UNITED STATES
.
DEPARTMENT
of
the INTERIOR
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
news release
For Release to PM's, OCTOBER 19, 1961
ADDRESS BY SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR STEWART L. UDALL TO THE OPENING SESSION OF THE NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION CONVENTION, BILLINGS, MONTANA, OCTOBER 19, 1961
Unless ways are found to conserve more fresh water and to convert salt water cheaply into fresh, the United States only 20 years from now will lack enough water to meet its basic needs.
This is one of the plain, hard facts of life which President Kennedy spelled out clearly and unmistakably in a few words when, in a message to Congress in nti.d-July, he said: "We have a national obligation to manage our basic water supply so it will be available when and where needed and in acceptable quality and quantity--and we have no time to lose."
With this message he transmitted the most far-reaching water policy legislation sent to the Congress by the White House in many years.
The President's proposed 11Water Resources Planning Act of 196111 would have an important bearing upon all water and related land conservation and development activities throughout America.
These are some of the things it would accomplish:
--It would establish a Cabinet-level Water Resources Council which would be the keystone in a comprehensive structure for water resource planning within river basins and would provide overall guidance and standards for planning, consistent with existing law.
--It would authorize the President to create--at the request of the
Governor of one or more affected States, or of the Council--a river basin water resources commission for any region, major river basin, or group of related
river basins in the United States. These commissions, composed of representatives of the States and Federal agencies concerned, would be charged with preparing and keeping up to date comprehensive, integrated plans for Federal, State and local development of water and related land resources. Also they would recommend long-range priorities for basic data collection and analysis and for investiga-tion, planning and construction of projects.
This river basin planning would require that any plan take into account domestic, agricultural, energy, industrial, recreational, fish and wildlife; and other major resource conservation and development. It would enable the Congress--within the Federal sphere of responsibility--to decide upon the many individual project developments on the basis of full information as to the overall needs and timing for basin development. At the same time, States and local
interests--within their respective spheres of responsibility--would be enabled to do likewise. I am sure that this proposed legislation must be a matter of particular
gratification to all of you here, because for many years now, since soon after its organization in 1932, the National Reclamation Association has been in the fore-front of efforts to achieve just such objectives.
This is the more remarkable when it is realized that it has only been in the last decade or so that the extent of our national water problem--and the
interrelationship of all areas and sections of the United States in the need for a solution--has been fully recognized.
Again, this fact of interrelationship has been underscored by President Kennedy when, in his unprecedented special message to the Congress on natural resources, he declared: "Wise investment in a resource program today will return vast dividends tomorrow, and failures to act now may be opportunities lost
forever • • • This is not a matter of concern for only one section of the country. All those who fish and hunt, who build industrial centers, who need electricity to light their homes and lighten their burdens, who require water for home,industrial, and recreational purposes--in short, every citizen in every State of the Union--all have a stake in a sound resources program • • • backed by the essential cooperation of State and local governments."
Probably no group or organization in .America is more acutely aware of the need for broad-scale, farsighted--and prompt--water conservation action than this Associationo Probably none is closer to the problem. Well over 60 percent of your members are officers and representatives of irrigation districts, canal
companies, and other types of water users' organizations. You know the problem, and you have done much to help bring it into proper focus so that it can be dealt
with adequately on a national scale.
In its recent final actions, the first session of the 87th Congress gave us one of the most generous Reclamation appropriations in a decade. We are starting the present fiscal year with a construction and rehabilitation program, including loans for small projects, of over $270 million. The overall appropriation
contained funds ~or seven new construction starts.
On June 26, President Kennedy acted to attack the water problem on another front when he forwarded to Congress proposed legislation to expand and extend federal efforts in the saline water conversion program. "This bill, the President
stated in a letter of transmittal, "~ill provide the Department of the Interior
with a wide variety of tools to attack the saline water conversion cost barrier. It contemplates a major acceleration of current programs or basic and applied
research, and permits the construction of conversion plants far larger than any now in existence to test the feasibility of known and yet to be developed
processes."
