Flood Control Act of 1944 (Pick-Sloan Plan)

What happened

The Flood Control Act of 1944, approved December 22, 1944, covers flood control projects across the country. Its Section 9 is the part that matters on the Missouri River. It says the "general comprehensive plans set forth in House Document 475 and Senate Document 191," as revised by Senate Document 247, "are hereby approved" and the initial stages "authorized," to be carried out by the War Department and the Department of the Interior. Those documents are the plans commonly called Pick-Sloan. The Act itself does not mention reservations.

A 1997 Senate Committee on Indian Affairs report shows what followed for one nation. It says the Fort Randall and Big Bend Dams, "authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944," inundated over 22,000 acres of bottomland of the Lower Brule Reservation and "the permanent loss of the subsistence economy based on those resources." Fort Randall flooded 7,997 acres and relocated thirty-five families "against their wishes." Big Bend flooded another 14,299 acres and displaced sixty-two families, about 53 percent of the resident tribal population.

The report says Congress later passed separate laws. The Three Affiliated Tribes and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Equitable Compensation Act of 1992 set up trust funds of $149.2 million and $90.6 million, and the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe act of 1996 set one of $27.5 million. In each case, it says, Congress found earlier compensation "significantly less than the value of the actual damages."

North Dakota's State Historical Society says tribes "had fewer options": they relied on treaty rights and the government's trust duty, but the federal government "did not help the tribes avoid the taking." Instead they were paid for their lands, with some substitute lands offered.

Good to know. Acreage figures for flooded land vary by source.

Summarized with AI assistance from 5 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error