Then there is money. Restoration and protection of the scheme of things
and its adjustment to needful human use, on the scale we are considering
in the Potomac Basin, is expensive, often involving many millions of
dollars for action against only one phase of deterioration or threat or
shortage. In accordance with the breadth of overall aims, much of this
money must be Federal. Where benefits or responsibilities are clear, as
in relation to sewage treatment plants and sources of water supply,
states or communities or institutions usually pay a share. If Federal
policies regarding flood protection and river flow augmentation for
pollution control are made more logical in the ways sketched earlier in
this report--as seems likely--such sharing will increase. Private
investment or philanthropy may often play a part, as in the purchase of
municipal bonds, the donation of scenic property for public use, or--a
hopeful trend of recent date--a private organization's use of its money
to facilitate high public purposes. The main example of this last
service on the Potomac is the recent purchase and interim retention of
important wildlife and park lands on Mason Neck by the Nature
Conservancy, for later resale without profit to public agencies when
needed authorizations and funds have been obtained.
[Illustration]
Nevertheless, most such projects do have a public purpose with diffuse
benefits, and sooner or later most of their cost has to be paid out of
public dollars deriving from collected local, State and Federal taxes.
Sometimes it is dispensed through Federal grant programs created by
Congress to meet pressing needs, or from other special sources fitting
the occasion. More often it must be sought in the standard established
manner: concrete proposals for action shaped and presented, with a
computation of the cost and the value of expected benefits, to Congress,
State legislatures, or local governments for examination and
authorization, and funds or bond issues later voted for carrying them
out.
The cash available for both regular programs and special proposals from
year-to-year will vary according to the state of the economy, the number
and severity of other demands on government budgets, and their relative
apparent urgency. This imposes on planners not only an obligation to
make sure that what they propose has public value that fully justifies
its price, but also a need to gear immediate priorities and projects
realistically to the amount of money there is some hope of getting for
them. It is an unhappy fact that there is often less than no point in
presenting even fine proposals for legislative consideration at a
financially inappropriate point in history. Once defeated, whatever the
reason, they may forever languish in limbo.
At this particular point in history, this country has been for some time
involved in a tough, costly conflict in Southeast Asia which inexorably
absorbs much of the available Federal money. Americans are a rich
people, riding a wave of prosperity, and much is left over for other
things. But in this turbulent and questing era, they also have a good
many other urgent and expensive problems and projects on their hands
besides those dealing directly with natural resources and conservation.
The problems are familiar words on the front pages of newspapers and in
evening conversations: poverty, urban crisis, transportation, national
defense, public health, world hunger and unrest, space exploration,
schools, and the rest. All cost hugely. And, though individual
conservation proposals of clearly critical importance most often receive
fair and full consideration, one or two or more of these other realms
for action usually loom larger to the eye of the public and the Congress
than do environmental programs in general. Therefore they get first shot
at the funds available for spending year by year.
Most people have a bias in favor of their own chosen field of interest.
To some, the right use of the natural earthly framework of things
matters supremely. They tend toward a conviction that sooner or later it
will stand very high on any list of priorities for spending, as the
magnitude of what is being lost and diminished is borne in on the
consciousness of the general public. Yet, as of now, it faces heavy
competition for limited funds, and this is another reality for
consideration, as solid for the moment as the Basin's physical problems,
as solid as the politics of which it is a facet.