33 U.S.C. § 665

It shall further examine, survey, and determine the utility and practicability, for the purposes hereinafter indicated, of storage sites in the tributaries of said rivers and in the respective branches of said tributaries, or in the plains, basins, sloughs, and tule and swamp lands adjacent to or along the course of said rivers, for the storage of debris or water or as settling reservoirs, with the object of using the same by either or all of these methods to aid in the improvement and protection of said navigable rivers by preventing deposits therein of debris resulting from mining operations, natural erosion, or other causes, or for affording relief thereto in flood time and providing sufficient water to maintain scouring force therein in the summer season; and in connection therewith to investigate such hydraulic and other mines as are or may have been worked by methods intended to restrain the debris and material moved in operating such mines by impounding dams, settling reservoirs, or otherwise, and in general to make such study of and researches in the hydraulic mining industry as science, experience, and engineering skill may suggest as practicable and useful in devising a method or methods whereby such mining may be carried on as aforesaid.