back within a year with the recommendation for the best type of prototype plant. But it is not in our bill. Mr. HOSMER. In connection with the appropriations there is an appropriation authorization for fiscal 1972, and an additional 3 years in one of the bills, and something else in another. Would you try to make it simple enough for me to understand? Mr. O'MEARA. H.R. 5334 extends the program for 5 years, with 2 additional years to complete the work that is underway, and 1 year to write the final reports. The bill, H.R. 7366, sent forward by the administration extends the program for 5 years, and provides 3 additional years to complete the work, plus 1 additional year to write the reports. Mr. HOSMER. And really the substance of the difference is in the 12 months. Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Mr. HOSMER. On a termination of the program only? But there is some other difference. Mr. O'MEARA. In H.R. 5334 it calls for the termination of the program at the end of 5 years, or at the end of 4 years, to submit a report to the Congress on the recommendations for future activities in desalination. The administration bill does not require that report at the end of 4 years. Mr. HOSMER. To get back to this research and development for a moment, this is the one that over the years we have had difficulty with. Mr. O'MEARA. No, sir; we really have not had difficulty with the program over the years. We got into difficulty with this program when we went into the Jidda project and became an agent for a foreign government. This is beyond anything we were asking for in this authorization. Mr. HOSMER. As I recollect, there was a little more to it than the Jidda project only. We were complaining about the Government getting into the A and E business and the Jidda project with R. & D. money. We were essentially taking a "Buy America" attitude, particularly in relation to the fact that all the work done is public. Some of the work that is done overseas is paid for but comes back with a restricted classification or a proprietary label on it. Mr. O'MEARA. On anything that we buy we have full entitlement to that information, Mr. Hosmer. Mr. HOSMER. I understand that. But you may be subsidizing research in country X on an American contract with someone who at the same time may be working in the same laboratory for some firm of his own country, or even for his own country which classifies his results. Now this individual gentleman, I do not know who his loyalties are to, and where his best efforts are going, whether into our contract or the one he has with his own country. Mr. O'MEARA. Dr. Gillam has assured me that from the limited amount of research work that we have sponsored overseas we have indeed had a good return on our investment. We have received some information that has resulted in patents. We have obtained at least one new process as a result of this kind of work. Mr. HOSMER. What about the fellow over in Israel who wants to get all the money to finance the plan in Israel on his patent? Mr. O'MEARA. That is another question, Mr. Hosmer. There is a proposal that has been submitted to AID from the Government of Israel for the construction of a prototype desalting plant using an Israeli design, and for the construction of this prototype plant in Israel under funds that were made available through the Foreign Assistance Act. The Office of Saline Water has been asked to evaluate the Israeli proposal. And we will send to AID our technical evaluation at the end of this month. Mr. HOSMER. Will they tell you what their heat transfer system is? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir, we have a complete enough report of their program so that we can make a good analysis of their process. Mr. HOSMER. You have got a similar one, haven't you? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes. Mr. HOSMER. Will you resolve the questions of who has patents and who has not? Because this gentleman over in Israel is liable to try to pick up a royalty on something the Americans really have invented. Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, I would assume that the process would be patented in Israel. I do not know of anything that would prevent them from patenting it in the United States. I cannot speak to the rules that AID may establish on a grant that they may make. Mr. HOSMER. There is another provision of the administration bill that is different. I refer to the provision which makes the liability of the United States contingent upon appropriations being available in connection with any of these partnership projects. Mr. O'MEARA. Yes. Mr. HOSMER. Would you say why that provision should be in the law? Mr. O'MEARA. We do not believe that we should ask for the authority to make any commitments beyond the authorization granted to us by the Congress. We would expect to come back each year for an appropriation, and only subject to the approval of that appropriation would we be able to continue such a project. Mr. HOSMER. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. I am glad to have you gentlemen back, because we were rather abbreviated this morning. And there are matters involved in this program and in the testimony that I think ought to be clarified for the record. I believe that the current technology yields distilled water, purified water in the range of something like 75 cents per thousand gallons, is that correct? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Desalting seawater, one plant operating at 72-million-gallons-per-day capacity is producing water in that cost range. Mr. McCLURE. And on the first page of your statement, Mr. O'Meara, you have indicated that you will discontinue programs with no promise of 10 to 20 percent improvement over existing technology. Would it be fair to apply that to a cost? Are we talking about 712 to 15 cent reduction in the cost of this distilled water? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. We are not interested in developing two processes that will produce fresh water from seawater for 75 cents a thousand gallons in a 712-million-gallon-per-day plant. Unless we can show that can improve existing processes, there is no reason for the Office of Saline Water to support that kind of research. Mr. MCCLURE. A lot of research is a guesstimate at best, isn't it? Mr. O'MEARA. And the judgment factor has to be applied; yes, sir. Mr. MCCLURE. And a lot of research projects that we enter upon do not yield the results we expect? Mr. O'MEARA. Absolutely. Mr. McCLURE. Really you cannot assure this committee that a year from now that we will have a program that will yield those kinds of results, even though we have programs between now and then? Mr. O'MEARA. No. But what I can assure the committee is that we will not be sponsoring programs that we think will not overachieve what is presently available. Mr. McCLURE. The reason I mention this is because we have heard testimony, as you have indicated-you have been sitting in the back of the room for several years, and we have heard testimony for several years that we are going to get these breakthroughs every year. Mr. O'MEARA. Mr. McClure, it is my position to put the water in the bucket and then talk about the cost. Mr. McCLURE. I think