THE SIGNING INTO LAW OF THE SALINE WATER ACT

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, yesterday the President of the United States signed into law S. 24, the bill to extend the Saline Water Act authorizing research and development now being administered by the Secretary of the Interior.

President Johnson, in signing this act committed himself to a goal which I am confident if achieved will bring great rewards to the American people and indeed to many other nations. By his commitment he has thrown out a challenge to the Congress and the American people which must, and I am confident, will be met. In my opinion, the talents and resources of the American people will be mobilized in this important effort to solve the national and, indeed, international problem of water shortages.

Indicative of the widespread interest in water problems, there will be held in Washington in October the First International Symposium on Water Desalination. In conjunction with this the First International Water Desalination Exposition will also take place.

I ask unanimous consent that at this point in the RECORD a copy of the remarks of the President when he signed the bill yesterday be included in full along with a press release by the Secretary of the Interior announcing the forthcoming symposium and exposition on water desalination.

There being no objection, the remarks of the President and the press release were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE SIGNING CEREMONY OF THE SALINE WATER CONVERSION ACT, S. 24, IN THE ROSE GARDEN, THE WHITE HOUSE

Senator ANDERSON, Senator JACKSON, Senator KUCHEL, Congressman ASPINALL, Congressman SAYLOR, Governors Hughes, Scranton, Terry, and Rockefeller, members of the Cabinet, Members of Congress, my friends, I am very delighted to see so many Members of the House and many of my friends in the Senate come here this morning.

There is always a certain amount of cynicism among members of the executive branch and, I guess, sometimes among even members of the press about the productiveness of the Congress. I will measure my words when I say that over the past several weeks Congress has sent to the executive department, to my desk for signature, what appears to me to be an unprecedented procession of legislative measures which can only be described as truly historic and which I think is a tribute to every Member of both the House and Senate, of both parties.

It is my own studied and considered judgment, however, that this bill that you are witnessing being signed this morning will be the most historic of all of them; not for what it provides but rather for what it promises, not for what it accomplishes but rather for what it symbolizes.

True, this is a research and development bill, and it is only that. This legislation will not, by itself, build a single desalting plant in this country. But this is a commitment, the step across the threshold toward the breakthrough that must and will come, in my judgment, in the last half of the 1960's.

I may or may not be the most optimistic person in America about the progress we can make on desalting the seas, but I am, and I intend to remain, the most determined man that we shall make the great breakthroughs before the calendar turns to 1970.

I believe today what I believed in 1957 about space. That the greatest mistake the political system of a nation can make is to underestimate the pace of this century's advance of human knowledge and of this century's changing capabilities.

We need this research. We need this study. We need the experimentation that this bill provides-but we need to do more than spend all our time just learning.

So what does that mean? It means the time has come to set our sights, to pick our targets, and to act. For if we succeed, our success could well change the condition of man all around the world.

We have lingered too long under the impression that desalting sea water is a far out and a far distant goal. Since the dawn of time, every drop of water that man has drunk or used has been desalted in nature's own still.

Nature's system has been erratic-and we have spent and we are spending billions to overcome those many costly and many cruel uncertainties.

What can we do? What must we do? Well, now, the thing we can do is to free mankind from nature's tyranny by setting out to produce water when and where we nced it at a price that we can afford.

And in doing that we are going to need all the skill and all the ingenuity of modern science and modern industry. But I think the time has never been so ripe to get going on this kind of a job. We have new resources of abundant energy that can provide the power that this will require. And what was impossible and inconceivable yesterday is very near to reality today. And I want this Nation to lead the effort to close this gap-not in the next 50 years but in the next 5 years.

I would, therefore, lay out before the talents of our industry and science and institutions of higher learning, and our leaders of this Nation, these challenges this morning and these goals:

(1) That plans be developed for constructing by 1970 desalting plants that will bridge the gap between the 1-million-gallonper-day plants that we have and the 100million-gallon-per-day plant that we must

have.

That is first.

(2) We aim at having by 1968-or soonerplants from 1- to 10-million-gallon daily capacity to meet the needs of all of our smaller towns and cities. And I would add, hopefully, such smaller plants would be economical for individual farm use in desalting brackish water from their own wells.

(3) That we realize that the seas are not our only recourse and that we aim to make it feasible to mine, desalt and put to productive use the brackish groundwater which underlies more than 2 million square miles

of the United States-all the way from the Appalachians to the Rockies.

(4) That as rapidly as we develop economic desalting plants, we be prepared to share our technology with other countra with desalting answers and the best answer to their water problems.

Desalting is not a dream. Three of c cities, ships at sea, the oil fields of other lands already depend upon desalting plans We have only to learn to do these things at a price that we can afford-and I am coovinced that we can learn them before this decade ends.

