categories with noncanal expenditures and cannot be extracted. 

26 
THE EVOLUTION OF FEDERAL FLOOD CONTROL POLICY 

The development of the federal government's role in flood 

control is largely the story of attempts to control the devastating 

floods along the lower Mississippi River. Aside from the swampland 

acts and whatever incidental alleviation of flooding resulted from 

snagging and clearing operations, the federal government did not 

involve itself in flood control on the Mississippi until the 

1870s. In 1874, after a severe flood had wrought tremendous 

suffering on lower Mississippi basin residents, Congress 

appropriated $90,000 for relief work. That same year Congress also 

authorized the President to establish a commission of three Army 

Engineers and two civilian engineers to study the best system for 

the "permanent reclamation and redemption" of the alluvial basin of 

the Mississippi River. Three years later, Chief of Engineers Andrew 

A. Humphrey6 created a board to improve low-water navigation of the 

Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Both boards were eliminated upon 

the creation of the Mississippi River Commission (MRC) on 28 June 

1879. 

Congress established the MRC to coordinate river improvement 

work on the Mississippi and to insure that both civilian and 

military advice was obtained on the subject. The seven-member board 

was to be chosen by the President of the United States and confirmed 

by the Senate. The commission president and two other members were 

selected from the Corps of Engineers. The United States Coast and 

Geodetic Survey provided one member. The remaining three members, 

two of whom had to be civil engineers, came from civilian life. 

Among the duties Congress assigned the MRC were to prepare plans to 

deepen the channel and protect the banks of the Mississippi; 

"improve and give safety and @TM@” to Mississippi navigation; 

prevent destructive floods; and promote and facilitate commerce, 

trade, and postal service. Within a year, the MRC had reached the 

important conclusion that "levees only" could control the 

Mississippi's floods. Commission members rejected any suggestion of 

dispersing floods through controlled outlets. This conclusion 

reaffirmed the position of Humphrey6 and Lieutenant Henry L. Abbot 

who had expressed their faith in "levees only" in their Report Upon 

the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River, published in 

1861. The authors had specifically questioned the value of 

reservoirs for flood control on the lower Mississippi. 

Despite efforts by the MRC and local interests to construct 

levees fast eoough and high enough to prevent flooding, periodic 

floods continued to devastate the lower Mississippi basin. Severe 

floods came in 1882, 1884, 1890, 1897, 1912, 1913, and 1916. Less 

severe floods, but still enormously disrupting, occurred in other 

years. The Corps of Engineers did the levee construction for the 

MKC , but the Corps was often more involved with emergency flood 

27 
relief activities than with construction. The Corps' first flood 

relief operation took place on the lower Mississippi in 1882. The 

1912 and 1913 floods brought into question a system of levees that 

had clearly shown itself incapable of affording reliable 

protection. They also showed the inability of local interests to 

provide adequate protection to complement the work of the federal 

government. 

Until 1917, all work done on the Mississippi had been justified 

on the basis of navigation, mainly in order to satisfy the 

constitutional scruples of those congressmen who thought the federal 

government had no business in flood control. HOWeVer, on 1 March 

1917, Congress passed the first federal flood control legislation. 

The measure authorized $45 million for flood control between the 

mouth of the Mississippi and the mouth of the Ohio; no more than $10 

million was to be spent in any one year. Essentially the 1917 act 

allowed the MRC to expedite the implementation of already existing 

plans. No new flood control plans were authorized. The act, 

however, did stipulate that local interests must contribute at least 

one-half of the cost for the construction and repair of the levees 

and must provide rights-of-way free to the federal government. The 

act also appropriated $5.6 million for flood control work on the 

Sacramento River. At least in these two sections of the country, 

Congress had declared its commitment to flood control. 

More flooding occurred on the lower Mississippi in the early 

1920s. The flood that finally brought a reevaluation of policy--and 

of financing--happened in 1927. Between 250 and 500 people were 

killed, over 16 million acres flooded, and 41,000 buildings 

destroyed. The Red Cross cared for over 600,000 people at one time, 

of whom half lived in temporary Red Cross camps. The flood finally 

convinced the Corps that levees could not sufficiently control the 

Mississippi's waters: a mix of levees, floodways, and spillways 

would be necessary. Major General Edgar Jadwin, Chief of Engineers 

and author of this new flood control plan, continued to oppose 

reservoirs for flood control, however. A specially appointed 

reservoir board of Engineer officers concluded that the Jadwin plan 

was "far cheaper than any method the board has been able to devise 

for accomplishing the same result by any combination of reservoirs." 

The flood control act passed on 15 May 1928 authorized this new 

Plan, which came to be called the Mississippi River and Tributaries 

project. The act released lower Mississippi residents from all 

local cooperation requirements except those to maintain certain 

flood control works after completion, to accept certain lands 

condemned for the project, and to provide rights-of-way. The reason 

for this generous federal commitment is that many congressmen judged 

that the residents of the lower Mississippi had borne enough 

suffering; they had spent a substantial amount of money on 

nonfederal levee construction, and it "as unreasonable to expect 

them to bear this burden longer. 

28 
In light of this congressional largesse, it is worthwhile to 

examine how much lower Mississippi basin residents had contributed 

to flood control and navigation improvement. According to one NRC 

document, state and local organizations spent over $175 million on 

nonfederal levees up to the year 1928. In addition, they 

contributed $19 million to federal levee and revetment projects, 

bringing the total nonfederal expenditure prior to 1928 to just 

under $200 million. Federal appropriations during this same 

period totaled $174 million. Of this amount, $93 million was 

spent prior to the passage of the 1917 flood control act. The 

remainder was appropriated either as special emergency flood 

relief funds or as amendments to the 1917 act. Under the 

provisions of the 1928 act, as amended, the federal government 

appropriated $1.1 billion through the fiscal year 1955. LOGil 

interests contributed $3.2 million. 

