Instituting water research: the Water Resources Research Act (1964) and the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute
Instituting water research: the Water Resources Research Act (1964) and the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute
Adam M. Sowards 0 1
Brynn M. Lacabanne 0 1
0 Idaho Department of Environmental Quality , 1410 N Hilton St., Boise, ID 83706 , USA
1 University of Idaho , 875 Perimeter Dr. MS3175, Moscow, ID 83844-3175 , USA
In 1964, Congress passed the Water Resources Research Act (WRRA) and created state research institutes to pursue practical research for the nation's growing water problems. The Idaho Water Resources Research Institute (IWRRI), initiated as part of WRRA, implemented its research program with multidisciplinary specialists across Idaho. Collaborating with public and private partners, IWRRI advanced research that reflected distinct political, economic, and environmental needs at a time when the state required more rigorous water planning. Case studies presented here include research on understanding and valuing wild and scenic rivers, tracing and mitigating water pollution from industrial mining, and improving efficiency and promoting maximization in irrigation among rural landscapes. Scientists developed new methods and advised on ways to improve water quality. Tracing IWRRI's research demonstrates how concerns about wilderness, pollution, and efficiency developed within a research regime determined to improve water resources management. Each element reflected historical forces and social values, something only occasionally acknowledged by the researchers but nonetheless central to their efforts. In this way, IWRRI shines analytical light on state water use and the policy and scientific methods used to comprehend, mitigate, and manage water resources. The history of institutes like IWRRI provide a neglected, but useful, avenue to explore the powerful ways contemporary legal, political, and economic concerns shaped scientific research agendas, reminding us of the larger social context in which scientific research occurs.
Idaho Water Resources Research Institute; Water Resources Research; Act (1964); Water resources research; Water resources management; History
-
In mid-summer 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Water Resources Research Act
(WRRA) and noted the myriad needs the law addressed. Water was significant to American life,
he explained: ‘‘Abundant, good water is essential to continued economic growth and progress.
The Congress has found that we have entered a period in which acute water shortages are
hampering our industries, our agriculture, our recreation, and our individual health and
happiness’’ (Cong. Rec 1964c, p. 110, pt. 13:16,655). By century’s end, the president relayed,
experts predicted half the American states would not meet their water needs if current practices
continued. So, WRRA promised to ‘‘enlist the intellectual power of universities and research
institutes in a nationwide effort to conserve and utilize our water resources for the common
benefit’’ (Cong. Rec. 1964c, p. 110, pt. 13:16,655). When implemented, WRRA would support
more coordinated, widespread, and sophisticated water research for the public interest. The law
targeted a national problem and developed solutions in individual states. It has been a critical
research program for water resources for more than half a century. In important ways, central
concerns from the 1960s remain high priorities in water research—not because research has
failed but because the issues are inherent in modern societies (e.g., National Research Council,
Committee on Assessment of Water Resources Research 2004, pp. 16–23).
Surprisingly, historians have neglected WRRA and the state research institutes the
legislation created. In fact, water research has been almost wholly neglected by historians
of science and environment (Kingsland 2005; Worster 1994). A single short history in a
water resources bulletin provides historical context to this long-lasting successful program
(Burton 1986). Millions of dollars have been spent and thousands of studies have been
launched and coordinated from WRRA’s impetus, deepening local resource knowledge
and improving water management. For historians of water—as well as historians of
science, technology, and environment—the basic and applied problems these state institutes
researched offer diverse sources that reveal important contours of the last half-century. No
doubt each state would offer distinct and compelling histories, but Idaho’s is especially
interesting as the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute (IWRRI, pronounced ‘‘eye
weary’’) delved into wild, rural, and industrial waterscapes.
This article aims to explain how water resources research became institutionalized through
WRRA generally and IWRRI specifically. First, we explain WRRA’s aims, its underlying
values, and the mechanisms by which it functioned. Next, we contextualize the research and
political infrastructure in Idaho at the time WRRA passed and IWRRI started. Then, we turn
to three case studies highlightin (...truncated)