rage and reasonableness, that is as real as any mountain in the Basin
and as inevitable a consideration for realistic planning as the river's
own characteristics of flow. For any proposal or set of proposals for
action in the Basin that does not take into account what the Basin's
people are like, and how their idiosyncrasies and preferences and
sympathies find political expression, is foredoomed to failure, be it
ever so ideal in anyone's abstract terms.

Pecuniary matters

Then there is money. Restoration and protection of the scheme of things
and its adjustment to needful human use, on the scale we are considering
in the Potomac Basin, is expensive, often involving many millions of
dollars for action against only one phase of deterioration or threat or
shortage. In accordance with the breadth of overall aims, much of this
money must be Federal. Where benefits or responsibilities are clear, as
in relation to sewage treatment plants and sources of water supply,
states or communities or institutions usually pay a share. If Federal
policies regarding flood protection and river flow augmentation for
pollution control are made more logical in the ways sketched earlier in
this report--as seems likely--such sharing will increase. Private
investment or philanthropy may often play a part, as in the purchase of
municipal bonds, the donation of scenic property for public use, or--a
hopeful trend of recent date--a private organization's use of its money
to facilitate high public purposes. The main example of this last
service on the Potomac is the recent purchase and interim retention of
important wildlife and park lands on Mason Neck by the Nature
Conservancy, for later resale without profit to public agencies when
needed authorizations and funds have been obtained.

[Illustration]

Nevertheless, most such projects do have a public purpose with diffuse
benefits, and sooner or later most of their cost has to be paid out of
public dollars deriving from collected local, State and Federal taxes.
Sometimes it is dispensed through Federal grant programs created by
Congress to meet pressing needs, or from other special sources fitting
the occasion. More often it must be sought in the standard established
manner: concrete proposals for action shaped and presented, with a
computation of the cost and the value of expected benefits, to Congress,
State legislatures, or local governments for examination and
authorization, and funds or