Action now
In the different chapters of this report, various things stand out that need to be started quickly, either to satisfy looming demands for water development and water quality control, or to restore or protect scenic, ecological, and recreational assets which, if not attended to quite soon, are going to either disappear or suffer irreparable damage. A few recommendations for action on certain of these immediate problems were made in our Interim Report of two years ago, together with recommendation on one or two noncontroversial items clearly not in conflict with any conceivable ultimate Basin aims. In abbreviated essence, the main Interim recommendations, made with Interdepartmental Task Force and Interstate Advisory Committee approval, were as follows:
(1) That a decision on the construction of Seneca dam and reservoir on the Potomac main stem be indefinitely deferred, but that the site be preserved as much as possible against further encroachment, in case it is ever needed;
(2) That three relatively small reservoirs be built on tributary creeks in the Paw Paw Bends area of the upper Basin, in addition to the authorized Bloomington reservoir on the North Branch, to begin providing a safe margin of water for metropolitan Washington and to serve Basin recreational needs;
(3) That a permanent "green sheath" of protection for the Potomac main stem, together with major recreational opportunity, be assured by means of a new kind of composite park of varying width along both shores from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland;
(4) That the Cacapon River and the West Virginia portion of the Shenandoah be given Wild River status by Congress to protect their shores against excessive and inappropriate encroachment;
(5) That water quality programs and research be accelerated toward certain minimum goals;
(6) That Soil Conservation Service and related Forest Service programs for erosion control, water management and development, and recreation benefits be accelerated;
(7) That the authorized boundaries of the George Washington National Forest be extended to provide public access to and protection of the two forks of the Shenandoah above their confluence;
(8) That Mason Neck on the upper estuary be preserved; and
(9) That the George Washington Memorial Parkway be extended from Mount Vernon to Yorktown as the beginning of a system of scenic roads and parkways in and around the Basin.
One of the recommendations has had to be deferred, though the need implicit in it remains acute—that the Cacapon and the West Virginia Shenandoah be included in the Wild Rivers Bill then pending before Congress. It had been thought that this Bill might be used to protect the Basin's threatened main tributary rivers, beginning with these two in West Virginia, but afterward doubt arose that the standards set up for Wild Rivers—the primary point of reference being Western streams flowing through sparsely peopled, often publicly owned country—would make sense or be feasible in a settled region.
Mason Neck has been preserved by great effort on the part of individuals, organizations, and different levels of government. More remains to be done in the way of consolidation of what is there and its adaptation to intended purposes, but the hardest part of the job is accomplished; a critically endangered asset has been protected. Funds have been voted by Congress for the acquisition of the Bloomington reservoir site in accordance with the Interim recommendation. Water quality improvement in the Basin is on the point of being significantly accelerated toward high goals, as the new State standards are reviewed and approved and start getting enforcement, though for specific trouble spots and categories of pollution special Federal or other action is going to be needed and is the subject of new recommendations accompanying this final report.
The rest of the Interim Report measures require Congressional action, which none has yet received. In some cases this is because technically detailed authorizing legislation has taken time to prepare, in others because budgetary or policy realities have brought delay or reconsideration, and in still others because of a feeling at higher levels that certain recommendations could be better evaluated in terms of a final report's whole set of proposals. In the present set of recommendations they are repeated, for they represent genuine needs. Some have been slightly altered in the light of evolving restrictive reality, more recent knowledge, or flexibility, and the suggested or implied Interim scheduling for some has been changed. It is no longer envisioned, for instance, that the parkway extension below Mount Vernon will be authorized and constructed quickly.
The present recommendations, though much wider in overall scope than our earlier ones, represent only a first step in planning for the Basin, for reasons presented in full in this report. They are attuned to present economic and technological possibilities, as they must be. We believe that if they get full and calm appraisal they will prove to be acceptable politically, for all of them that call for major projects represent solutions for acute and imminent problems for which other satisfactory solutions do not presently exist, and to the greatest possible degree they have been made flexible to accommodate possible future change in aims or techniques.
In most cases, the reasons for specific recommendations have already been given in the body of this report. However, the primary public interest that focuses on the matter of major storage reservoirs may make it worthwhile at this point to review and enlarge upon the facts. Some reservoirs are going to have to be built if the Basin is to cope satisfactorily with water supply, water quality, and recreational demands. At the time of the Interim Report, we recognized that the three reservoirs in the Paw Paw Bends area, together with Bloomington, were very possibly not going to be enough to meet the need, but we made a recommendation for their authorization because it was clear that they would take the edge off the immediately looming water problem at Washington, would mesh well with any additional future storage in the Basin, and would have no major disruptive scenic effects but instead would provide a great deal of high-quality flat-water recreation in an area where there was significant demand for it.
