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Dr. SHAW. There will be all of these items that he has discussed and then we have an additional increase that he will come to for $1.5 million for research related to the pesticide residue problem.

Mr. WHITTEN. You are referring to money. I am trying to find out how many places you are going to have to cut some of your other personnel to staff these laboratories and other new programs such as he describes.

What I am trying to get to, Doctor, you are going to have 101 fewer permanent people to carry on what you are doing at your present location and you are going to have 184 less including part time. Now, how many are going to have to be reassigned to these new laboratories and new locations?

Dr. SHAW. For the research increases we have in the 1965 budget, we are going to add 240 permanent people, and 25 part time.

Mr. WHITTEN. So if you have to add them, it means you are just going to have to transfer that many people or not fill vacancies at existing places in order to have them at the new ones.

Dr. SHAW. Yes, and resort to more contracting as stated yesterday. Mr. WHITTEN. I think that makes it clear.

You might proceed, Doctor.

STAFFING WATERSHED RESEARCH CENTERS

Dr. RODEN HISER. Our next four items pertain to increased support for research at watershed research centers and our Hydrograph Center at Beltsville. I think in connection with these items, Mr. Chairman, at this point, you should be commended for your leadership in the enactment of Public Law 83-566, the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, August of 1954.

Mr. WHITTEN. Thank you, Doctor, this committee is very proud of its part in that program. We think it is doing a marvelous job. We think some of our colleagues wonder where we are going to get the money to do the job as fast as it is needed and as fast as people wish it.

Dr. RODENHISER. There is widespread need at this time for expanded water-related research, especially in the fields of watershed engineering and management and in support of the Department's position on resource planning for the major river basins of the United States in cooperation with several other agencies-Soil Conservation Service, and Forest Service in Agricuture, HEW, Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey, and Fish and Wildlife.

Nature provides us with a relatively fixed water budget as indicated in the next two or three charts I have to present. You will note from this chart that our soil reservoir is 71 percent, and that our total water supply for the entire United States is 4,750 million acre-feet [pointing].

This would be about 30 inches of annual rainfall for the entire United States, 50 percent of the 71 percent in the soil reservoir, is removed through transpiration. The other 50 percent of this 71 percent in the reservoir is lost through evaporation.

Mr. WHITTEN. Doctor, what does transpiration mean?

Dr. RODENHISER. Transpiration is the giving off of water from the leaves or other parts of plants. Evaporation in this case is with reference to the vaporization of water from the soil.

Twenty-nine percent of the water budget is in runoff and deep percolation. A considerable portion of this is used by industry and general public in urban areas.

On this next chart we indicate where the 71 percent of the water budget goes by evapo-transpiration. On the left of the chart we show a loss of [pointing] 32.2 percent from nonbeneficial plants. For example, in some of the dry areas of the South, where cactuses of various kinds and species are grown, 32.2 percent of our water transpires from these nonbeneficial plants.

The 29 percent at the top of the chart is runoff, also indicated on the prior chart; 12.6 percent transpires from plants on cultivated croplands; 10.5 percent from pasture and good range plants; and 15.7 percent from the forests.

I don't want to leave the impression that cactuses are entirely nonbeneficial plants. It is rather important in dry seasons for the farmers of the area to use some of the cactus plants after burning off the spines, as food for cattle.

This chart exemplifies one of the many problems that must be solved through our research on these watersheds. In its simplest form the problem is that we have instances where waterflow following storms is at a very high rate in streams at a given point, and it is reduced to a very low rate a short distance on downstream.

This particular photograph was taken on our Walnut Gulch watershed, at Tombstone, Ariz. You will note above the weir here [pointing] we had 57 acre-feet of water, yet 4 miles downstream, there was only 5 acre-feet left.

We need to know whether this water is absorbed into underlying geological strata, whether it has gone to a perched, localized water table where it will be used by various phreatophytes or nonbeneficial plants, or whether it goes into the regional water table and will serve useful purposes.

This is one of the general types of research for which additional support is urgently needed at our watershed research centers. We have four of these centers and we are studying methods of increasing our water retention and distribution by soil management and stream control.

TUCSON, ARIZ.

The one near Boise, Idaho is reasonably well supported, but three others are only partially financed. The first one is Walnut Gulch watershed, near Tucson, Ariz., as indicated on the chart.