The 1928 flood control act paved the way for much more 

ambitious planning, and the depression convinced many congressmen 

that federal flood control not only was justified in itself, but 

also could serve as an important means of providing work relief. 

In 1935, Congressman Riley Wilson of Louisiana introduced a bill 

to authorize a large number of flood control projects throughout 

the United States. Most of these projects had been suggested in 

the Corps ' "308 reports" prepared pursuant to the 1927 Rivers and 

Harbors Act. Succumbing to the lure of work relief projects, the 

House of Representatives passed Wilson's bill; but opposition in 

the Senate was stronger. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland 

blocked a vote by- what supporters of the legislation called a 

"filibuster." In the next session, consequently, the Senate 

Committee on Commerce devoted a great deal of attention to drawing 

up a national policy on flood control. 

The most controversial point was whether the federal 

government should assume the entire cost of flood control 

projects, as it had for the lower Mississippi under the 1928 flood 

control act. In the end, committee members agreed that the local 

interests should provide lands, rights-of-way, and easements and 

should hold and save the United States free from damages due to 

the construction work. Later, another stipulation was added: 

local interests should maintain and operate all the works after 

completion of the project in accordance with regulations 

prescribed by the Secretary of War. The three provisions--to 

provide land, rights-of-way, and easements; to stand the cost of 

damages; and to maintain and operate the works--became known as 

the "a,b,c" requirements. The decision that local interests 

should bear part of the burden resulted in part from the efforts 

of senator Royal Copeland of New York and senator Arthur 

Vandenberg of Michigan. Another factor was Chief of Engineers 

Major General Edward Markham, who was outspoken in his opinion 

that the federal government should not bear the entire cost. 

29 
A close reading of committee documents and congressional 

speeches makes clear the legislative intent to extend federal 

assistance only to prevent "catastrophic" and "dramatic" flood 

damages. It was not the intent to reclaim lands in rural areas. 

The Roosevelt administration, however, expressed its desire to have 

the bill broadened to provide for investigations by the Secretary of 

Agriculture of the value to flood control of reforestation, soil 

conservation, and other floodplain management measures. The 

subsequent changes made it clear that the Secretary of Agriculture 

would be responsible for investigating watersheds and recommending 

measures to control water retardation and run-off, while the 

Secretary of War would investigate and improve rivers for flood 

control, as directed by Congress. 

After defeating efforts to have the federal government assume 

the full financial burden, the Senate passed the bill. In 

conference the bill was not significantly modified. On 22 June 

1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law. It 

authorized the expenditure of $320 million for 250 projects and a 

number of examinations and surveys. 

The 1936 act was the real beginning of comprehensive federal 

flood control work. It recognized that flood control was a "proper 

activity of the Federal Government in cooperation with States, their 

political subdivisions, and localities thereof." Since 1936, the 

Corps has built, pursuant to congressional authorizations and 

appropriations, over three hundred reservoirs whose primary benefit 

is flood. control. ~ Most of these reservoirs are multipurpose, 

however; many of them would not have been built had flood control 

been the only benefit. 

It is noteworthy that so many Army Engineers maintained their 

skepticism of the value of flood control reservoirs despite the 

windfall of work Congress had given the Corps. Brigadier General 

Harley B. Ferguson, president of the Mississippi River Commission 

and a recognized expert in flood control, stated that reservoirs in 

the lower Mississippi basin "never were justified except for work 

relief." Some Corps engineers, both military and civilian, simply 

shared the skepticism of many private civil engineers who thought it 

difficult, if not impossible, to operate a flood control reservoir 

as a multipurpose project. According to Gerard H. Matthes, the 

senior engineer with the Mississippi River Commission, even singlepurpose flood control reservoirs posed significant "practical 

operating difficulties." While such reservoirs can perform quite 

well in small watersheds such as the Miami Valley in Ohio, they were 

ill suited in "large drainage basins, or in any flood-control system 

in which a large number of dams and reservoirs are required, or 

where the tributary system is at all complex." A pamphlet entitled 

"Notes on Flood Control," which was circulated within the Office of 

the Chief of Engineers in August 1936, two months after passage of 

the flood control act, identified four methods of flood control: 

30 
building levees, enlarging the discharge capacity, providing 

additional channels, and constructing reservoirs. The pamphlet then 

noted: 

Of the four methods of controlling floods mentioned 

above, construction of levees is the most direct and 

surest method . . . . Works, such as reservoirs, 

constructed at localities distant from areas damaged 

by floods are not so determinate as to effects, and 

the benefits of reservoirs become smaller and 

smaller as distances from the reservoir sites 

increase. As a consequence, a dollar spent for 

levee construction is more likely to be a dollar 

well spent than a dollar spent for other methods of 

flood control. 

Humphreys' and Abbot's influence waned very slowly. Only after 

World War II did the Engineer school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 

publish a booklet which listed reservoirs as a flood control option, 

without suggesting that it was necessarily the least attractive 

alternative. 

31 
3 

FEDERAL INVOLVEMENT IN PORT AND HARBOR DEVELOPMENT 

Although previous sections of this study have touched upon the 

subject of port and harbor development, some additional observations 

need to be made. Federal policies affecting port and harbor 

development have evolved in a very fragmentary manner. The United 

States Constitution mandates in Article I, section 9, that the 

federal government must not discriminate in its treatment of 

ports: "No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce 

or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another: nor 

shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, 

clear, or pay duties in another." This statement reflected the 

prevailing belief that the regulatory power of the federal 

government should be strictly limited. Subsequent congressional 

legislation similarly mirrored this view. 

