e protection have already
been discussed or touched on in this report: ways of cleaning up rivers
and assuring their flow, ways of halting erosion and siltation, ways of
planning land's use by concentrated human populations with as little
loss as possible of amenities, ways of patching up old damage. Many of
them are imperfect as yet and for some problems tools are still missing,
nor are the existing techniques being applied in a completely
coordinated manner anywhere on this continent except in a few
experimental places of restricted size. But they do exist; they are
available if human beings and human institutions can be persuaded to put
them to use. And it is not possible to repeat too often that the need
for their use is urgent.

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A great deal of legal machinery at various levels is available to
stimulate the use of such techniques and to enhance outdoor recreation.
Some of it has already been put to work in the Potomac Basin; some of it
needs reshaping for application to the conditions found there; and to
cope with certain of the problems, specific legislative action tailored
to the needs is going to be required.

Active Federal programs of public works, technical assistance, grants in
aid, cost sharing, taxation, home loans, mortgage insurance, and such
things--often with counterparts at state levels--penetrate every level
of the economy and have profound effects on the landscape. Some of them
have a direct concern with the landscape as such: among these are the
Department of Agriculture's soil conservation and forestry programs,
Interior activities ranging from water pollution control to trails,
parks, and wildlife refuges, and Housing and Urban Development programs
for the restoration, protection, and creation of urban amenities--all
being applied in the Basin, though some need legislative adjustment or
extension if they are to be fully effective there. Most also have
associated recreational purposes.

Others among the going high-level programs have only a tangential
interest in the landscape per se, though frequently much influence upon
it. In the past, as we have observed earlier, many of them have been
responsible for a good deal of landscape damage, encouraging sprawl and
other forms of bad land use, instituting great public projects without
enough thought to their effect on esthetics and ecology, and so on. Some
are still being conducted in this manner, though less and less as a
general