The Nations River | Page 7

of government. So is concern over man's lemminglike multiplication in numbers and the way his technology and his expansionism are gobbling up things quiet and graceful and eternal--things he needs. It seems certain that political "muscle" and respectability for the legitimate conservationist viewpoint is shaping up fast enough that it will be able to dissipate the worst threats--the grabbing and the spoiling, the ignorance and the archaic attitudes, the onward shove of brute technology for technology's own sake rather than for man's--before they have forced mankind on into the gray sterility of life that would be their ultimate effect.
And upon the emerging potency of this sound and urgent concern with the way the natural world is being used up, we believe a flexible form of planning can be based that will do away with the dilemma posed by the complexities and uncertainties of the moment. With a minimum of compromise, such planning will be able to identify and propose solutions for immediate problems in places like the Potomac Basin, while moving toward longrun solutions for other problems as those problems' dimensions become clearer than at present, and as technology and politics make better solutions feasible.
Solutions for pressing and immediate problems have to be in terms of present possibilities--political, financial, and technological. Some such immediate problems--of water supply, pollution control, and scenic preservation--exist in the Potomac Basin and are analyzed in this report, and presently feasible action is recommended for their alleviation. A considerable part of the report is concerned with such problems, with the range of possible solutions for them and with our reasons for making specific recommendations.
These immediate solutions do not constitute what has been called a "quick fix"--piecemeal, one-shot action to patch up things until another crisis arises. As much as possible, they have been worked into the picture of longterm Basin needs insofar as those needs can be discerned, and it is intended that action against future problems shall be built upon them. Furthermore, we have sought to maintain an ample view in identifying long-term difficulties and indicating what should be aimed for when it is essential to act against them.
But we have not shaped a rigidly complete, prescriptive plan identifying exact measures for the cure of all present and future ills of the Potomac Basin. For a variety of reasons, we have concluded that such a rigid plan would not only be self-defeating in the long run, but that it is actually undesirable. We are aware that this conclusion is going to arouse criticism among those who during the past three years have consistently demanded that we provide a total answer, for the purpose either of unseating the governing principles of the 1963 plan or of reinforcing and amplifying those principles. Nevertheless we are certain that the conclusion is right.
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It would be right even if the development of new technology were the only uncertainty confronting planners. Barring a complete breakdown in the present impetus of research and discovery, radical change in the technology of water supply and water quality control appears to be extremely probable within the next few decades. Some of the best of the emerging tools, there is reason to hope, may permit men to deal with water problems in ways that are more harmonious with natural ways and less structurally imposing than present methods. Possibly the present, often essential reliance on large storage reservoirs, for instance, is going to be modified, though how much the ultimate way of doing things will have to combine old and new technologies is something that cannot be guessed.
If it cannot yet be guessed, it cannot be incorporated in a rigid plan, which has to deal in technological certainties--i.e. in present technology--and must therefore impose that present technology on the future, whether or not the future is going to need it. If we are right in believing that from this generation on, people are going to be increasingly jealous in the preservation of their natural heritage, future Americans will not be likely to thank this generation for having unnecessarily robbed them of choices as to how to handle the streamwaters of a superb river basin like the Potomac's. Any more than they would thank us for having done nothing at all and leaving them to scramble for water, and filthy water at that. Quite simply, no one has the right to do either of these things to them.
It is our belief that if genuinely conservationist values are established as the ruling principles in a flexible, properly paced, continuing planning process, there will be no need to fear that future generations are going to be either stuck with large mistakes on our part, or cursed with shortages, floods, and pollution. With this report we hope to initiate such a process for the Potomac.

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II TOWARD A MORE USEFUL RIVER
If the