Since the beginning of the 19th century, most politicians have 

agreed that harbor improvements are necessary for national 

defense. As we have noted, the first federal waterways 

appropriations were for lighthouses, piers, jetties, and a few 

canals that seemed necessary for military purposes. After 1824 and 

the passage of the General Survey Act, the federal government did an 

increasing amount of harbor maintenance. As early as the late 

18206, the Corps of Engineers was using crude dredges to keep 

certain Great Lakes and eastern ports clear of sediment accumulation 

and floating debris. in 1837, a general financial panic and 

increasing sectional rivalry resulted in decreased congressional 

enthusiasm for internal improvements. The following year Congress 

repealed the General Survey Act. Except for one year, Congress 

suspended harbor appropriations from 1838 to 1852, when the last 

significant pre-Civil War rivers and harbors bill was passed. 

In 1887, Congress established the Interstate Commerce 

Commission. Although the commission's establishment resulted mainly 

from concern with railroad management, it was also a consequence of 

Congress's belief that a national transportation policy was 

needed. The act creating the commission declared it to be federal 

policy "to provide for fair and impartial regulation of all modes of 

transportation . . . to the end of developing, coordinating, and 

preserving a national transportation system by water, highway, and 

rail as well as other means." Nevertheless, the 1887 act exempted 

inland waterway transport services from federal regulation. The 

idea of creating a Department of Transportation to coordinate all 

forms of transportation appealed to many congressmen. Between 1874 

and 1966, there were over thirty legislative proposals to create 

such a department. 

32 
It was not until the 20th century that port maintenance and 

construction became a major burden. At the turn of the century, 

there was renewed federal interest in developing the inland waterway 

system. The Inland Waterways Commission espoused, as part of that 

development, the comprehensive planning of port facilities at inland 

and deepwater ports. In the 1919 Rivers and Harbors Act, Congress 

declared it to be federal policy "that water terminals are essential 

at all cities and towns located upon harbors or navigable waterways 

and that at least one public terminal should exist, constructed, 

owned, and regulated by the municipality, or other public agency of 

the State and open to use of all on equal terms." The act 

authorized the Secretary of War to withhold work on harbor 

improvements whenever he judged that inadequate water terminals 

existed or unless he received adequate assurances that such 

facilities would be built. In the 1920 JQderal Transportation Act, 

Congress charged the Secretary of War to assist states in developing 

water terminals, to gather statistics on inland waterways traffic, 

and "to investigate any other matter that may tend to promote and 

encourage inland water transportation." The Merchant Marine Act, 

passed the same year, charged the four-year old U.S. Shipping Board 

to work with the Corps in investigating and planning water terminal 

facilities. 

By 1932, the federal government had spent approximately $166 

million for the construction of water terminals. states, 

municipalities, and other governmental entities had spent $810 

million for terminal construction and incidental dredging. During 

the New Deal, the fe&ral government spent considerably more money 

on terminal facilities, partly to provide work relief. Between 1932 

and 1937, various federal relief organizations provided a total of 

some $70.5 million for terminal facilities. As mentioned in an 

earlier section, the Inland Waterways Corporation had loaned over a 

million dollars to support water terminal construction. Clearly, by 

1937, if all expenditures on terminal facilities were ascertained, 

the total would run over a billion dollars. 

Even though there was significant expansion of port facilities 

between World Wars I and II, most water terminals lost money, 

according to the Federal Coordinator of Transportation in 1939. 

Certainly their chief justification was their contribution to the 

general rise of commerce in the local area. Ports did--and still 

do--rely heavily on state and local subsidies, direct or indirect, 

to stay in the black. Over the long run, federal contributions to 

port facility construction have been marginal. Corps of Engineers 

navigation improvements and Coast Guard maintenance are still the 

major indirect federal subsidies. From the end of World War II to 

1965, when the Economic Development Administration was created, 

there was no direct assistance with capitalization of terminal 

facilities. In the 1960s and 197Os, the Economic Development 

Administration did give some grants and loans to ports. The amount 

given, however, consisted of less than 7 percent of total U.S. port 

financing for port facility improvements from 1965 through 1972. 

33 
Furthermore, the grants and loans, amounting to about $100 million, 

were largely dispersed to only five ports--Panama City, Lake 

Charles, San Diego, Oakland, and Seattle. 

During the period from 1946 to 1980, public seaports invested 

over $5 billion in constructing or modernizing terminal 

facilities. They expect, according to a Maritime Administration 

(MARAD) study, to invest another $5 billion by 1990. Inland ports 

anticipate spending about $4.8 billion during this decade, making 

the total investment by local port entities during the 1980-1990 

period about $9.8 billion. According to MARAD, U.S. ports have been 

spending about $200 million annually, or some 6 percent of their 

available operating funds, to satisfy federal environmental, 

security, and employee health and safety standards. Through the 

mid-19706, seaport agencies concentrated their capital outlays on 

conventional, break-bulk general cargo facilities. This was 

particularly true of the South Atlantic, Gulf, and Great Lakes 

ports. Modern container terminals have, however, been built on the 

North Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as in Hawaii, Puerto 

Rico, and Alaska. 

According to a 1980 MARAD study, there are presently 189 major 

U.S. seaports, with 1,456 terminals and 2,939 deep-draft berths. 

