1. The Pick-Sloan Plan 1944 Flood Control Act
“In the 19th century, we devoted our best minds to exploring nature.
In the 20th century, we devoted ourselves to controlling and harnessing it.
In the 21st century, we must devote ourselves to restoring it. — Stephen Ambrose
Historian Stephen Ambrose captures the history of the Missouri River with regards to the 19th and 20th century…
It will be up to you to make sure his words ring true in the 21st century.
Development and Implementation

2. The Old Muddy
“The Missouri River was located in the United States at last report. It cuts corners, runs around at night, lunches on levees, and swallows islands and small villages for dessert. Its perpetual dissatisfaction with its bed is the greatest peculiarity of the Missouri. Time after time it has gotten out of its bed in the middle of the night with no apparent provocation, and has hunted a new bed, all littered with forests, cornfields, brick houses, railroad ties, and telegraph poles. Later it has suddenly taken a fancy to its old bed, which by this time has been filled with suburban architecture, and back it has gone with a whoop and a rush as if it had found something worthwhile. It makes farming as fascinating as gambling. You never know whether you are going to harvest corn or catfish.”
George Fitch, 1907

3. Taming the Big Muddy
Twentieth century social values reflected national trends to “Develop and Control” rivers
“Mile wide and 6 inches deep”, “Big Muddy”, “Too thick to drink, too thin to plow”

4. Background Drought of the 1930’s Economic Depression
Unsustainable Agricultural Practices
National Industrial Recovery Act
1933, authorized public works projects
Fort Peck Dam completed in 1939
1943 Devastating Mo River Floods
Nation Viewed Resources as Unlimited
State of the Union was bleak in years leading up to the Pick Sloan Plan / 1944 Flood Control Act
Floods occurred often on the Missouri River. There is nothing like a the devastation of a flood to galvanize people and bring people to action.
Especially when the 1943 Flood inundates the USACE offices in downtown Omaha.
This was also a time when FDR was looking for ways to put returning soldiers to work as the new the war was coming to an end.
Remember this was a time when resources were viewed as unlimited.
Recall Stephen Ambrose’s words, In the 20th century we put our mines to ‘controlling’ and ‘harnessing’ nature.

5. October 1944 Omaha meeting of BR and COE
Interior Department and Army Collaborate on 1944 priorities
Focus on Development
Support for single plan not unanimous
Tribes particularly opposed
Displaced thousands of Native Americans
Garrison Dam alone displaced of 357 families
Compensation never resolved to tribes satisfaction
Brought together by the many pressures Pick and Sloan met in Omaha.
To say they disliked each other would be an understatement. The Sloan’s Bureau of Rec. plan was hastily married up with Pick’s Plan from the Corp. The only real collaboration that occurred was to get the Pick Sloan plan passed so that the Federal govt. would maintain control of the River. You see the states of the basin were in the midst of a process to form a Missouri Valley Authority or MVA similar to the TVA. So as much disdain as Sloan and Pick had for each other, the hated worse the idea of state based control of the Missouri River.
Tribes held out tremendous opposition for the plan as it displaced thousands of families and villages and uprooted them from a culture that relied on a functioning river…flooding there lands forever.

6. 1944 Flood Control Act Pick-Sloan Plan
Represented a merger of Missouri River Development Plans
Corps of Engineers (Col. Lewis Pick):emphasized flood control, navigation, dam building, industrial water use
Bureau of Reclamation (William Sloan); emphasized irrigation, hydro power, water conservation, wildlife and recreation
The separate plans merged in Dec., 1944 as part of the Flood Control Act passed by Congress
The flood events on the Missouri in 1935, 1942, 1943 and 1944 provided impetus to Congress for passage of the FCA in 1944

7. Pick-Sloan Act
Five Mainstem Dams Downstream of the existing Ft. Peck Dam were constructed over the next 19 years by the Corps. Of Engineers
Ft. Peck Reservoir, Garrison Reservoir (Lake Sakakawea) and Oahe Reservoir are three of the nations five largest man made lakes – only Lake Powell and Lake Mead on the Colorado River are larger.
The 6 mainstem dams have the combined capacity to hold roughly 73.4 million acre feet. The nations largest reservoir system!
The Pick-Sloan Plan caused more loss and/or damage to Native American lands than any other public works project in history.

8. Missouri River Changes
Oahe Dam area 1955
Future site of Oahe Dam

9. Missouri River Changes Oahe Dam - Recent

10. Pick-Sloan Plan - Operation
COE operates six of the Missouri River’s seven main stem dams under the Missouri River Main Stem Reservoir System Reservoir Regulation Manual (“Master Manual”)
The waters stored serve “multiple purposes” under the 1944 Flood Control Act
Beneficial Uses
Flood Control
Hydro Power
Irrigation
Fish & Wildlife
Water Supply and Water Quality
Navigation
Recreation

11. Pick-Sloan Plan - Operation
Ongoing conflicts in the basin over which “purposes” should take priority
“Distribution of benefits”:
Missouri has biggest share of flood control & navigation benefits
Nebraska has largest share of water supply & hydro power benefits
North and South Dakota realize most of the recreation and irrigation benefits

12. Pick-Sloan Plan - Operation
Navigation (Lower Basin States) vs Recreation (Upper Basin States)
Navigation:
Commercial barge traffic (grain & fertilizer) was expected to haul 12 million tons annually but peaked in 1977 at 3.3 million tons and has trended downward since (USACE)
In 2006, barges moved only 0.2 million tons – the equivalent to what is moved DAILY on the Mississippi River (GAO study 2010)
Commercial navigation traffic had a total annual benefit of $7.0 million in 1995 (USACE)
In 2006, at the height of the last 9 year drought, 5.7 million acre feet of water was discharged exclusively for navigation support to move 0.2 million tons of goods in the lower basin.
Smallest benefits among the “authorized purposes” are navigation and irrigation.

13. Pick-Sloan Act - Operation
Recreation
Pick-Sloan did not originally count recreation benefits as “Prominent Benefits”
Water based recreational uses and benefits have grown substantially since the mid 1950’s
1950’s = 5 million visitor hours
1960’s = 15 million visitor hours
1970’s = 33 million visitor hours
1980’s = 43 million visitor hours
= 87 million visitor hours
= 112 million visitor hours

14. Pick-Sloan Act – Operation Recreation
South Dakota study in recreation on Lake Oahe and Lake Sharpe = $36 to $40 million annual economic impact and growing ( National survey on fishing hunting and recreation)
For comparison purposes, the major benefits of Pick-Sloan in the past 30 years have come from hydro-power, water supply and flood-damage reduction. Each has annual benefits measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Recreation comes next with annual benefits measured in the 10’s of millions of dollars
Navigation and Irrigation follow recreation with annual benefits measured in the millions.

15. Henry Hart, The Dark Missouri - 1957
“The question is whether the legitimate offspring of two programs which matured in contrasting climates, wet and dry, have proved to be adapted to the peculiar climate of the Missouri basin…The question is whether the ten-year olds show promise of growing to maturity and doing a man’s work.”
Henry Hart, The Dark Missouri
Author called the projects intent offspring and was questioning whether the ten year olds would do a mans work…this was in 1957….
65 years later should give us a much better lens to see which parts of the vision of 1944 are doing a mans work and which ones aren’t