Hydraulic structures and/or the environment?∗

As implied by its title, the paper traces the development of an apparent conflict between technology and ecology, including aspects of population growth, resource availability, and waste. Practices of the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation are considered, and their culmination in passage of the National Environmental Policy Act with its emphasis on technology assessment. Attention is given to the fact that man's ability to produce changes in the environment continues to exceed his ability to predict the eventual results. It is concluded that technology and ecology are not inherently at odds; rather, because the social sciences lag far behind the physical and the biological, the difficulty lies wholly between us as human beings.