There are 95 major inland river ports with 1,198 terminals and 1,894 

barge-berthing facilities. The ports are located on the great 

inland river system (primarily, the Mississippi basin, Gulf 

Intracoastal Waterway, Alabama River system, and the Columbia-Snake 

rivers system) covezing 26 navigable rivers in 17 states. An 

estimated 49 percent of these berthing facilities are publicly owned 

and 51 percent are in private hands. In the public sector, 25 

percent are controlled by state governments, and the remainder are 

run by local governments or their legal instrumentalities. A 1974 

MARAE study indicated that the federal government's holdings in 

terminals, mainly military facilities, amount to 43, or about 1.75 

percent of the total. 

The burden of harbor maintenance has been borne almost entirely 

by the federal government. There are exceptions, of course. Port 

SgeIlCieS are responsible for dredging berths or minor terminal 

channels, but the federal government has done almost all of the 

navigational work--over 99 percent, according to the best estimates 

of both the Hoover Commission in 1954 and the Maritime 

Administration in 1974. This federal work has become increasingly 

expensive, not simply because of dollar inflation, but also because 

of technological innovation. Bigger ships require deeper 

channels. In 1900, most ships required a channel depth of 30 feet 

or less. Today, port officials need at least a 45-foot depth to 

accommodate most vessels; the largest vessels require even more. 

Some supertankers require 90 feet. Containerization, too, has 

34 
required deepening of port channels on a large scale. In the late 

19706, the Corps of Engineers had about 380 million cubic yards 

dredged annually. 

More and deeper dredging is not the only cost. The problem of 

dredge disposal has become serious, especially when the material to 

be disposed is polluted. In the last few years, some forms of costsharing have emerged. Ports may bear the cost for disposing 

polluted dredge material. Since 1981, the Corps has specified that 

local port interests must provide dredged material retention levees 

for new construction projects (Congress can delete this requirement 

on a case-by-case basis). 

Surprisingly little is known on how federal navigation 

improvements benefit commerce and the local and regional 

economies. Estimates vary widely. We do know, however, how much 

the Corps spends for navigation projects. In 1973, to take one 

example, the cost relating to ocean port operations amounted to 

approximately $141 million, consisting of almost $60 million for 23 

new construction projects and $81 million for 998 maintenance 

projects. Dredging entails the biggest expense covered by these 

funds. The increasing cost of these activities has aroused concern 

among federal officials. In a 1982 report to Congress, Secretary of 

Transportation Drew Lewis noted that "the traditional Federal system 

of navigation maintenance and development has not been adequately 

funded for several years and cannot be depended upon to meet future 

port development needs." While the administration seeks greater 

nonfederal contributions for harbor maintenance and improvement, 

port agencies are expressing the need for more and more financial 

aid. The idea of cost-sharing or user-fees has been actively 

discussed both by Congress and port officials. According to 

Secretary Lewis, port officials are divided about the kind and 

degree of cost-sharing, but there is universal agreement among port 

officials that they want a basic port system, with depths up to 45 

feet, provided and maintained by the federal government as at 

present. The dispute centers on what to do when channel depths 

greater than 45 feet are required. 

35 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYDROELECTRIC POWER 

In the early 1880s the first central power-generating station 

opened in New York City, and a plant in Appleton, Wisconsin, first 

utilized falling water in combination with a generator to produce 

electricity. Similar works opened in Minneapolis and at Niagara 

Falls, New York. New technology, such as the introduction of 

alternating current and advances in power transmission, followed. 

Rising industrial, municipal, and residential demands for this new 

energy source fostered the growth of power companies interested in 

potential profits. Earlier advances in dam materials and 

construction equipment made it possible to build the higher dams 

required for power production. 

Soon private dam-building proceeded at a pace that threatened 

navigation, so the federal government stepped in. Congress began to 

regulate dams in the Rivers and Harbors Acts of 1890 and 1899. The 

legislation required that the Secretary of War and the Corps of 

Engineers approve the sites and plans for all dams and issue permits 

for their construction. Congress also required the developers to 

allow the United States to control a dam without making compensation 

"so far as shall be necessary for purposes of navigation." At any 

time the United States could require the owners to make changes in 

their dam to facilitate navigation. Between 1894 and 1906 Congress 

issued 30 permits for construction of private dams. The bulk of 

this power.development was on the Mississippi River. 

The corps of Engineers' X-01‘2 SlSO extended to assuring 

compliance with permits during construction. Much of this activity 

occurred at Niagara Falls. In the General Dam Act (1906), Congress 

standardized the regulations regarding private power development. 

Under this measure, when navigation facilities were required, the 

federal government could compel the owners to construct, operate, 

and maintain the facilities without compensation. If the United 

States built the facilities, the owners were required to contribute 

the necessary land and provide power to operate the facilities 

without charge. Ultimate title to the project remained with the 

United States. 

Several fundamental views regarding hydroelectric power 

development emerged by the end of the first decade of the 20th 

century. one was that hydropower should be linked to a 

comprehensive plan for waterway improvement. Thus, a 1910 amendment 

to the General Dam Act required the Corps of Engineers to take such 

considerations into account when evaluating plans submitted for dam 

construction permits. Furthermore, Congress stipulated that all 

Engineer preliminary examinations and surveys--not just those 

relating to specific hydropower permits--must include information on 

how the development and utilization of hydropower for industrial and 

36 
commercial purposes would affect navigation and lessen the costs of 

navigation improvements. Hydropower, then, was seen as a factor in 

financing navigation and flood control projects involving dams. By 

including hydropower as part of a project built for another purpose, 

the overall cost of that project might be reduced. President 

Theodore Roosevelt expressed this view in 1903 when he vetoed a bill 

authorizing private construction of a dam and power stations at 

Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Private development, Roosevelt contended, 

would deprive the government of potential power revenues that might 

be used to offset navigation improvements in the area. Similarly, 

in another veto message Roosevelt stated that power revenues could 

pay a.11 or part of navigation costs at a specific location and that 

any surplus could be applied elsewhere. 

