Dickinson Unit Heart Division: Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program

摘要

The Missouri River is 2,460 miles in length and traverses parts of ten states: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming--and a small part of Canada. Together the land and the River are known as the Missouri River Basin. Plans to develop the Basin had been on the national agenda when the United States entered World War II. Originally development was to be coordinated by a Missouri Valley Authority (MVA), an organization similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). However, the governors of the ten states, among others, were violently opposed to the MVA idea; as a result the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, who both had their eye on the Basin anyway, were asked to write their own proposals for development. What came out of those proposals has become known as the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program (PSMBP) is a cooperative project between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. The PSMBP which was intended as a compromise between the two agencies resembles a marriage of convenience rather then a true effort to reconcile the two offices. Each agency presented an independent plan to Congress outlining their intentions in regards to the resources of the Missouri River. In 1944, the Corps report was outlined to the House by Major General Lewis A. Pick; the Bureau report was presented to the Senate by William G. Sloan. In an effort to avoid favoritism between the offices and promote coordination between Federal agencies, Congress ordered a compromise of the two plans. The outcome of Congress directive little resembles a compromise, but rather a melding of the two proposals resulting in each agency getting what it originally wanted. A part of the Heart Division, Missouri River Basin Project, the Dickinson Unit is a multipurpose unit which provides storage for irrigation and municipal water, flood control, fish and wildlife conservation, and recreational opportunities. Dickinson Dam is located about two miles west of Dickinson, North Dakota, on the Heart River. The county seat of Stark County and the primary city in the Heart River Basin, Dickinson is located in the center of southwestern North Dakota. Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park lies thirty-five miles west of the Project.