of vouchsafing some measure of
protection to the landscape through which it flows. For the physical
unity of a river basin has many implications, and not the least of them
is that the people who live there can be guaranteed at least a physical
chance to lead full and wholesome lives.

Water supply for upstream areas of the Basin, then, is not a separate
thing from water supply for the downstream metropolis and should not be
treated as separate. They are all drinking from the same fountain. Where
an upstream demand is great enough or is going to be great enough in a
short span of years to warrant major storage, that storage must be keyed
in with all other demands that it might meet or help to meet, including
that at Washington. Where an area of lesser need is shut off by its
location from sharing in such major storage, groundwater development or
headwater reservoirs may well be the answer, but these measures too
should be made to serve as many purposes as may be required for the
protection of the area's whole range of interests and the good of the
entire Basin. The need for such interweaving--for coordination, for
planning and action that are unified--is primary, and will emerge again
and again.

Flooding in the Basin

The subject of floods is fraught with more drama than that of water
shortages, for a flood can be not only a hardship but a catastrophe. For
this reason, accounts of floods tend sometimes toward exaggeration, and
appeals and proposals for protection against flood threats often take on
the highpitched tones of impending disaster. The subject badly needs
sober public understanding, despite the fact that for decades a good
many knowledgeable scientists and engineers and planners have been
laying out their conclusions for general perusal.

Rivers are supposed to run out of their banks occasionally.
Topographically, stream flood plains--the expanses of flat bottomland
that have been deposited over long periods of geological time by the
streams they border--are similar to what legal terminology calls
"attractive nuisances." Men have always known that they were dangerous
and yet have always utilized them to some degree, because they contain
the best farm land, are convenient to water, and are easier places in
which to build houses and factories and roads than are the safer hills
and uplands.

In times before engineering technology was able to erect such effective
control structures as today, populations w