Of further importance for the future was the view expressed in 

the 1908 Preliminary Report of the Inland Waterways Commission that, 

unlike flood control and navigation, hydropower should yield a 

return that would cover "the cost of producing and transmitting . . . electric energy, including the amortization of the 

capital investment allocated to power over a reasonable period of 

years .I' The "reasonable period" has since been determined to be 50 

years. 

Prior to World War I, hydropower development remained in 

private hands under government regulation. The Corps did install a 

power station substructure as part of Lock and Dam 1 on the upper 

Mississippi River. After completing the dam in 1917, the government 

leased the power facility to the Ford Motor Company. Ford installed 

the equipment and began operations in 1924. 

In response to the wartime need for nitrates to manufacture 

ammunition, the federal government finally began constructing a 

power facility at Muscle Shoals in 1918. President Woodrow Wilson 

chose Muscle Shoals because its waterpower potential was already 

well known. In February 1918 he approved construction of Dam R2, 

later known as Wilson Dam; an auxiliary power plant; and locks on 

the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals. The Corps of Engineers took 

charge of the project. However, with the abrupt end of hostilities 

later that year, much of the support for the federal presence at the 

Shoals eroded. Throughout the 1920s a fierce debate over the 

project's future raged in Congress with Senator George Norris of 

Nebraska as the leading advocate of continued government 

ownership. Bills sponsored by Norris cleared Congress twice but 

were vetoed. 

While the debate over retaining Muscle Shoals continued, the 

Corps of Engineers pushed forward with construction of Wilson Dan 

and the related facilities. By June 1923 the dam was 60 percent 

complete and the powerhouse 40 percent complete. Two years later 

both structures were substantially finished. Operations commenced 

on 1 April 1926, and the navigation locks opened the following year. 

37 
At the time it was completed, Wilson Dam was the world's largest 

masonry structure, a permanent monument to the Corps' engineering 

ability. 

In the lY2Os the investigations related to hydroelectric power 

development continued to be a significant part of the Corps' 

mission. At the beginning of the decade Congress created the 

Federal Power Commission (FPC) as the licensing agency for all 

nonfederal hydropower activity affecting or potentially affecting 

navigable waterways. At the time, it was estimated that under this 

criteria about 85 percent of remaining water power developnent would 

fall under FPC authority. Lieutenant Colonel William Kelly, a Corps 

officer, became the commission's first chief engineer. The FPC 

lacked its own field staff, so Kelly called on the Engineers to help 

exainine applications, conduct field investigations and hearings, and 

prepare reports before licenses and permits were issued. once an 

application was approved and a license granted, Corps officers along 

with engineers in the Departments of Agriculture and.Interior helped 

superintend project construction. 

The Corps' workload in support of the FPC was heavy. In fiscal 

year 1926 alone, the Corps made 48 examinations and reports for the 

FPC and supervised construction by 56 licensees. By 1931 the Corps 

had completed 276 engineering reports, held 69 hearings, and was 

overseeing 129 licensees. 

Under the Federal Power Act the Corps constructed several dams 

in partnership with private companies. In such cases licenses were 

granted to develop the power components at navigation dams. The 

first project of this type, licensed in 1921, was at Green Island, 

New York, on the Hudson River. The Corps built the dam with the 

government providing a little more than $1.4 million out of the 

total cost of about $3.2 million. In exchange for its license and 

its own investment of about $1.4 million, the private developer 

could sell the power and had to pay a yearly rental of $5,000. 

Between 1921 and 1951, the FPC licensed nine similar projects. In 

some cases, even when no federal investment was involved, the 

license placed special requirements on the developer. For example, 

the City of Seattle got a license to build a dam on the Skagit River 

but was required to reserve a certain amount of storage capacity for 

flood control. 

A dramatic change in Corps activities in the hydropower field 

began when Congress endorsed multiple-purpose planning in the Rivers 

and Harbors Act of 1925. Initially the Corps and the Federal Power 

Commission were to prepare cost estimates for surveys of navigable 

streams and tributaries "whereon power development appears feasible 

and practicable." The aim was a general plan to improve the 

navigation of the stream selected "in combination with the most 

efficient development of the potential water power, the control of 

floods, and the needs of irrigation." The Corps responded with a 

38 
recommendation for 24 surveys at an estimated cost of $7.3 

million. In 1927 Congress appropriated the funds for the studies, 

whereupon the Corps of Engineers launched its most comprehensive 

river survey to date. The resulting reports, submitted to Congress 

beginning in 1930, became known as the 308 Reports after the House 

document in which the survey estimates first appeared. The initial 

308 reports, as later updated, became the basis for widespread 

multipurpose development undertaken by the federal government after 

World War II. 

A shift in emphasis in federal hydropower development took hold 

during the New Deal. The Coolidge administration had fostered a 

policy of purposely producing surplus power at federal plants to 

provide funds for other projects. President Franklin Roosevelt 

viewed surplus power not just as a source of revenue to offset the 

costs of a particular project but as a means of providing cheap 

energy to a wide market. He also saw public works projects as a 

source of jobs in a time of economic depression and as an 

opportunity to put his power philosophy to a practical test. 

