American Water: The Search for Coordinated Natural Resource Management and the Army Corps of Engineers

Abstract

Today the responsibility of water resource management issues such as irrigation, flood control, hydroelectric power, pollution control, and data research and mapping are divided among the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Federal Power Commission, and federal service agencies such as the U.S. Public Health Service. In the 1950s the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government attempted to consolidate all the federal water resource responsibilities under one single agency. The Commission argued that the lack of coordination in water resource management caused overlapping jurisdiction and wasted time and money. This paper elaborates on the fight to create a single water resource agency and why water resource management remains balkanized to this day.