Issued quarterly by the Bureau of Reclamation, United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 20240. Use of funds for printing this publication approved by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, January 31, 1966.

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Water, People and Conservation

We in the Bureau of Reclamation readily share the viewpoint that the preservation of much scenic land and water in their natural state is desirable. However, conservation for useful purposes also is essential to economic growth, national strength and security. The problem is to determine when conservation and use of a vital water resource becomes more important than merely having it on standby.

We

It is a matter of being a true conservationist. cannot afford to be only dedicated preservationists, refusing practical facts and figures about human needs and ways of meeting those needs.

When we look at the growth and the continued migration of people to the larger cities, our present-day problems appear small in comparison to what we will face in just a few years.

The population of the United States approximately doubled from 1900 to 1960. During this period the water used for all purposes increased about six times. With the population expected to again double in only 35 years and the rate of water use to continue high or even increase, it is plain that development of some areas will be severely restricted unless measures are taken now.

It is obvious that we must not delay Reclamation's practical water projects which are clearly necessary and clearly feasible under policies enunciated by the Congress. No possible means of increasing our useable water supplies should be overlooked. Desalinization and pollution correction also will play key roles.

These things we must do within a framework of preserving and enhancing a beautiful America for the enjoyment and well-being of future generations.

FLOYD E. DOMINY Reclamation Commissioner

DEPOSITED BY THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Two Top Awards

for

Commissioner

Dominy

He probably does not have Spanish ancestry— not Nebraska-born Floyd E. Dominy. But the amenity and hearty responsiveness between him and the personable people of Spain make it look like he is one-of-the-family. It seemed so at the Spanish Embassy last June 2.

Because he is like the Spanish-convinced that water developments are vital to a growing nation, Reclamation Commissioner Floyd E. Dominy is in the same corral with water officials in the Government of Spain.

Ever since his welcoming in Madrid and successful study-tour of Spain's important dams and water developments in 1964, even the language barrier seems minimized.

When he left at the end of his one-week stay, the Spaniards said: "Mañana." Not Goodbye. One day soon, they would meet for a fiesta.

This was what led to the honoring event in June; one of the capstones in Mr. Dominy's life. At a reception at the Embassy, he was decorated with the highest civil order in Spain, the Comendadas de la Order de Isabella Catolica. The Great Cross was pinned on him by the Ambassador, the Marquis de Merry del Val, while Jose Toran, President of the Spanish Commission for Great Dams and his traveling companion in Spain, looked on.

Reclamation To Help, Says Sec. Udall

Pollution Control

Agency

Welcomed to Interior

HE FEDERAL Water Pollution Control Ad

The Fration has a new home

ministration has a new home in the Department of the Interior.

The pollution control agency was born 10 years ago in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare where it had grown to 1,500 employees. It was transferred to the Department of the Interior as a result of President Lyndon B. Johnson's reorganization plan announced in February and was welcomed by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall at a press conference on May 10. Appearing at the Interior Building himself on May 20, President Johnson commended Secretary

This stream typifies the kind of clean, fresh water the new Interior antipollution agency is striving for all over the Nation. It is Plateau Creek, downstream from Vega Dam in Colorado. Photo by Stan Rasmussen.

"I am proud to be here today with a Department whose mission I applaud and whose Secretary I so greatly admire . .

"The work is now your work more than ever. The transfer of Water Pollution Control to this Department gives you new responsibility and opportunity. I hope you are excited by that prospect. Your President is. Your Congress is. I know your Secretary is and that he will give every ounce of his great energy and imagination to this new challenge.

"But it is you who must meet it and surmount it. It is your energy, your imagination, your minute-by-minute enthusiasm that will decide whether we master change, or are mastered by it.

"The tides of change are running deep and swift today. There are questions which you must help to answer. Must our progress engulf us? Shall we choke

on our own success? Does our society have to tolerate filthy rivers, poisoned air, strangled cities, tangled roads? Too few parks? Too few beaches? Too little wildlife? Too much ugliness? Too little beauty? "There is only one answer. No we must not. No we will not.

"That answer has already been affirmed . . ."

