WATER AND BUREAUCRACY - ORIGINS OF THE FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR WATER-RESOURCES, 1787-1838

The water agencies of the executive branch, born in an ideological struggle between rival views of American government, are products of the formative conflicts that shaped the nation at large. During the early years of federal aid to water projects, 1787 to 1838, nationalists like Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay called for a vigorous, commercial economy driven by financiers and united by a public network of navigation projects. The defenders of states' rights generally objected to outright subsidies for waterway construction, but they permitted indirect aid to navigation through scientific surveys. In 1824 the Monroe administration and Congress worked out a compromise that vastly expanded the federal jurisdiction. A powerful board of planners and engineers began to weigh the national importance of requests for public assistance. Federal water and construction agencies began working with shipping organizations in port cities and states. Congress suspended some water programs in 1838 but federal planning lived on. Water planners learned to diffuse political attacks with scientific arguments. Federal agencies learned to vie for jurisdiction by promoting the construction programs that broadened their own expertise.