The objectives of this particular center are for research on the effects of management of southwestern grass and shrublands on water supply, and improvement of streamflow in connection with watershed protective measures.

This center will provide information vital to five States in the Southwest. Many of our key watershed structures have yet to be installed. There are a number of structures and pieces of equipment such as runoff gages which are lacking.

For additional support for research at this watershed we are requesting an increase of $60,000.

CHICKASHA, OKLA.

Another watershed research program is located at Chickasha, Okla., for which we are requesting an increase of $30,000. The research covers about 1,100 square miles adjoining an 80-mile stretch of the Washita River. We are determining sedimentation associated with watershed protection programs in the upstream tributaries and effect on the downstream events and, also, water yields.

The results obtained in this study will be used as guidelines for watershed protection in other parts of the southeastern plains region. Here again, some of the necessary instrumentation for measurements of precipitation, streamflow, sediment load, soil moisture, and underground water have been installed but we are in need of additional funds to continue our instrumentations and to provide for recurring cost for supporting personnel.

COLUMBIA, MO.

Our third watershed center for which we are requesting an increase is at Columbia, Mo. This is the so-called North-Central Watershed Research Center for which we are requesting an increase of $45,000. Work is underway at this center to provide basic research information on precipitation-runoff relationships, and to gain basic knowledge on causes and control of gully formation in relation to watershed protection.

This increase would permit us to initiate research on effective land forms, topographic features, number of channels, and so forth. An understanding of these fundamental relationships is essential to the development of a sound and economic program for conservation practices in this area.

BELTSVILLE HYDROGRAPH CENTER

Our last request, so far as our laboratories and centers are concerned, is for the Beltsville, Md., Hydrograph Center, for which we are requesting an increase of $60,000. This is an area of research that has received rather minimum support in the past. Improved instrumentation and technology has improved the practicability of concentration of our effort in analysis of data accumulated over the past 25 years.

The objectives of the center are to evolve and test mathematical models explaining and governing principles of runoff hydrographs, and to conceive and develop new theories and principles which can be used to reduce watershed engineering problems to its basic components. The information obtained is used by action agencies in projecting data to nongaged watersheds.

This, Mr. Chairman, completes our requests for increases of the 11 laboratories, the 3 watershed centers, and the Hydrograph Center at Beltsville, and I would request that pages 12 through 20 of the explanatory notes be made a part of the record.

(The above-mentioned material follows:)

INCREASES AND DECREASES

RESEARCH

(1) An increase of $2,977,000 for increased pay costs on second step of pay increase pursuant to Public Law 87-793. (An overall explanation of increases

for pay act costs is included in the Preface to these Explanatory Notes in vol. 1.)

(2) A net increase of $5,880,300 for research consisting of an increase of $1,500,000 for staffing and operating new and expanded farm research laboratories and watershed research centers.

In recent years new facilities have been constructed and others expanded to provide for urgently needed research in a number of fields. Watershed research centers have also been established in several locations. It is important that these facilities be staffed as rapidly as possible in order to take advantage of their research potential. It is recommended that additional funds be provided in fiscal year 1965 as follows:

[blocks in formation]

State College, Miss. (poultry management in relation to diseases) -

Columbia, Mo. (biological control of insects) -

Fargo, N. Dak. (metabolism and radiation research).

Tucson, Ariz_.

$50,000 65,000

400, 000

50,000

50,000

100, 000

65,000

50,000

75,000

80,000

320,000

60,000

30,000

45, 000

Watershed research centers:

Chickasha, Okla..

Columbia, Mo----

Beltsville, Md. (Hydrograph Center) ----.

60,000

There follows a justification of the increases needed for each of these facilities.

Soil and water research

Riverside, Calif., $50,000.—The U.S. Salinity Laboratory is the national center for basic research on the use of saline waters for agriculture and on the reclamation and management of saline and sodic soils. The increasing competition for water and the demand for conservation and wise use of the Nation's water resources places agricultural usage in some jeopardy. Ways and means must be found to utilize poorer quality water for agriculture since the better water will be demanded for urban and industrial uses. There are tremendous demands on this laboratory for information in support of the Nation's effort in the field of water for plant growth.

