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.