Five days earlier, on June 21, in participating in ceremonies marking the dedication of the Nation's first saline water conversion demonstration plant at Freeport, Texas, the President said, "This is a work which in many ways is more important than any other scientific enterprise in which this country is now engaged. It serves the interest of men and women everywhere. It can do more to raise men and women from lives of poverty and desperation than any other
scientific advance."
The Freeport plant is the first sea water conversion plant in the United States capable of producing one million gallons of fresh water per day, and the first to regularly supply the water needs of a U.S. municipality.
Based on data obtained thus far from operation of the plant, the cost of the product water is $1-$1.25 per 1,000 gallons, including 20-year amortization
charges. This, of course, is still high when compared, for example, with the minimum rate of 26 cents per thousand gallons for fresh water users in Washington, D. C., and the estimated national average cost of about JO cents per thousand gallons. But as recently as the late 19JO's, as you know, it cost between four and fj_ve dollars to convert a thousand gallons of sea water into fresh, and, since t~en, equipment, fuel, and labor costs have increased several fold. Now, with improved techniques, more experience, and larger plants, it is anticipated that conversion costs can be reduced to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 cents per thousand gallons within the foreseeable future.
Very soon now I shall be participating in the dedication of the 250,000-gallon-a-day plant designed to desalt the brackish well water at Webster, South Dakota, and work is well under way on a million-gallon-a-day sea water desaliniza-tion plant at San Diego. Meanwhile, contracts have been awarded for the design
In still another major water conservation achievement of this Administration, approval of the Congress has been won for pollution control legislation. This comes at a time when pollution of ou~ country's rivers and streams has--as a result of our rapid population and industrial growth and change--reached alarming pro-portions. To meet all needs--domestic, agricultural, industrial, recreational--we shall have to use and re-use the same water, maintaining quality as well as
quantity· In many area.a of the country we need new sources of supply--but in all areas we must protect the supplies we have. The newly enacted pollution control legislation will, in the years to come, help make this possible.
La.st February, President Kennedy expressed concern lest more immediately recognized problems compete adversely with the long-range challenge of water resource development. "The problems of immediacy,11 he said, ·11always have the advantage of attracting notice--those that lie in the future fare poorly in the competition for attention and money." Under the circumstances, he called for the fullest participation and cooperation of Federal, State, and local governments and private interests in wisely and effectively facing up to our natural resource problems--and in particular, those concerning our wa·ter supplies.
This need for prompt and urgent action has been emphasized this year by the severe and continuing drought in the upper plains area from northern Wyoming to Canada, and by the growing problems in the Southwest which has felt the weight of similar drought conditions for some three years.
It was further underscored when, early in the year, the Senate Select Committee on National Water Resources published its report on a tw<Pyear water study in which the Department of the Interior and other agencies participated. The Committee's supply-demand studies showed that full development of all available water resources in five regions of the West will be required by 1980 or earlier i f the needs of the growing population are to be met and the projected expansion of economic activity achieved.
The report also estimated that by the year 2000, three other
regions~-including one area east of the Mississippi--will be added to the list of those in which full development of available water resources will be required if the
projected demands are to be met.
Now, as we all know, the achieving of these aims will be no simple matter. The Senate Select Committee, for example, estimated that the minimum requirement for dealing with the water supply and pollution abatement problems would involve the need for 315 million acre-feet of reservoir capacity for river regulation by 1980, and an additional 127 million acre-feet between 1980 and the year 2000. This 40-year estimate of minimum, nation-wide storage neeqs is roughly five times the total water storage capacity built by the Bureau of Reclamation in the 58 years between 1902 and 1960.
/
The capital costs appear large, too, if the offsetting benefits are considered separately.
The Select Committee estimated that new capital investments of $12 billion would be required by 1980 to build the required minimum storage capacity, and an additional $6 billion by the year 2000, for a grand total of $18 billion. Municipal and industrial sewage treatment works under the same program, which calls for water of relatively high quality in all the Nation's streams, would require new investments estimated at $42.2 billion by 1980, and an additional $39.4 billion between 1980 and the year 2000, for a grand total of $81.6 billion.
Required capital investments, therefore, for a minimum program of additional water storage and water pollution control facilities between now and 1980 amount to roughly $3 billion annually, considerably more than is being invested today, even under the accelerated Kennedy Administration program for fiscal 1961.
