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Under federal law, the Bureau of Reclamation must distribute Government power by a system of priorities, with publicly owned plants and cooperatives, like REA, the favored customers. Thus, South Dakota fears that Nebraska, a 100% public power state, will get the lion's share of Fort Randall's power. Nebraska, in turn, fears it may lose many of its best municipal customers who might buy direct from Randall.
Dry v. Wet States
Some Pick-Sloan critics charge that the plan envisions the use of more water than the valley contains. The arid western states insist that enough water be kept in their areas to meet the needs of future development. Spokesmen like Montana's big, bluff Governor John W. Bonner contend that this will be impossible if water is "sucked out" of upper valley lands for a lower basin navigation channel and the huge power dams. Downriver opponents such as Missouri's Governor Forrest Smith reply that proposed irrigation projects in the West may cut off lower valley drinking water.
MVA v. Pick-Sloan
The hottest question in the valley has long been how to administer the program. Basin leaders, including many Pick-Sloan supporters, worry over the loose, voluntary Interagency setup. They see that stronger central control will be needed when the interlocking chain of reservoirs and power lines reaches operation stage and when decisions will have to be made among conflicting demands for water.
One proposal, supported by the National Farmers' Union, labor unions and liberal Democrats in the valley, has been a TVA-patterned Missouri Valley Authority, run by a board of commissioners nominated by the President. But MVA bills, introduced by Montana's Senator James E. Murray, have been rebuffed by Congress. Most valley governors and probably most valley residents fear a superstate over their region.
Another approach was suggested in 1949 by the Hoover Commission, which recommended a new Bureau of Natural Resources to be made up of the Army Engineers, Interior's Bureau of Reclamation and Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service. A year later, President Truman's Water Resources Policy Commission proposed a basin commission with an independent chairman appointed by the President. In 1951, valley governors, led by Nebraska's Val Peterson, came out for a ten-state interstate compact, to include one federal member (with ten votes) on its "water master" governing board.
Since February of this year, a new eleven-man presidential fact-finding commission, headed by Editor James E. Lawrence of the Lincoln (Neb.) Star, has been holding hearings across the valley, listening to arguments about how to tame the valley. Last week, in Chairman Lawrence's home city, the commission concluded its hearings and prepared to file its report and conclusions with the President. Whatever future administration is recommended, it is dead certain that the giant construction program will go on and that huge sums of money will continue to be spent on Pick-Sloan projects.