Secretary Udall Concerned

Secretary Udall has had an active concern for the Nation's water values and problems-both as a Congressman and Cabinet officer. He was appointed Chairman of the President's Water Resources Council in 1965. Since that time, he headed a task force to find solutions to the Eastern drought situation, and has been working closely with Governors and Mayors in the East.

Secretary Udall said that Reclamation's antipollution work and that of other Interior agencies will be fully coordinated with existing and future pollution control programs under the FWPCA.

"The Bureau of Reclamation, with its multiple purpose water resources development program covering the Western half of the United States, has a tremendous opportunity to help out in this effort," said the Secretary.

Under Secretary Udall's administration, the basic attack on the water pollution crisis in this country will be to prevent pollution before it starts and to clean it up where it already exists, he said. The program of the new agency will relate closely not only to Interior's continuing efforts of water conservation and wise use throughout the Nation, but also to the total conservation of all natural

resources.

To Urban Areas

"In updating conservation, we have had a new philosophy of not just protection", said Secretary Udall, "but to taking conservation into urban areas. We have kept on with reclamation, building dams, and power facilities. But it is raising the quality of the environment for all people that now has become one of the main issues of the country."

In launching the agency, Secretary Udall• Invited the Governors of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania to discuss plans for an interstate agency to map pollution control steps for the Potomac River. Planned a similar meeting with Governors of the Delaware River Basin States on that river's water quality.

Sent to Governors of all 50 States general guidelines for use in drawing up water quality standards by June 30, 1967.

The Water Pollution Control Act, passed in 1956, was established to combat water pollution through grants to communities to help build waste treatment works, enforcement actions, long-range planning for river basin pollution control, and research.

In 1965 the Federal Water Quality Act was passed enlarging and strengthening the former act. At signing ceremonies President Johnson said:

"This moment marks a very proud beginning for the United States of America. Today, we proclaim our refusal to be strangled by the wastes of civilization. Today, we begin to be masters of our environment."

FWPCA Operations

Now in Interior, the FWPCA will operate laboratories, regional program offices, headquarters of river basin studies, and projects located throughout many States. More than 1,500 engineers, chemists, biologists, mathematicians and workers in many other scientific fields will carry on the work of the Administration.

The Commissioner of the agency is James M. Quigley—a former Congressman from Pennsylvania who also had been Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for 5 years.

One key section of the new Water Quality Act provides, as previously noted, for the establishment of Federal standards of water quality, which are to be set up in consultation with State and local agencies and groups. It authorizes an $80 million program to develop ways of correcting the pollutional effects of old-fashioned combined storm and sanitary sewers. A third provision increases the Federal Government's financial assistance to communities which need to build sewage treatment facilities.

The New Federal Program

The expanded Federal water pollution control program includes six main activities.

Aid to Communities.-United States cities are spending an average of $700 million annually on new, enlarged, or modernized treatment plants. To help, the Federal Government can pay up to $1,200,000 for a single project, and $4,800,000 for a multi-municipal project. It can pay even more if the State contributed an equal share.

It is also authorized to spend $20 million a year during fiscal years 1966 through 1969 to help public and private groups find better ways of combatting pollution from storm water that overflows, carrying with it the wastes from streets and sanitary sewers.

Enforcement. Because water respects no political boundaries, interstate law enforcement is necessary. A poor neighbor upstream can pollute and contaminate a river miles below. If pollution from one State endangers the health or welfare of people in another State, the Secretary of the Interior can, on his own, take Federal enforcement action.

Any Governor can request Federal enforcement assistance to deal with pollution problems which are completely within his State. Federal enforcement actions have now involved more than 7,500 miles of rivers, 1,200 municipalities, and a like number of industries.

Research. To find out what pollutants are dangerous and how they can be kept out or removed from our waterways, much more research is needed. Federal scientists are studying ways of renovating waste water, of transforming it into pure clean water again. Twelve new laboratories are being built or planned to meet regional and national water quality problems.

Conducting River Basin Programs.-Water uses and water pollution problems vary in the different river basins. This is one factor that makes river basin water pollution control programs and comprehensive studies necessary.

Federal projects in 10 major river basins are now seeking to preserve water quality there, not only for the present but for years to come. In the years ahead, these long-range river basin programs will be developed in all of this country's major basins.