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increasing spiral. We are trying to be good neighbors. We are doing what we can. In the last 10 years we have accomplished extensive improvements to our drainage. With the aid of the University of California and at our own expense, we have conducted an in-depth study of irrigation practices, water application, salinity, leaching requirements, and irrigation efficiency. We are currently participating in a joint program with the Bureau of Reclamation to improve irrigation water scheduling, which has as one of its objectives increased irrigation efficiency. We no longer return more salt to the River than we receive.

We cannot, however, solve the increasing salinity problems locally. We must take the water as we receive it. We must pass on the salt we receive. Salinity is an interstate problem along the entire River. As this Bill illustrates, it has become an international problem. Full use of the River means even higher salinity.

H.R. 12165 deals concretely and directly with specific sources of highly saline water. Unless Congress helps, there appears to be no way such problems can be solved in the foreseeable future. Our river has been slowly but surely increasing in salinity. This is an appropriate time to take a small step in the opposite direction.

Palo Verde Irrigation District joins with other water users in the Colorado River Basin States in support of the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act of 1974 (H.R. 12165) and urges its passage.

Mr. JOHNSON. Our next witness is Mr. William E. Warne, a director of the National Water Supply Improvement Association. Mr. Warne was a Department of Interior official and one of the primary movers of our State water project in California. He is now in private practice and chairman of the Legislative Committee of the National Water Supply Improvement Association. We are glad to have you here. Mr. WARNE. I am glad to be here, Mr. Chairman. I have submitted my statement, and will only give a brief summary.

Mr. JOHNSON. Your statement will appear in the record in full, you may summarize.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM E. WARNE, NATIONAL WATER SUPPLY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

Mr. WARNE. The National Water Supply Improvement Association is a new organization to promote the use of desalination, waste water reclamation, and other water sciences to improve the quality of water supplies for a better environment.

We support the definitive solution proposed by Ambassador Brownell to the Colorado River salinity problem, as it relates to the Mexicali Valley. The proposed solution will include the construction of a 100-million-gallon-per-day desalter to freshen the effluent of the Wellton-Mohawk drain. Collateral works called for by Minute 242 of the International Boundary and Water Commission are necessary to insure the effective operation of the desalter and the conservation of replacement water in the Colorado River Basin.

Two questions remain, which Federal agency should build the desalting plant? Should the needed program for improvement of the quality of the water in the American section of the Colorado River also be a part of this authorization?

We point out that the OSW, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Geological Survey, each of which has demonstrated expertise useful in the management of the techniques and facilities needed to improve the quality and to extend the uses of the waters of the Colorado River, are all three in the Department of the Interior. The IBWC, in the State Department, has no such specific experience. Without deroga

tion of the Department of State, which is also a great Department of our Government, let me say that members of NWSIA would have greater confidence in the Interior Department in this situation because of the long and successful experience of the Interior Department in management of the Colorado River and developing the desalting technology. We hope to see OSW continue as a viable institution conducting significant programs.

What the Mexicans have gone through in the Mexicali Valley is different only in degree from the trials visited on the water users in the Imperial Valley of California and the Yuma and Gila project areas in Arizona. The Colorado River has been progressively degraded. Each year its water becomes a little poorer. At each diversion point progressing downstream the quality of the water is a little worse. These processes of progressive degradation are nonreversible; the results are cumulative. And this is true because all of the waters of the Colorado River are stored and used. Whereas once the annual floods of the river flushed out the salts that naturally entered the river's waters, now all of the water is used and all of the salts are retained in the basin. Only through extensive and planned programs of salt exclusion, water reclamation and desalination can remedies be provided throughout the basin and the quality of Colorado River water be generally improved.

The National Water Supply Improvement Association believes that the United States should not long delay efforts to provide general improvements of the quality of water in the Colorado River Basin. We suggest to the committee that if segregation of the Brownell proposal for relief of Mexico from remedies needed throughout the Colorado Basin will serve to frustrate upstream programs, then the Mexican relief should be made a part of the packaged Colorado River water quality solution. The whole package should be authorized.

The Colorado River water quality problems must be faced squarely, not only in the interests of several hundreds of thousands of our good neighbors in Mexico, but also as urgently in the interest of many millions of our fellow citizens living in the Pacific Southwest.

Mr. JOHNSON. We want to thank you, Mr. Warne, for coming here and giving us the benefit of your knowledge.