"The task is large," the President
has
a.aid, "but it will be done.11I share his confidence. But getting the job done will require the unceasing efforts of all of us in the challenging months and years ahead •
.Another hard fact of life of which I am sure all of us here are fully aware is the unfortunate circumstance that the reclamation program simply does not yet have the unanimous support of all the people of America. It has its share of enemies, many of them quite vociferous. Some, of course, oppose reclamation for purely selfish reasons. But the truth is that a great number simply do not understand the value of reclamation work, what it means to America as a whole.
One of the arguments we have often had to meet is put in the form of a question--11Why should we spend Federal money to build reclamation projects and
bring more land into agricultural production when we are already producing more than we consume?"
Now let us examine this question for a moment. The Bureau of the Census recently issued a very comprehensive report which indicated that by 1980 the Nation's population shall have increased from the present 180 million to 261 million. This is an average increase of about 4 million persons each year--or a 45 percent increase in 20 years.
By the year 2000 we are told we can expect a population of about 383 million. These additional mouths will need food.
The Department of Agriculture, reporting on future food and fiber needs
indicates that to meet our domestic and export needs of 1980 will require continued technological gains to provide 42 percent greater yields, plus a net gain of
20 million acres of cropland. By the year 2000, our needs will require 75 percent greater yields, plus a net addition of 63 million acres of cropland. We are
also told by the Department of Agriculture that losses of agricultural land to urban expansion, industrial, highway, and other non-agricultural uses exceed one million acres annually. Equivalent losses due to erosion and other causes add another half million acres each year.
.
.
The acreage available for crop production has remained fairly constant at about 400 million acres since 1920. At that ·time, this provided J.8 acres per capita. In 1960 we averaged 2.2 acre per person, and by 1980, based on indicated trends, we will be reduced to only 1.5 acres of cropland for each person.
Furthering the projection to the year 2000, the figure will be less than 1 acre per person.
Although too few of us realize it today, this is an alarming trend. In Utah, for example, economists have projected present trends to indicate that the State will have a 24 percent deficit in agricultural production by 1975.
No, it is by no means too early to undertake and expand positive action to protect our agricultural heritage of plenty which is such a blessing and the envy of much of the world.
This is one of the meanings and purposes of reclamation which it is our task to make clear to more Americans.
And, through education, we must make them see the whole picture, we must make them understand how reclamation has a bearing on every citizen--regardless of where he happens to live.
All of us present here are thoroughly familiar with the fact that today--after nearly 50 years of the Reclamation program--some 8,000,000 acres of irrigable Western land are served by Reclamation projects. Power-generating
capacity stands at more than 5 million kilowatts. Crops produced with Reclamation
water are worth nearly $1 billion a year. And, at the same time, the Federal Government has collected more in taxes in Reclamation areas since 1940 than its total overall investment of some $3.5 billion in dams and powerplants and other related facilities.
Now, these are most impressive figures. But, taken as a whole, they are sometimes difficult to comprehend.
The average citizen probably is able to grasp more easily the meaning of some of the separate component parts. He could probably appreciate, for example, that the Missouri River Basin project will ultimately add to the Nation an
irrigated area equal to the addition of a new State--over
4
million acres--and will increase the electric power resources of the West by approximately 2.5 million kilowatts. At the same time, the project will provide municipal water supplies, add 760 miles of navigable river channels, reduce danger of floods, and provide wate? to help develop lignite coal, oil-shale, and other mineral resources.Thus the project will help stabilize the economy of an area comprising one-sixth of the continental United States--a region on which all .Americans depend for half our bread, a fourth of our wool, and a significant portion of our meat and butter.
Only a few days ago, I took part in the dedication of the great Trinity Dam in California. This dam--and the surrounding complex of works--will cost about
$245 million when completed. So far, $168 million has been spent, and the project is about 70 percent completed. In terms of our multibillion-dollar national
budget, this is a comparatively modest sum--but the dividends are great. Many Americans have found jobs because this dam was built. About 9,500 man-years of work has meant local payrolls of more than $52 million. For each construction worker at the dam, four additional Americans have been employed in manufacturing and transporting the materials to the site.