During the New Deal, the Corps of Engineers participated in 

three major public works enterprises involving hydroelectric 

power: Bonneville Dam, Fort Peck Dam, and the Passamaquoddy Tidal 

Power Project. The Corps, for the first time since Wilson Dam, was 

engaged in building hydropower facilities. In 1933 Congress 

resolved the longstanding debate over lYuscle Shoals when it created 

the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The authority was charged 

with assuming broad responsibilities for administering Wilson Dam, 

constructing new hams and power plants, and marketing surplus 

power. In line with principles developed earlier, the TVA power 

projects were to be self-supporting and self-liquidating. 

The Corps of Engineers completed the main dam and powerhouse 

facilities at Bonneville in 1937, but as work progressed Congress 

debated the issue of who would administer the facility. The result 

was the Bonneville Power Act signed by President Roosevelt on 20 

August 1937. Under a compromise formula, the Corps of Engineers, 

which had built the dam, obtained the right to operate the dam and 

its power generators and to deliver the current to a substation. 

The act gave authority to dispose of the power and to set the rates 

to a civilian administrator under control of the Department of the 

Interior. 

The Bonneville legislation directed that rates be set to 

encourage "the widest possible use of all electric energy that can 

be generated and marketed." In addition, the rates were to enable 

the government to recover the cost of producing and transmitting 

power, including amortization of the capital investment over a 

reasonable period of years. Power facilities were to benefit the 

general public, particularly domestic and rural customers. 

Furthermore, the Bonneville administrator was required to take the 

39 
steps necessary to transmit the available electric energy to 

existing and potential markets and "to interconnect the Bonneville 

project with other Federal projects and publicly owned power systems 

now or hereafter constructed." To carry out the purposes of the 

act, the power administrator was authorized "to acquire, by 

purchase, lease, condemnation, or donation, such real and personal 

property, or any interest therein, including lands, easements, 

rights-of-way, franchise, electric transmission lines, substations, 

and facilities and structures appurtenant hereto." 

In later years the authority of the Bonneville Power 

Administration to market power expanded to include 32 additional 

federal projects. To carry out its marketing authority as 

effectively and efficiently as possible, by 1973 the power 

administration had constructed more than 13,000 miles of high 

voltage transmission lines. The Bonneville Power Administration 

services a seven-state area in the Pacific Northwest, where, as of 

1973, it supplied 55 percent and transmitted more than 80 percent of 

the region's power. 

As flood control became a primary purpose for constructing dams 

and reservoirs in the 19306, hydropower potential was considered in 

relation to these projects. 'Re Flood Control Act of 1938 included 

a provision "that penstocks or other similar facilities adapted to 

possible future use in the development of hydra-electric power shall 

be installed in any dam herein authorized. . . ." All subsequent 

legislation authorizing flood control projects included a similar 

provision. 

The Flood Control Act of 1944 contained the first general 

provisions for the sale of power produced at Corps and other federal 

projects. The power generated was to be delivered to the Secretary 

of the Interior for disposal and transmission "at the lowest 

possible rates to consumers consistent with sound business 

principles." In selling established power, preference was to be 

given to public bodies and cooperatives. The pattern established 

with the Bonneville Power Administration was soon repeated as all 

federal power marketing, except for TVA projects, fell under control 

of agencies of the Department of the Interior. The agencies, in 

addition to the Bonneville Power Administration, were the 

Southeastern Power Administration, the Southwestern Power 

Administration, and the Alaska Power Administration (all under 

control of the Department of Energy since 1977), and the Bureau of 

Reclamation. The 1944 act again included the statement that "rate 

schedules shall be drawn having regard to the recovery . . . of the 

cost of producing and transmitting such electric energy, including 

the amortization of the capital investment allocated to power over a 

reasonable period of years." 

The key to recovering costs has been the rate structure 

established by the power marketing agencies. The rates are based on 

recovery costs which include all applicable Corps of Engineers 

40 
3 

reservoir costs, operation, maintenance, replacement, interest, and 

amortization. Under current practice, the power marketing agency in 

most cases markets the output of several projects together through a 

pooling arrangement. Thus, an individual project is not required to 

recover all of its own costs but may draw on revenues produced by 

other projects. The power administrations allocate revenues 

according to established priorities which place current year 

operations and ordinary maintenance costs first, followed by current 

year interest expense, prior operating deficits, and federal 

investment as the lowest priority. In paying back federal 

investment, the power marketers have given projects with higher 

interest rates their attention first. Thus some of the more recent 

projects show a higher percentage of costs recovered than olde: low 

interest projects. 

Where provision is made for future installation of hydropower 

in accordance with the Flood Control Act of 1938, cost recovery 

procedures are less well defined. At projects already having 

initial power installation, like Chief Joseph Dam in the Pacific 

Northwest, all costs including future unit bays are recovered from 

present power revenues. At projects without initial power 

installations, however, the cost of provisions made for future power 

units is sometimes included as a joint-use cost with no recovery 

required. 

As multipurpose projects blossomed after World War II, federal 

hydropower facilities expanded markedly. Congress authorized 

several new schemes on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific 

Northwest, and 'hydx!opower was part of comprehensive plans for the 

Missouri and Arkansas river basins. Between 1945 and 1959, initial 

power production occurred at 25 new sites. The bulk of these 

developments took place during the last six years of the period. If 

Congress refused to include power in the initial authorization, the 

continuing practice of installing penstocks at least made the 

introduction of power features possible in the future. Federal 

expenditures were not limited to construction. The Corps continued 

extensive 308 and FPC survey work. 

