OL' MAN RIVER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 311, 8 June 1945, Page 24

OL' MAN RIVER

| America’s Huge Flood Control. Scheme Has Lesson For N.Z. if HILE on a tour of Canterbury and Otago recently, Sydney Greenbie, Special Assistant to the American Minister, and General Representative of the U.S. Office of War Information, saw the damage done my flooded rivers and streams. He considered that there was a similarity in New Zealand to the problems faced in the United States with two of the most undisciplined rivers, the Tennessee and the Cumberland. In a talk from 2YA, Mr. Greenbie told how those rivers had been harnessed to provide security and prosperity, dealing particularly with the story of the Tennessee Valley Authority. We quote from Mr. Greenbie’s talk:

HEN the warnings of flood began to come in I thought, not without a certain impatience: does this little country also have to go through the mad, irrational experience of flood followed by famine and want and dust storms and desolation, just as we have done in America, and as Australia and Asia are doing, and as all the children of selfishness and misuse of Nature have done from the days of Noah and Destruction? You New Zealanders don’t really know how lucky you are. You have no vast open prairies, swept by the winds into dust storms or. flayed under blizzards of gnawed by great river systems over thousands of miles. Speaking as a layman who has seen both the North and South Islands for a second time in 30 years, I am convinced more than I was on my first trip that you could make a paradise for yourselves, free from flood and want, and convert the energy of ‘| your million and a-half people into the energy of a thousand million, if you would properly harness these torrents, make them save your soil, nourish your lands, and turn the wheels of industry for you all in one well-organised system of co-operation of Nature with man. Through the Cotton Fields I want to tell you the story of a river valley in my own country and a great mountain watershed and the means by

which the land and the _ people have been rescued from flood, drought, and poverty by the application of modern science and engineering. It is a story of 4,500,000 people hitherto bound down with unremu nerative toil stepping within ten years into comfort and _ culture and all the benefits of modern civilisation. The Tennessee and its twin river, the Cumberland, run down into the Ohio River. The Ohio runs_ along for hundreds of miles till it pours into the Missis-

sippi, which then goes on for a thousand miles to the Gulf of Mexico, gathering in the waters of other rivers all the way. It spreads through. 15,000 miles of earth, with 4,221 miles of running water in its own right. Starting in the north, amidst ice and snow, this great stream flows out by hundreds of channels through the cotton fields. There the Negro wharfies, who heave the cotton on the river steamers, sing a song which has come to

s express to us all the eternal, inevitable might of the water that is shed from our continent-"Ol’ Man River." Hill-Billy Settlements The Tennessee and Cumberland are formed by streams pouring down high mountains through which valleys and gorges run in all directions, The mountains are heavily wooded. From very early days settlers lived here. Some of them were what we call hill-billies. Through all the history of the United States this primitive region baffled all attempts to bring the. people into line with the rest of the development of the country. Then a man of wide vision and experience was stricken with infantile paralysis in his prime and came to the warm springs in Georgia to regain his health. That was Franklin D, Roosevelt. Lying there in the sunshine, he thought of the life of the people all round him, and tried to understand why they were cut off from all the comforts and amenities he knew in his own State of New York. So, when he became President, one of his first acts was to send a message to Congress, explaining what he thought could be done in this region by harnessing the river. So the Tennessee Valley Authority was born. It was a Government crganisation which differed from all other Government attempts to deal with the problem of a region in two ways. Instead of a lot of separate Government agencies in Washington, each doing something for the region, when and if they got around to it, independently of each other, the departments of agriculture, marketing, (continued on next page)

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education, health, flood control, light and power, commutiications and so on, were combined in one regiénal administration. Administration ‘on the Spot The headquarters of the regiotial administration was no longer to be in Washington. It was moved to the spot and operated there in co-operation with local bodies. This was something new in government and proved wonderfully effective. The primary purpose was to harness the rivers so that they would not run wild, causing devastating floods, But the channelling of the rivers .and streams and the making of dams was to provide electric power, which meant lighting thtoughout the region, household machinery such as electric water-pumps, heaters, washing-machines, and power for industries which would have to be set up and would employ many people. It would provide communications so that goods could be sent by water to sea. Because they thotight of the problem as a whole and had the idea from the first of:raising the life of the people, the statting of the building of dams was preceded by a great change. Not only were 40,000 local workmen engaged, but they were provided with good residences, with training classes, and good food. The waters of the whole region are now controlled by 29 dams. When spring rains send torrents rushing down the mountains, threatening to submerge towns and villages in the valley, an operator in the control room of Hiwassee Dam hears this message: "Hold tack all the water of the Hiwassee River. Keep it out of the Tennessee." He presses a button and the steel gates of the dam close. The same operation contfols the Cherokee Dam, while the operator of the Chickamauga Dam, just above the industrial centre of Chattanooga, hears another message: "Release water to make room for waters from above." Much Land Reclaimed The water held and harnessed serves mafiy purposes. The dams are broad and beautiful lakes across which steamers and pleasure boats and barges carrying produce go back and forth. Where towns and fartns were submerged by the making of the dam, the people who lost their lands were presented with new tracts for farms and towns on lake shores, and not only financed but personally assisted by experts in laying these out in the most modern fashion. There are comfortable new houses, well-laid roads and agricultural lands systematically reclaimed and scientifically stocked and worked. Eight million acres of land formerly worn down by erosion have been reclaimed and turned into flourishing pastures. The higher slopes of the mountains from which the forests have been cut have been rewooded to hold the water. , The total cost was 700,000,000 dollars. The money was advanced by the Federal Government to the Tennessee Valley Authority but is being paid back out of the increased wealth produced by the regeneration of the region. Thus far, revenue from the sale of electric power is over 100,000,000 dollars. It is estimated that the whole project cah be paid off in from 30 to 60 yeats through the sale of electric power alone. And this is being done without surrendering the principle of private enterprise. The pri-vately-owned electric companies, which

originally fought the Tennessee Valley Authority, are now making more money than they did before it was inaugurated through the general incréase in the demand for power and electricity which spread outward with the growing a perity of the region. So elated are all our people-labourers, farmers, businessmen alike-with the success of the Tennessee Valley Authority that we are considering the remaking of seven other regions in the same way. The Columbia River has alréady been harnessed by the Grand Coulée and Bonneville dams, afid an authority is proposed for that region. It is proposed to establish also the Missouri River Valley Atthority, which will do for the

watersheds of the Mississippi what the Tennessee Valley Authority has done for the South. I have told this story because I think it will interest you, and it may have some application to your country, though, of course, your problems of erosion, flood.control, and power development are on a much smaller scale. In this new world of ours there is an increasing necessity for one country to learn from another. Only by studying our common problems and sharing our knowledge and experience can we build those foundations upor which alone permanent peace and well-being can be established in the world.