We are glad to hear you say that the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation and the OSW have done a good job on desalination. From our own knowledge, your knowledge and the staff's knowledge we believe they have the expertise, and we hope it goes their way.

Mr. WARNE. I wasn't here at the opening of your hearings and did not hear the testimony, but the Bureau of Reclamation has been the agency which has developed the Colorado River from the outset of its development; and the Office of Saline Water is recognized worldwide as the depository of the best information on the subject of desalination.

Mr. UDALL. Are your interests, or purposes in irrigation?

Mr. WARNE. Our purposes are in community water supplies, rather than irrigation water supplies.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Hosmer?

Mr. HOSMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate seeing our old friend. I wish you every success in the National Water Supply Improvement Association, an organization I heard of from the beginning. Do you have any new engineering approach for the desalting plant, any review?

Mr. WARNE. No, Mr. Hosmer, I have not made a review as to the engineering approach of the desalting plant; but I would point out that we are getting into an area of an extremely large step forward when we go to a plant of this size. I mentioned in my statement that I don't believe any agency except the Federal Government could undertake that kind of project at this time.

Mr. HOSMER. I suppose we will have to meet some of these questions when they come. Thank you, Mr. Warne.

Mr. WARNE. Thank you.

[The statement of William E. Warne is as follows:]

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM E. WARNE, A DIRECTOR, NATIONAL WATER SUPPLY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is William E. Warne. I am a consultant in water resources of Sacramento, California. Several years ago I was director, Department of Water Resources, State of California. Before that I served as assistant secretary of the Interior for Water and Power Development and still earlier I was assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. During these and other assignments in the water and related resources fields over a career that began here in Washington more than 38 years ago, I have been a student of the Colorado River. I also have followed closely the development of desalination and the other new water sciences.

I am appearing before you today as the member of the board of directors of the National Water Supply Improvement Association who has been designated to state the interests of their relatively new organization in the objectives of the bills that are before your committee.

NWSIA is organized to promote the use of desalination, waste water recłamation, and other water sciences and to exchange and spread information concerning the state of the art for the purposes of improving the quality of community water supplies. We seek to promote the enhancement of the urban environment and the protection of the public health through raising the quality of substandard supplies. We believe the real costs of serving poor quality water in public systems have not been adequately considered. NWSIA has 14 public agency members scattered from the Virgin Islands to California: 23 associate members, and 109 individual members.

More than 10,000,000 people, a good many of whom are represented by NWSIA members, obtain their drinking water supplies from the Colorado River at points where the water available for diversion is at least half again as degraded as is recommended by the U.S. Public Heatlh Service to be wholesome drinking water. The Orange County Water District, which is represented here today by Neil Cline, Secretary-Manager, has pioneered Water Factory 21, a unique complex of water reclamation, desalination and groundwater replenishment, to treat Colorado River water in its service area. The OCWD has been a leader in the formation of NWSIA. NWSIA supports Mr. Cline's presentation to this committee.

The definitive solution proposed by Ambassador Brownell to the Colorado River Salinity problem as it relates to the Mexicali Valley seeks betterment of United States relations with the republic of Mexico. The proposed solution will include the construction of a 100 mgd desalter to freshen the effluent of the Wellton-Mohawk drain. Collateral works called for by Minute 242 of the IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission) are necessary to insure the effective operation of the desalter and the conservation of replacement water in the Colorado River system.

NWSIA will welcome the construction of the 100 mgd desalter. The desalter will provide a large scale demonstration of the effectiveness of this new method of water quality improvement and this means of extending the usefulness of the available water in a desperately water-short environment, that of the Colorado

River Basin. The desalting plant will attract world-wide attention, not only because of its unprecedented size, but also because it will be the instrument of resolving an annoying international conflict of long standing. We believe the state of the desalting art warrants the confidence that the Congress is being asked to place in the desalter. We also doubt that any other entity than the United States Government is apt to provide an early desalting demonstration on this scale. NWSIA, therefore, endorses the authorization and the construction of the works that are contemplated in Minute 242.

Two questions remain. Which Federal agency should build the desalting plant? Should the needed program for improvement of the quality of the water in the American section of the Colorado River also be a part of this authorization?

NWSIA points out that the OSW, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Geological Survey, each of which has demonstrated expertise useful in the management of the techniques and facilities needed to improve the quality and to extend the uses of the waters of the Colorado River, are all three in the Department of the Interior, The IBWC, in the State Department, has no such specific experience. Without derogation of the Department of State, which is also a great department of our government, let me say that members of NWSIA would have greater confidence in the Interior Department in their situation because of the long and successful experience of the Interior Department in management of the Colorado River and in developing the desalting technology. We hope to see OSW continue as a viable institution conducting significant programs.