The program authorized by this bill w help us to learn-first for our thirsty clas and industries, and then some day agriculture.

A millenium ago-in what is now the great State of Arizona-there were Indians who built extensive water works, as we ourselves build them now. They irrigated the lands that are now desert. But when the drought came and their works were of no value, the Indians disappeared, remembered in histky only as "The People Nobody Knows."

Well, in our Nation, water has long be treated by many as the concern only of the farmer and the rancher. But we are be

ginning to learn better. In our complex and concentrated urban economy and societ water today, as we meet here, has never bod more meaning. The drought experi

now in our most populous region ratious us anew that we cannot and must not thy alone on building Ele reservoirs, longe pipelines, or grander chemes of waterword to supply this essential of life.

I remember a few years ago when we a drought in the Southwest, the then grasi President Eisenhower was very concernel about it and he flew to the south plans Texas, and Amarillo, and Oklahoma area, and he traveled over it and showed his co and called people together as we are c our people together. There weren't manj people interested. It was just the co that couldn't get water for his stock. B since, there is not a city in that State th hasn't awakened and the sleeping giants on the move. So we can, and we must, wh velop the capacity to produce water and produce it when and to produce it where 51 need it at a price we can afford.

I believe we will succeed. I have a vi that such success could be one of history most vital contributions to the cause peace among nations. Our water policy greatly influence our foreign policy.

Many share the credit for this landma legislation that is before us-Senators ASDERSON, JACKSON, and KUCHEL, and all have served with distinction on the In Committee of the Senate, Congressmen PINALL, ROGERS, SAYLOR, Secretary Chairman Seaborg of the Atomic Commission, and my own Science Adid Dr. Hornig.

I am proud now to sign this bill into to mark the beginning of what I hope t be a new era of national effort and zatiza achievement. And I particularly wel the distinguished chief executives of oth States who are here to help us start new program this morning, and a little in the morning to help us explore ways means for facing up to an emergen have now, and to the mayors and to the G ernors and to the other officials who bat come here to meet with us, I say thank you

e symposium-sponsored by the Departof the Interior in cooperation with the rtment of State-will be held in the rtment of State Building from October rough October 9. All meetings will be ic. In conjunction with the symposium, First International Water Desalination sition will be held October 3-7 at the aton-Park Hotel in Washington.

announcing the symposium, a major rvance of the International Cooperation , President Johnson said:

t would be difficult to exaggerate the er for good, the palliative effect on ageanimosities and problems, that would It from providing an abundance water

in lands which for countless generations have only known shortage."

Representatives of 17 nations will deliver Scientific papers on basic research, engineering development, engineering design studies, conversion plant operations, conversion plant economics, energy sources, and economic and optimum design of systems. The 17 nations are: United States, United Kingdom, Spain, India, Israel, Japan, U.S.S.R., Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Kuwait, the Netherlands, and France.

Secretary Udall said the symposium will bring together on one program the world's foremost experts in the water desalting field. He said, "This exchange will be invaluable in advancing world technology. It is a giant step forward in the continuing search for economically feasible means of desalting the waters of the earth."

Opening ceremonies for the sessions will be held Monday, October 4, at 9 a.m. in the Department of State Auditorium. Registration for the symposium takes place Sunday, October 3, from 10 a.. to 5 p.m. in the Conference Information Center, Department of State.

Information concerning the symposium

can be obtained by writing Merrill M. Blevins, Secretary-General, First International Symposium on Water Desalination, Office of International Conferences, Department of State, Washington, D.C.

Information concerning the exposition can be obtained by writing Jerome H. Brown, Exhibit Manager, International Water Desalination Exposition, care of Atomic Industrial Forum, Inc., 850 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y.

A list of the nations accepting invitations to attend the symposium follow: NATIONS ATTENDING FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON WATER DESALINATION Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Dahomey, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malagasy, Mauritania, Mexico, Netherlands, Niger, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, U.S.S.R., United Arab Republic, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam.

EXTRACTION OF MINERALS FROM NONCOASTAL SALINE WATERS Mr. MOSS. Mr. President, I introduce for appropriate reference, a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to lease certain public lands for the purpose of extraction of minerals from noncoastal

saline waters. This proposed legislation would make possible important industrial development in my own State of Utah and other areas in the country which have large bodies of heavily mineralized water adjacent public lands.

The Great Salt Lake in Utah has for years been a low-cost source of sodium chloride-otherwise known as common salt which is used on our tables and in our industries. However, a great many other minerals are known to be present in the heavily saline waters of the lake. These minerals include magnesium, potassium, and lithium, all of which are important industrially.

