The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1945-01-19

the Mississippi as we'll as the Mis-
souri,
The outlook, however, need not be
so blue. The Tennessee Valley serves
to illustrate that sectionalism can give
way to unity to the greater benefit
of ALL The essential features of the
IVA idea are few and simple. Basic
ally they are three in number:
1. Supervision and management by
a federal autonomous agency, with
full authority to make decisions
within the region.
2. Capitalization of responsibility to
deal with resources as a unified
whole. Authority fixed in the
regional agency, not divided
among several centralized federal
agencies.
3. A policy, fixed by law, that the
federal regional agency work CO.
operatively with and through local
and state agencies.
No one, least of all those who sup
port the IVA plan, advocates that this
plan be uprooted and transplanted in
its entirety to the Missouri Valley.
The Missouri is not the Tennessee
river 1t has it's special problems. IT.
rigation does not even exist on the
Tennessee The rivers are different.
The problems of the people are diff
ferent So are the land and the peo-
pie Yet the basic idea of IVA can
be brought to the Missouri Valley,
because it is an idea that has passed
it's laboratory test with brilliance and
is ready for use wherever men seek
to make a river serve them.
What would a IVA plan do for the
valley? By migrating the Bureau of
Reclamation's proposed irrigation
project into one big plan, it would be-
possible to build reservoirs and dams
to hold back the water from lower
river communities, provide water for
irrigating 4,750,000 acres of new land,
generate four billion kilowatt hours of
and in addition provide
recreational and navigation facilities.
Such a plan emissions 80 new reser-
voirs, II power plants. What can be
done already has been demonstrated
at Fort Peck, waiting to be harnessed
to generate power. 1t has been DEM
onstrated at IVA, at Boulder dam, at
Grand Coulee and Bonneville.
Here are some estimates of what
such regional plan would mean in
power generated and acres irrigated:
MONTANA: Construction of "a new
reservoirs and six power plants Near
ly one million acres of land irrigated.
NORTH DAKOTA: Irrigation of l.,
100000 acres, plus needed power
WYOMING: Construction of % new
A total of 448,000 acres
receiving new or supplemental water.
Power generated.
COLORADO: New or supplemental
water to irrigate 102, 999 acres.
SOUTH DAKOTA: An addition of
961 900 acres to the $4,000 acres now
Power generated.
NEBRASKA Reservoirs to irrigate
$4,000 acres.
KANSAS: Construction of eight
new reservoirs to irrigate $4,000
acres, practically all of it new land.
OF course, a plan, in itself is not
enough. 1t must have the support of
an understanding people. 1t must de-
velop leaders who know how to get
things done. They must be men of
broad vision, who have conception
of the problems in valley which has
been subject to floods, land erosion,
drouth, lack of power, absence of in
inadequate transportation,
great expanses of sparsely settled
land These are the problems which
confronted the builders of iva. The
problems have been solved. They
were solved because the problem was
considered as one, the goal was to