These considerations still apply. However, the more complete picture of Basin water problems that has emerged in our studies since the Interim Report shows that at least two more reservoirs are very possibly going to be needed, and that the most useful scheduling of initial projects will combine an answer for upstream problems with the satisfaction of near-future needs at metropolitan Washington.
Besides the stretch of concentrated industry and population along the North Branch, where Bloomington Reservoir is going to be needed as soon as possible, three upper-Basin areas with major storage sites available near at hand are faced with large water shortages in the near or middle future, and have streams that would benefit greatly from flow augmentation. In the order of the critical importance of their problems, they are Frederick, Maryland, on the Monocacy; Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, on the Conococheague Creek; and the Staunton-Waynesboro area on the upper tributaries of the Shenandoah's South Fork, in Virginia.
Chambersburg lies in an area where opposition to any major reservoirs has been heavy. An interim solution to the local problem, though possibly not satisfactory in the long run, can be found in a system of small headwater reservoirs. The major Chambersburg reservoir site has received full consideration as an element in a water-storage package to begin dealing with Basin demands. But its immediate advantages are not so unique as to justify going against the area's apparent wishes, and it has not been included as a recommendation.
The reservoirs at Verona near Staunton and at Sixes Bridge on the Monocacy, fortunately, can be adequately coordinated with Bloomington and the three Paw Paw impoundments to provide roughly a twenty-year margin of safety in water supply at Washington, besides coping with foreseeable shortages in their immediate neighborhoods, furnishing desired flat-water recreation, and contributing greatly to water quality and recreation benefits downstream. They are also locally and State supported. For these reasons, they have been chosen to fill out the recommended system of major reservoirs to meet near-future Basin demands.
The construction schedule recommended is based on the rate at which upstream and metropolitan demands are expected to develop in relation to each other. And, in accordance with flexible principles of planning, there is provision that if more desirable alternative sources of water or any changes in expected aims or demands evolve, the schedule or the plan itself may be altered. Thus, if this first-stage plan is adopted, the reservoirs to which the region will be committed at any given time will be only those for which there is actual immediate need, but coordination will not have been lost. This same kind of flexibility is built into the recommendations relating to flow augmentation for quality control.
Other proposals for major action are self-explanatory or are analyzed in detail in separate sub-task force material. Among these latter is the Potomac National River, as the park proposal is now designated, which represents the most hopeful approach to defending the main stem Potomac against destructive encroachment and enhancing its potential for recreation.
Some of the recommendations presented are relatively small in scope but nonetheless essential to cleaning up, preservation, or other desirable ends. Others aim not toward immediate action but toward research or legislation to clear the way for needed action—examples are those regarding acid mine drainage and the possible need for a new Federal category of "pastoral" or "scenic" rivers in populated regions. And still others are only suggestions that non-Federal jurisdictions act in regard to specific problems that fall within the realm of their responsibility.
If this body of recommendations is significantly implemented as an initial program, it can lead to a good solid beginning on the things that need to be done in the Potomac Basin. Without treading heavily on the freedom of choice of future populations, it can satisfy the water demands of the Basin during a long enough span of years to give scientists time to examine the full range of evolving alternatives for water management, and planners freedom to choose perhaps better ways of meeting future demands than are now available.
The program can clean up the main streams of the Basin and assure their healthy and copious flow even in time of drought, keep their banks beautiful, and make them more available than they presently are for the people's enjoyment. Even in the major trouble spots of the present time—stretches like the lower North Branch and the metropolitan estuary—dramatic improvement in the appearance of the water and its usefulness for boating and fishing and such things will be possible if the recommendations are followed out to where they lead, though full restoration in such spots, particularly in the estuary, is going to require an expansion of present knowledge and a long-continuing effort on the part of all agencies and jurisdictions.
The program will not assure general protection of the Basin's landscape, for only the Basin's people, generation on generation of them, can assure that. But it can preserve some of the major treasures in that landscape and mitigate some of the worst threats to it. And by fostering projects to illustrate how a respect for the landscape can be put to work, and bringing people into closer contact with the old realities of the Basin's natural world, it can stimulate understanding and feeling that will lead to wider restoration and protection, possibly that general protection that only the people can assure.
If the spirit of these recommendations prevails, we believe that they can lead reasonably soon to a Potomac Basin fit to serve as a model for the nation. And if they are followed by further stages of continuing, flexible, coordinated planning that will apply the best technology to new problems as they arise, keep Basin aims in mind, maintain a high sense of values, and leave open all possible options for the people who come after, the Basin will remain a model. And that has been the aiming point of our study and our planning.