In 1958, funds were provided for an addition to the Laboratory to expand this work. However, no additional funds have been provided for operation of this facility as planned. In fact, with the increasing costs of conducting research, the adequate equipping of it has not been possible. The increase proposed would provide for shoring up the existing programs of research, including some of the urgently needed new equipment. Current research covers reactions between dissolved and absorbed constituents, chemical conditions in relation to plant growth, diagnostic techniques for salt-affected soils, water composition, and reactions occurring when salt-affected soils are irrigated and drained.

Watkinsville, Ga., $65,000.-This field station carries on investigations in the conservation and management of soil and water resources leading toward a more permanent and profitable agriculture in the Southern Piedmont land resource area of the Southeastern United States. The soils in this high rainfall region of the United States have been thoroughly leached and adding fertilizer for big yields of grass is not enough. The forage produced must have balanced nutrients that promote good animal growth in the rapidly expanding grass-cattle type of agriculture in the Southeast.

The proposed increase would permit the new addition to the chemical Laboratory scheduled for completion early in the fiscal year 1965 to become operational. The increase would provide for the detailed chemical assays of soils and plant materials necessary to interpret the effect of soil and water management and fertility practices on the feed value of forages by farm animals. This would per

mit a broadening of the research effort of this facility so that a more complete program of research involving, in addition to present studies, basic work in soil structure, biochemistry, and chemistry of soil and vegetative materials could be carried on.

Twin Falls, Idaho, $400,000.-The proposed increase would provide for further staffing of this new facility, acquiring major equipment and instrumentation; for utilities, supplies, and other operating costs for more effective utilization of the new plant.

Research at this location involves a search for necessary new technology for sound, effective, and efficient soil and water conservation and management practices, methods, and equipment for the Snake River plains and associated resource areas, extending from Wyoming across southern Idaho, northern Utah, and Nevada into central Oregon. Past and present soil and water research by all organizations involved in this area is grossly inadequate to provide answers so badly needed by the Soil Conservation Service, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and other Federal and State agencies to provide effective technical recommendations for sound management and development of water and land resources of this region.

This $850,000 physical plant was completed and occupied on October 30, 1963. The limited research program at Boise was transferred there. The staff presently consists of four professional employees, one technician, a wage board employee and a secretary. Funds available in fiscal year 1964 are sufficient only for two additional employees, the acquisition of bare essentials in supplies and routine equipment, and payment of minimal utility and operating costs incident to the limited programs now getting underway. In order to provide for some of the most urgent equipment and maintenance needs $63,000 has been made available from the contingency research fund in fiscal year 1964.

Sidney, Mont., $50,000.-The new laboratory expected to be available late in fiscal year 1965, will provide for both applied and basic research on wind and water erosion control, and moisture conservation practices for efficient farming and ranching on the Joplin and associated soils in the northern plains and particularly in the States of Montana and Wyoming. The proposed increase is the minimum required for essential program planning, facility development, and equipment purchase in order to prepare for program implementation on problems of greatest urgency when the facility is completed.

This increase would permit employment of a scientist and two supporting employees, limited purchase of scientific equipment and apparatus, and a limited implementation of the research program.

Mandan, N. Dak., $50,000.—The existing research program is concerned with developing improve practices for efficient utilization of soil and water resources for forage and other crop production on the extensive dry crop and range lands of the Williams-Morton-Bainesville soils of the Northern Great Plains. This proposed increase is needed for development of an expanded soil and water research program in anticipation of completion of construction of additional facilities in the summer of 1965. It would permit limited initiation of research on the development of soil and water management practices for lands proposed for irrigation development in the Garrison project of North Dakota and the Oahe project in South Dakota. It would also permit purchase of some scientific equipment and apparatus which is urgently needed in support of the existing program.

Florence, S.C., $100,000.-The Middle and Upper Coastal Plain area constitutes one of the most challenging areas for agricultural development in the southeast. The laboratory-office building now under construction at Florence is in the heart of this 30-million acre region in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Present and future agricultural production in this area is dependent upon early solution of basic soil management problems which include excessive soil crusting and compaction, increasingly serious water and wind erosion problems, and new problems of balancing fertility practices against new production practices. Of equal importance is the solution of problems to control excess water on croplands and to develop practices that will effectively conserve water and spring moisture supplies to meet periods of moisture deficiency during the growing season. New techniques for developing quality water supplies from streams, ponds, and shallow acquifers are needed to develop a more effective agricultural program in this

area.

Early planning and initiation of expanded research at this location is of the utmost urgency. The construction of the laboratory-office building is expected to

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