During recent years, Utah, in its traditional pioneering spirit, has been encouraging private enterprise to look into the possibility of development of these natural resources in Great Salt Lake. Several companies, among them some large national and international enterprises, have spent considerable sums of money in economic and technological research on the concept.

Happily, they have arrived at the conclusion that large-scale development of extraction industries from the heavily mineralized waters of Great Salt Lake is feasible. These companies are prepared,

they have stated on the record, to invest very substantial sums-sums running into the millions of dollars-in such development.

However, large areas of land are required for the pooling and solar vats needed. Only if land areas of sufficient size are available on reasonable terms can

there be justified such huge investments as will be involved.

As the Members of the Senate know, under the Submerged Lands Act as well as historic precedent, the waters of Great Salt Lake and the lands beneath them are the property of the State of Utah. The upland areas—the areas above the meander line of the historic shoreline-are, for the most part, federally owned public lands. For the most part they are wastelands, economically speaking, being unoccupied and nonutilized. While there is some controversy as to where the shoreline, the line demarking Federal and State proprietorship of the lands above the present water's edge, begins, that problem is not involved in this legislation.

My bill deals only with Federal lands that are not, or will not be, in question. There are vast acreages of them which are well suited to the industrial purposes I have mentioned and which are present wholly useless.

As a lawyer, I am well aware that there is on the statute books the act of February 15, 1901, found, as amended, in 43 U.S.C. 959. This law authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue "use permits for, among other things, water

March 15,

plants, dams, and reservoirs used to promote irrigation or mining or quarrying."

However, attorneys and officials of some of the major companies are con vinced that this law, at least as presently administered, is not adequate for the purposes. For one thing, a “use permit" does not give any assurance of tenure It is revocable. For another, under the regulations of the Department of the Interior it can extend for only 5 years at most, and Interior officials question whether this 64-year-old statute, e acted with nothing like the present pur poses within its purview, could be heid to authorize promulgation of new regu lations that would encompass actual leasing authority of the magnitude required.

Mr. President, this proposed legisla tion is gravely needed, and needed now, in Utah and possibly elsewhere. Vast new industrial development in the West awaits its enactment. I earnestly com mend it to the Congress for prompi approval.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The b will be received and appropriately referred.

The bill (S. 3087) to provide for the leasing of certain unappropriated public lands to permit the extraction of min erals derived from saline noncoasta waters, introduced by Mr. Moss, was ceived, read twice by its title, and re ferred to the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.

1410

H.R. 17558. A bill to amend Public Law 89-428 to authorize the Atomic Energy Commission to enter into a cooperative arrangement for a large-scale combination nuclear power-desalting project, and appropriations therefor, in accordance with section 261 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.

September 13, 1966

DESALTED SEA WATER FOR SOUTH

ERN CALIFORNIA

Mr. KUCHEL. Mr. President, along with my friend, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs [Mr. JACKSON], my colleague from California [Mr. MURPHY), and the senior Senator from New Mexico

[Mr. ANDERSON], I am pleased to intro

duce a bill to authorize the Department

of the Interior to participate in the construction and operation of a massive desalination plant and nuclear power generating facility to be built off the coast

of southern California. The Federal Government will contribute $72.2 million toward the estimated total cost of approximately $445 million in this unique partnership between Government and private enterprise. Of this 72.2, the Department of the Interior will be authorized by the legislation which I introduce today to contribute $57.2 million, and the Atomic Energy Commission will be authorized by other legislation to contribute the additional $15 million.

In the 85th Congress, I was consponsor of a measure which authorized the confor the desalination of water. One of struction of five demonstration plants these five plants, designed to produce 1 million gallons of fresh water per day, Was built in San Diego. I was present when the demonstration desalting plant was opened, and sea water was converted

into fresh water for use in San Diego homes. Its capacity was later increased to 1.4 million gallons per day.

Later, when the Cuban Communist tyrant, Fidel Castro, attempted to isolate

Guantanamo, the San Diego plant was moved lock, stock, and barrel to Cuba, military installation. where it now supplies water for that vital

By comparison, the project which is now being proposed is enormous. It will provide southern California with 150 million gallons of fresh water per day.

The new salt water conversion plant will be over 100 times as large as the San Diego-Guantanamo plant; it will more

than double the combined capacity of all the salt water conversion plants in the world today.

This bill is the outgrowth of a Federal desalination program extending back

over 15 years. It is the fruition of the cooperative efforts of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Department of the Interior and the

Atomic Energy Commission. On August 18, 1964, these agencies signed a contract authorizing a wide study of a huge nuclear fueled sea water conversion plant which would provide large quantities of electric power. The objective was 8 plant capable of producing 150 million gallons of water per day, enough to supply a city the size of Boston or San Francisco.

Included in the study was a proposal submitted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Southern California Edison Co., and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. They would finance