Two other main fields are under consideration.  One is the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence, including the Erie Canal.  This includes stabilizing the lake level, and is both a waterway and power project.  A joint commission of the United States and Canada is working on plans and surveys which will not be completed until next April.  No final determination can be made, apparently, except under treaty as to the participation of both countries.  The other is the Mississippi River stem.  This is almost entirely devoted to navigation.  Work on the Ohio River will be completed in about three years.  A modern channel connecting Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh should be laid out and work on the tributaries prosecuted.  Some work is being done of a preparatory nature along the Missouri, and large expenditures are being made yearly in the lower reaches of the Mississippi and its tributaries which contribute both to flood control and navigation.  Preliminary measures are being taken on the Colorado River project, which is exceedingly important for flood control, irrigation, power development, and water supply to the area concerned.  It would seem to be very doubtful, however, whether it is practical to secure affirmative action of the Congress, except under a Joint agreement of the several States.

The Government has already expended large sums upon scientific research and engineering investigation in promotion of this Colorado River project.  The actual progress has been retarded for many years by differences among the seven States in the basin over their relative water rights and among different groups as to methods.  In an attempt to settle the primary difficulty of the water rights, Congress authorized the Colorado River Commission which agreed on November 24, 1922, upon an interstate compact to settle these rights, subject to the ratification of the State legislatures and Congress.  All seven States except Arizona at one time ratified, the Arizona Legislature making certain reservations which failed to meet the approval of the governor.  Subsequently an attempt was made to establish the compact upon a six-State basis, but in this case California imposed reservations.  There appears to be no division of opinion upon the major principles of the compact, but difficulty in separating contentions to methods of development from the discussion of it.  It is imperative that flood control be undertaken for California and Arizona. preparation made for irrigation, for power, and for domestic water.

Some or all of these questions are combined in every proposed development.  The Federal Government is interested in some of these phases, State governments and municipalities and irrigation districts in others, and private corporations in still others.  Because of all this difference of view it is most desirable that Congress should consider the creation of some agency that will be able to determine methods of improvement solely upon economic and engineering facts, that would be authorized to negotiate and settle, subject to the approval of Congress, the participation, rights, and obligations of each group in any particular works.  Only by some such method can early construction be secured.