During the Eisenhower administration, an attempt was made to 

trim federal expenditures. Goals were set early. In 1952 a 

Republican Study Group proposed slashing $400 million from the 

budget for rivers and harbors, flood control, irrigation, and power 

projects between 1953 and 1957. New starts, according to the study 

u-w, should be limited to cases where defense needs were "clear 

and compelling." Private participation in power projects was deemed 

essential. 

Promoting partnership arrangements was central to President 

Dwight D. Eisenhower's water resources policy. This approach seemed 

the only viable one because the federal government alone could not 

provide the $96 billion investment projected in 1956 as necessary to 

41 
meet the nation's power needs for the next 20 years and because 

state and local resources could not afford to develop the complex 

projects required. In many ways the basis of this policy resembled 

that stated by Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin in 1808: certain 

essential development would not occur unless the federal governlnent 

took charge. 

The Eisenhower partnership policy actually made little 

headway. Despite the administration's budget trimming goals, 

overall power development increased between 1953 and 1960. 

Installed capacity at all electric utilities rose 77 million 

kilowatts. Federally installed capacity doubled, from 11 to 22 

million kilowatts. The quantity added by the Corps of Engineers, at 

existing and new projects, accounted for nearly 50 percent of the 

gain at federal facilities. In fiscal year 1958 alone, the Corps 

added 792,000 kilowatts at its multipurpose projects, a figure which 

represented 67.4 percent of the combined federal and nonfederal 

increase in hydropower capacity for that year. 

During the 1960s and the 19706, the Corps continued to expand 

upon the 27 projects with hydroelectric capabilities that it had 

built the preceding decade. Power was added at 17 multipurpose 

sites in the 1960s and planned at 20 new locations by 1980. The 

total electric output from Corps generators rose from 27.9 billion 

kilowatt hours in 1960 to 61.1 billion in 1970 and to more than 80 

billion in 1975. The electricity generated at 53 Corps reservoirs 

in fiscal year 1970 represented 23 percent of the total U.S. 

hydroelectric power production for that year. 

In statistics released by the Federal Power Commission in 1970, 

Corps hydroelectric power facilities represented the largest segment 

of installed capacity at federal hydroelectric projects (13,000 

megawatts). Bureau of Reclamation and TVA projects accounted for 

all but a trace of the remaining 10,000 megawatts of installed 

federal hydroelectric capacity. While the Corps is the largest 

single producer of hydroelectric power and total federal 

hydroelectric power capacity nearly equals nonfederal hydroelectric 

capacity, the position of the federal government changes 

significantly when total electric energy capacity from all sources 

is considered. Hydroelectric power actually accounts for a small 

portion of total power capacity. Privately owned facilities clearly 

dominate the nonhydroelectric power field. For example, in 1970 

power systems owned by private investors (at the time there were 

approximately two hundred major utilities) accounted for 77 percent 

of the nation's generating capacity and served 78 percent of the 

customers. The federal segment accounted for about 12 percent of 

capacity and 13 percent of output. 

According to the Hoover Commission's 1955 report, out of the 

total $14.3 billion federal investment in water resources 

development, $3.9 billion "as for hydropower. Of that amount $1.4 

42 
3 

billion was for Corps power and $1.3 billion for TVA power. Figures 

provided in 1973 by the National Water Commission extended the 

period of consideration through 1968. By that time the cost of 

federally owned or financed hydropower development had climbed to 

$9.3 billion (stated in 1972 dollars). This figure represented onehalf oft total expenditures for hydropower. state and local 

governments provided $3.2 billion; private companies invested $6.2 

billion. 

43 
TABLE 1 
TABLE 2 

FFZDERAL LAND GRANTS IN AID OF CANAL CONSTRUCTION 

AND RIVER IMPROVEMENT 

- 

Canal Construction Grants 

Name of Canal Date State Acres Granted 

Wabash and Erie 1027 Indiana 1.480.419 

Illinois and Lake Michigan 

Miami and Dayton 

General 

Uilvaukee and Rock River 

St. Ha-y’s 

POrtage Lake and 

1 -kc Superior 

Sturgmn Bay and 

Lake Hichigah 

Lot La Belle 

1827 

1828 

1828 

1838 

1852 

Ohio .265;815 

Illinois 324,283 

Dhia 438,301 

Ohio 499,997 

Wisconsin 138,996 

Hichigan’ 750,143 

1865 Michigan 400,081 

1866 Wisconsin 199,631 

1866 Michigan 100,012 

Total 4,597,678 

River Improvement Grants 

Name of River Date state Acres Granted 

Tennessee, Coosa, Ceheweba, 

and Black Warrior Rivers 1928 Alabama 400,018 

Fox and Wisconsin Rivers 1846 Wisconsin 683,722 

L’cs Moines River 1846 6 1862 Iowa 1,161.594 

and 

1862 

rota1 2,245,334 

source: U.S. Department of the Interior. General Land Office. R-aTlCZportstion: Information Concerning Land Grants for Roads, Canals, 

River Improvements and Railroads. Washington, U.S. Govt. Prio:. 

Off., 1940, p. 4. 

46 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Albjerg, Victor L. "Internal Improvements Without a Policy (1789- 

1861)." Indiana Magazine of History 28 (September 1932): 168- 

179. 

BSXIESS, Richard W. "Maritime Activity and Port Development in 

the United States Since 1900: A Survey." Journal of Transport 

History 2 (February 1974):167-184. 

Chittenden, Hiram M. "Detention Reservoirs with Spillway Outlets 

as an Agency in Flood Control." American Society of Civil 

Engineers Transactions 83 (1918):1473-92. 

Clemens, George R. "The Reservoir as a Flood-Control Structure." 

