Bureau of Reclamation

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Bureau of Reclamation

Logo of the Bureau of Reclamation
State level Federation
Supervisory authority United States Department of the Interior ( US Department of the Interior )
founding 1902
Headquarters Washington, DC
Web presence www.usbr.gov

The Bureau of Reclamation (formerly the United States Reclamation Service ) (literally translated: "Bureau of Reclamation" or " reclamation ") is an agency under the umbrella of the Ministry of Interior of the United States , which is responsible for water management and water supply. In particular, it oversees numerous water supply projects, reservoirs, water distribution facilities and hydropower projects in the western part of the USA, and builds and operates them in part. It corresponds roughly to a water association in Germany. The agency is based in Washington , and its budget in 2018 was 1.513 billion US dollars (around 1.281 billion euros or 1.480 billion Swiss francs ).

founding

In July 1902, the American Home Secretary Ethan Allen Hitchcock founded the United States Reclamation Service within the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in accordance with the Reclamation Act . The new Reclamation Service examined potential water development projects in all western states of the United States that had federally owned public land. Income from the sale of federal land was also the initial source of funding for the program. Because Texas, for historical reasons, did not have any publicly owned federal land, it did not become a member until 1906 after Congress passed special law.

history

Responsibilities of the regional offices of the United States Bureau of Reclamation
Bureau of Reclamation police car at Hoover Dam

Between 1902 and 1907 the reclamation service began with around 30 projects. In 1907 the Home Office separated the Reclamation Service from the USGS and created an independent agency under its umbrella. Frederick Haynes Newell became the first director of the new office.

In the first few years there were many problems: soils were unsuitable for irrigation agriculture, there were only a few settlers who settled due to speculation, payment deadlines were not met because the costs for land preparation and construction were high, settlers were inexperienced with irrigated land, Drainage was required and in some cases only poor quality grain could be grown. In 1923 the facility was renamed the Bureau of Reclamation . In 1924 a report (the Fact Finder's Report) was written to capture and resolve the unrest among the settlers and financial problems.

In 1928, Congress approved the Boulder Canyon Project ( Hoover Dam , All American Canal ), and now, for the first time, large funds from the state budget flowed into the Reclamation Project. The decision came only after a tough debate about the pros and cons of public and private funding.

The heyday for the Bureau of Reclamation was during the Great Depression and in the 35 years after World War II. From 1941 to 1947 the “Civilian Public Service” continued the projects that had been interrupted by the war. The last decisions on construction projects were made in the late 1960s, as the American environmental movement grew stronger and opposition to water construction projects arose. The failure of the Teton Dam when it was first filled in 1976 did not diminish the international reputation of the Bureau of Reclamation. This first and only failure of a dam by the Bureau shook it, however, whereupon it strengthened its safety program in order to avoid similar cases in the future. The breaking of the Teton Dam, the environmental movement and President Jimmy Carter as a hit list marked shift away from large-scale water conservancy projects influenced the activities fundamentally.

The Bureau of Reclamation operates approximately 180 projects in the 17 western states of the United States. The total investment in buildings and facilities in the 2005 fiscal year was $ 22.8 billion. The Bureau of Reclamation provides about a third of the population of the American West with water for agriculture, households, and industry. About 5% of the land area in the west is irrigated, and one fifth of that area (42,500 km²) was supplied in 2005. The Bureau of Reclamation is also a great utility. In 2007 it had 58 power plants and generated more than 40 billion kilowatt hours of energy.

Between 1988 and 1994, the Bureau of Reclamation was reorganized when the older projects from the 1960s came to an end. It was written: “The arid west has been made arable. The larger rivers have been tamed and enough systems are or will be ready to continue to satisfy the urgent need for water in the future. ”The focus shifted to the operation and maintenance of the existing systems. The official newly defined tasks are management, development and protection of water resources in an ecologically and economically sound manner in the interest of the American public. In line with this realignment of its tasks and responsibilities, the Bureau of Reclamation has greatly reduced its staff and budget, but remains a major institution in the American West.

List of reclamation projects (selection)

Web links

literature

  • Marc Reisner: Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Revised edition (Penguin, 1993). ISBN 0-14-017824-4

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Budget Justifications and Performance Information - Fiscal Year 2020 - Bureau of Reclamation. (PDF; 10.1 MB) In: usbr.gov. Department of the Interior , March 15, 2019, accessed January 18, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Bureau of Reclamation, 2005 Annual Report , p 49 http://www.usbr.gov/library/annual_reports/FY2005/MDandA3.pdf (PDF).
  3. ↑ 2005 Annual Report, p 20.
  4. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.usbr.gov