Now, the Tennessee Valley Authority is likewise concerned with experimentation. As a matter of fact, it is an experiment, a new and different way of achieving a better use of natural resources.
There is nothing new in what the TVA does. There are no activities conducted by TVA that have not been or are not being conducted by other agencies all over the country and which have been conducted by Federal agencies for many, many years. The TVA has no new regulatory or coercive functions. As a matter of fact, the TVA has no coercive functions. It has no new or unique or different governmental functions. There is only one thing that is different about TVA, and that is the way in which it approaches the job of resource use on an overall basis.
Now, I might illustrate that by referring to the construction of dams and reservoirs. In the Tennessee Valley the TVA builds dams and reservoirs to prevent floods, to produce a navigable channel, to produce power, and in its reservoirs it also has the responsibility of achieving the best uses of reservoirs and reservoir lands in the interests of fish and wild life, in the interests of recreation, and in the interests of malaria control.
Now, the unique fact here is not that these things are going on or being done, at least in part, through a Federal agency, but that one Federal agency is responsible for achieving a balance between all of these activities and with the administrative responsibility for doing that. In other efforts the situation is different, with as many as eight agencies having something to do with the development of some one of these activities in a way which might or might not be integrated.
Now, the second illustration, I think, is that unity can be accomplished only if all of the agencies which are concerned with the use of resources have an environment in which they can work effectively. The Federal Government is not and should not in the Tennessee Valley be developing all of these resources itself. It feels that the unified development of the resources depends upon the participation of the people of the Tennessee Valley and their institutions, the local and the state agencies. There can't be unity any more if local agencies are conducting one program and a Federal agency conducting another program, than there can be if several Federal agencies are conducting several programs.
Consequently, the Tennessee Valley Authority, except for the operation of these huge new facilities which have been added to the resources of the Tennessee Valley, conducts its activities in collaboration with local and state agencies. That not only avoids the expense of duplication, but it achieves the collaboration, the participation, the active interest of the people in getting a full job done.
That is true in the field of forestry. Forestry has a particular role in the Tennessee Valley. First of all, the TVA is concerned with the effective use and control of water, not only in the river channel itself, but on the land. Forestry, together with engineering and agriculture, must come together, not only come together within the administrative framework of TVA, but within the framework of what our colleges and state departments are doing and with what the land owners are doing in these watersheds.
Further than that, the TVA is fully aware that watershed protection cannot be achieved except within the economy of the region. That means that the best use of forest lands from the economic point of view, from the productive point of view, as well as from the conservation point of view, must be taken into account.
For these reasons the TVA is concerned not only with multiple-purpose dams, but with multiple-purpose land use. These activities are not conducted directly by TVA, but in cooperation with the land grant colleges and with the appropriate state departments.
I think and I hope that as you review the several activities which are going on in the Tennessee Valley area that you will keep these characteristics of TVA in mind. We are very happy to have you here. I hope that many of you will be able to extend your visit or to come back and see us another time.