To build the dam, tractors and conveyors have come from Illinois, trucks from Indiana and Pennsylvania, and cranes, shovels, and draglines from Wisconsin--plus a myriad of products from the vast industrial empire of our Eastern States.
Generators are being built in Schenectady, New York, an area of substantial labor surplus. It can truly be said that the falling waters of the Trinity River will house, clothe~ and feed a great number of Americans who might otherwise remain unemployed.
This, I think--without mentioning the continuing multipurpose benefits to California and the Nation--is the sort of thing every citizen can understand and appreciate.
We in the Department of the Interior are greatly concerned about the vanishing shoreline of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts--the rapid movement of coastal lands into uses which deny public enjoyment and appreciation. In
Reclamation projects such as Trinity, we are in a sense creating a new and growing inland shoreline--one which today totals more than 7,00Qruiles devoted to public use. Some idea of America's appreciation of this major new recreational resource may be seen in the fact that, in 1960, 24.3 million visits was recorded at 177 Reclamation recreational areas.
The key, of course, to multipurpose planning is power--hydroelectric power
which provides the revenue to make such projects financially feasible. We can also view power generation as a conservation effort in its finest sense.
In his 1961 message to the Congress on natural resources, President Kennedy had this to say in regard to electric power:
"To keep pace with the growth of our economy and national defense require.
-men ts, expansion of this Nation's power facilities will require intensive effort by all segments of our power industry. Through 1980, according to present
estimates of the Federal Power Commission, total installed capacity should triple if we are to meet our Nation's need for essential economic growth. Sustained
heavy expansion by all power suppliers--public,· cooperative, and private--is
clearly needed.
11The role of the Federal Government in supplying an important segment of
"Hydroelectric sites rema1n1ng in this country will be utilized and
hydroelectric power will be incorporated in all multiple-purpose river projects where optimum economic use of the water justifies such action."
At the same time, the President directed the Department of the Interior to develop plans for the early interconnection of areas served by the Department's marketing agencies with adequate common carrier transmission lines; to plan for further national cooperative pooling of electric power, both public and private; and to enlarge such pooling as now exists.
As a first move in this direction, we established, as I am sure most of you already know, a special task force which is studying the feasibility of inter-connecting the lines of the Bonneville Power Administration and those of the Central Valley Project.
At the same time, we appointed a committee to work with private power interests to determine where the pooling of private and public power production will serve the national interest.
Meanwhile, the Congress gave its endorsement to construction on an all-Federal basis of the basic transmission lines required to market the power generated by the great Colorado River Storage Project, and steps were taken immediately to expedite planning and progress toward completion of this giant undertaking. Simultaneously, we urged public agencies and private power companies to cooperate with the Department in working out a transmission system that will ensure the economic growth of the Colorado Basin, and promote the stability of the entire power industry.
A further step toward conservation and better utilization of electric power resources was taken with the undertaking of studies looking toward the so-called
11pump-back11 storage systems which permit the use or generation capacity during slack demand periods to build power reservoirs which can be pumped back into use at peak periods of power demand.
These, then, are some of the ways in which we in the Department of the Interior are moving as speedily as possible to assure the Nation of adequate water and power resources not only for today--but for tomorrow.
We have other programs under way with which I am sure you are familiar, but which I will not discuss in detail here. These include accelerated research programs aimed at reducing water losses from evaporation, transpiration of
water-11stealing" plants and weeds, seepage losses, and other causes. I will only say now that we are making progress in these fields.
Finally, I would like to leave you with this thought. I believe you will agree with me that the demands of a growing industrial society at home, as well as the Nation's commitments to defend freedom abroad, have brought us to the moment of decision in resource conservation.
Whether our physical and spiritual resources prove adequate to meet our needs
tomorrow will be determined by the actions we take--or fail to take--today.
With this in mind, I feel certain that we in the Federal Government who are charged with this responsibility can count upon your cooperation and support
in the achievement of our joint objectives in the challenging years of the 1960's. Working together, we can accomplish much for the future of this Nation which we love.