What the Mexicans have gone through in the Mexicali Valley is different only in degree from the trials visited on the water users in the Imperial Valley of California and the Yuma and Gila project areas in Arizona. The Colorado River has been progressively degraded. Each year its water becomes a little poorer. At each diversion point progressing downstream the quality of the water is a little worse. These processes of progressive degradation are non-reversible. The results are cumulative. This is true because all of the waters of the Colorado River are stored and used. Whereas once the annual floods of the river flushed out the salts that naturally entered the river's waters, now all of the water is used and all of the salts are retained in the basin. Only through extensive and planned programs of salt exclusion, water reclamation and desalination can remedies be provided throughout the basin and the quality of Colorado River water be generally improved.

NWSIA believes that the United States should not long delay efforts to provide general improvement of the quality of water in the Colorado River Basin. We suggest to the Committee that if segregation of the Brownell proposal for relief of Mexico from remedies needed throughout the Colorado Basin will serve to frustrate upstream programs, then the Mexican relief should be made a part of a packaged Colorado River water quality solution. The whole package should be authorized. The Colorado River water quality problems must be faced squarely, not only in the interests of several hundreds of thousands of our good neighbors in Mexico, but also as urgently in the interests of many millions of our fellow citizens living in the Pacific Southwest.

Mr. JOHNSON. Our next witness will be Mr. Neil M. Cline, the secretary-manager of the Orange County Water District.

Mr. Cline, we are ready for you.

STATEMENT OF NEIL M. CLINE

Mr. CLINE. I have submitted a full statement, and I will just summarize.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir; your full statement will appear in the record. You may summarize your statement.

Mr. CLINE. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am happy to have this opportunity to present to your committee as it considers H.R. 12165 and H.R. 12834 the views of an agency which is incurring problems relative to the waters of the Colorado River, parallel to those of the Mexicali Valley.

My name is Neil Cline, I am the secretary-manager of the Orange County Water District in Orange County, Calif., which manages the

surface and groundwaters of the lower Santa Ana River Basin. Our district serves about 1,500,000 people in rapidly urbanizing Orange County.

At the present time the Orange County Water District gets 30 percent of its water from the Santa Ana River and local supply, and receives 70 percent of its water through the Colorado River Aqueduct of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Being at the end of all of our supply systems, the Orange County Water District must accept water that has been used and reused. The water we receive from either the Santa Ana River or the Colorado River sources no longer is better than 750 r.p.m. in total dissolved solids. That makes all of the water that we receive at least half again as high in TDS as is recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service for drinking water standards.

Our district has no lack of sympathy with our good neighbors in the Mexicali Valley. On the contrary, we know what they have been suffering because our situation is much the same as theirs; and we wish to note we appreciate the work done by the Office of Saline Water. We do not believe the research into desalination has been completed. We do not think that the agency, which has developed the expertise in desalination should be cut out of the Colorado River programs.

OSW, if it is employed in these landmark projects now under consideration, will be in the best position to make the new work succeed and also to make the salinity control program serve to advance the science of desalination and to strengthen the desalting industry.

Our district is a member of the National Water Supply Improvement Association, and I want to associate myself with Mr. Warne's presentation that you received.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Cline. I know you have had your share of water problems in your district for a good many years. How is your sewage treatment plan coming along?

Mr. CLINE. I would like to invite you to dedicate it, it is planned for July.

Mr. JOHNSON. We will be looking forward to putting that in operation.

Mr. CLINE. The project should be underway full-scale in fall, and generate 30,000 acre-feet of water, and desalinate sea water.

Mr. JOHNSON. Very good, we are glad to have your testimony here in support of this legislation. We hope to be able to resolve the problems in the United States and in Mexico, and at the same time take into consideration the Colorado River States.

We are thankful for all you good people having been here to testify. That will help us because we have our work cut out for us. We thank you for coming.

Mr. CLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The statement of Neil M. Cline is as follows:]

STATEMENT OF NEIL M. CLINE, SECRETARY-MANAGER, ORANGE COUNTY

WATER DISTRICT

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am happy to have this opportunity to present to your Committee as it considers H.R. 12165 and H.R. 12834 the views of an agency which is incurring problems relative to the waters of the Colorado River parallel to those of the Mexicali Valley. My name is Neil

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