American Society of Civil Engineers Transactions 100 (1935): 

879-927. 

Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the 

Government, Task Force on Water Resources and Power. Report 

on Water Resources and Power. 3 ~01s. Washington, DC, 1954. 

Cranmer , H. Jerome. The New Jersey Canals. State Policy and 

Private Enterprise, 1820-1832. New York, 1978. 

Farrell, Richard T. "Internal-Improvement Projects in Southwestern 

Ohio,, 1815-1834." Ohio History 80 (Winter 1971):4-23. 

Federal Power Commission. The 1970 National Power Survey. Part 

1. Washington, DC, 1971. 

Ferrell, John R. "From Single- To Multi-Purpose Planning: The 

Role of the Army Engineers in River Development Policy, 1824- 

1930" (Draft). Baltimore, Historical Division, CCE, 1976. 

"Final Report of the Special Committee on Floods and Flood 

Prevention." American Society of Civil Engineers Transactions 

81 (1917):1218-1310. 

Goodrich, Carter, ed. Canals and American Economic Development. 

New York, 1961. 

. Government Promotion of American Canals and 

Railroads, 18OU-1890. New York, 1960. 

Gray, Ralph D. The National Waterway. A History of the 

Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 1769-1965. Urbana, IL, 1967. 

Harrison, Joseph Hobson, Jr. "The Internal Improvement Issue in 

the Politics of the Union, 1783-1825." Ph.D. dissertation. 

University of Virginia, 1954. 

47 
Haveman, Robert H. Water Resource Investment and the Public 

Interest. An Analysis of Federal Expenditures in Ten Southern 

states. Nashville, 1965. 

Hays > Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The 

Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920. Cambridge, MA, 

1959. 

Heath, Milton S. Constructive Liberalism. The Role of the State 

in Economic Development in Georgia to 1860. Cambridge, MA, 

1964. 

Hull, William J. and Robert W. The Origin and Development of the 

Waterways Policy of the United States. Washington, DC, 1967. 

KSlSO, Harold. "Inland Waterways Policy in the United States." 

Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin, 1942. 

Lippincott, Isaac. "A History of River Improvement." Journal of 

Political Economy 22 (July 1914):630-660. 

McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas. The Creation of 

the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. New York, 1977. 

Marcus, Henry S., et. al. Federal Port Policy in the United 

States. Boston, 1976. 

Marshall,. Dr. H+rold~ E. "Federal Cost-Sharing Policies for Water 

Resources." National Bureau of Standards Report NWC-SBS-72- 

039. 

National Water Commission. Water Policies For the Future. Final 

Report to the President and to the Congress by the National 

Water Commission. Washington, DC, 1973. 

President's Water Resources Policy Commission. Water Resources 

Law. The Report of the President's Water Resources Policy 

Commission, vol. 3. Washington, DC, 1950. 

Pi-OSS, Edward L. "A History of Rivers and Harbors Appropriation 

Bills, 1866-1933." Ph.D. dissertation. Ohio State 

University, 1938. 

Ransom, Roger L. "Canals and Development: A Discussion of the 

Issues." American Economic Review 54 (May 1964):365-389. 

Reuss, Martin. "The Army Corps of Engineers and Flood-Control 

Politics on the Lower Mississippi." Louisiana History 23 

(Spring 1982):131-148. 

48 
Shaw, Ronald E. Erie Water West. A History of the Erie Canal, 

1792-1854. Lexington, KY, 1966. 

Taylor, George Rogers. The Transportation Revolution, 1815- 

1860. The Economic History of the United States, vol. 4. New 

York, 1951. 

Thompson, Stephen; Maffel, Barbara; and Lipford, William. 

"Federal Aid to Domestic Transportation." Congressional 

Research Service Report 77-112-E. May 1977. 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Office of the Chief of Engineers, 

"Notes on Flood Control." Washington, DC, 1936. 

U.S. Congress. Senate. Preliminary Report of the Inland Waterways 

Commission. S. Dot. 325, 60th Cong., 1st sess., 1908. 

U.S. Department of Commerce, Maritime Administration. "Public 

Port Financing in the United States." June 1974. 

. "National Port Assessment 1980/1990: An 

Analysis of Future U.S. Port Requirements." June 1980. 

U.S. 

U.S. 

U.S. 

U.S. 

Department of the Interior, Census Office. Transportation. 

Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, vol. 4. Washington, 

DC, 1883. 

Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration. "A 

Repott to the Congress on the Status of the Public Ports of 

the United States." August 1982. 

Department of the Treasury. Statement of Appropriations and 

Expenditures for Public Buildings, Rivers and Harbors, Forts, 

Arsenals, Armories and other Public Works from March 4, 1789 

to June 30, 1882. Sen. Exec. Dot. 196, 47th Cong., 1st sess., 

1882. 

Office of thz Federal Coordinator of Transportation. Aids to 

Railroads and Related Subjects and Public Aids to 

Transportation by Water. Public Aids to Transportation, ~01s. 

2 and 3. Washington, DC, 1938-1939. 

Viessman, Warren, Jr. "Coordination of Federal Water Resources 

Policies and Programs." Congressional Research Service, 

Washington, DC, 1978. 

Walker, Paul K. "Building American Canals: Part l--The 

Federalist Period" and "Part 2--From Erie to the Present." 

Water Spectrum 12 (Winter 1979-1980):18-25 and (Summer 

1980):12-23. 

49 
Werlein, Q. E. "Financial History of the Flood Control, 

Mississippi River and Tributaries Project." 

Typescript copy, Mississippi River Commission, 

Vicksburg, MS.