that is fair. But here we are talking about a judgmental factor in which you seem to assure us that we are going to have these kind of results. And we had directors sitting down in that chair before that said we were going to have these results, and we never have had them yet. Mr. O'MEARA. If I can come back to a statement I made earlier this morning about the Foss Reservoir, we now have an opportunity to establish, in a real water situation, a desalting plant by competitive bids, and the best process on the market would be the one that would win. The judgment would be made on the cost of the product water from that project, and that would establish for us a very clear base line of where brackish desalting technology exists today. I think when that base line is established we will have some pleasant news for this committee. Mr. McCLURE. One other thing of concern to me was the direction with which you perceive the OSW to be taking in the coming year. If I understand your statement, do you expect a change in goals of the OSW, a broadening of goals; is that a correct paraphrasing of the testimony we have heard today! Mr. O'MEARA. Not so much goals as the way we will conduct the program. This comes to the point that you are making, Mr. McClure, and that is, we have to apply this technology to show the people who need the water exactly what desalting technology can accomplish. Mr. MCCLURE. So it is not simply a matter of developing processes now? It is a matter of demonstrating the value of those processes; is that correct? Mr. O'MEARA. That is right. We have to take technology out of the ivory tower and put it in the water world where we can show what our capabilities are. Mr. McCLURE. And this does lead us into some new fields that we have not been occupying before that are interrelated with other water resource development; is that not correct? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Mr. MCCLURE. And this is justification for our involvement with OCWD in their program? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Mr. MCCLURE. It is no longer exclusively directed toward research and development, but now toward application? Mr. O'MEARA. We have planned a development program at Orange County, but we have arranged this development program in such a way that beneficial use will be made of the product water. Mr. McCLURE. In this development, as we are now changing from finding methods to the application of those methods, we are talking about going into large-scale operations. I think the evidence before this committee in the past has indicated that actually what we did. was simply multiply modules. Is there a change in technology which changes that so that we are not now just simply adding more units as we go into large-scale plants? Mr. O'MEARA. We have been able to enlarge the size of an individual unit. And while we have not come to the final design of the proposed plant as required in this bill, the proposed larger prototype, there is the real possibility that a 50-million-gallon-per-day plant designed for that project would be two modules, with a capacity of 25 million gallons per day each. This is larger than anything that we have proposed in the past. Mr. McCLURE. And do you feel that the technology of operating a 25-million-gallon-per-day module is different than operating on one one-fifth that size? Mr. O'MEARA. There is a great deal of difference in the hydraulics of the plant, the heat transfer coefficients and the size of the pumps. It is a major technological jump to move up that much in size. Mr. McCLURE. And you anticipate this will be more efficient than operating one producing 5 million gallons per day? Mr. O'MEARA. It is simply cheaper by the dozen, and if we can get larger units, we get lower cost. Mr. McCLURE. The fellow who wrote that book either didn't have 12 children or he had not paid all the bills. You indicate that the Webster test bed is going to be closed down? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Mr. McCLURE. And I also gathered that you are not really going to close it down, you are phasing it out? Mr. O'MEARA. The test bed itself is a 250,000-gallon-a-day electrodialysis plant built in 1961. We will completely terminate the operation of the test bed. At that location we are operating some pilot plants at the present time. We also have a pretreatment system. We intend to continue to operate some of the pilot plants because of the types of water that are available at that location. But our operations will be reduced by more than half. Mr. McCLURE. You also indicated that this pretreatment plant was going to be made available to the city? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Mr. MCCLURE. Does your continuation of operations there in any way consist of a subsidy in the operation of that pretreatment? Mr. O'MEARA. No, sir; none. We have turned the pretreatment plant over to the city at a cost of $1 per year. But they will pay for the total operation. We have no inputs to the operation whatsoever. It is the city's responsibility. Mr. McCLURE. Ön page 5 of your testimony, you are referring to upgrading the waters of the Colorado River. Doesn't this always impose a tremendous difficulty in disposition of the brine, when you are operating inland? Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Brine disposal is a very significant problem and in some locations can be a very costly problem. One of the ways we are approaching this is to try and develop membrane processes that will concentrate the brine to a very high degree of concentration. One of the plants we propose to build is a plant that will recover 95 percent of the feed water. The average plant on the market today will recover about 50 percent of the feed water and we have 50 percent brine. This brine is not concentrated as nearly as much as it would be on a 95-5 basis, and the amount of brine to be disposed of would be minimized. We are studying the possibility of taking the 5 percent and further reducing it to a solid. While this would have some added cost, it minimizes the brine disposal problem. Mr. McCLURE. You have an available technology now, that is economically feasible for reducing the brine? Mr. O'MEARA. We have the technology now, but the economics are still high. Mr. McCLURE. I am sure that is true. We do in most environmental problems have an answer if we could apply enough dollars to it. Mr. O'MEARA. The problem of brine disposal is going to vary with each plant location. For example, in Webster, S. Dak., at the immediate edge of the city, is a salt lagoon and our brine has always been fed to this lagoon. It was a salt lagoon when we went in there and it will be when we leave. The brine disposal problem there was insignificant. At Roswell, N. Mex., it was our original intent to dump the brine into an arroyo and let it run out across some wasteland. But the State engineer said, "No, I am not going to have a million gallons of brine dumped in that arroyo. I don't know where it is going to go. It might get underground and contaminate some of our fresh water supply.' As a result of his edict, the city built a 97-acre pond lined with polyethylene. It was used as an evaporation pond to control the brine. We are studying deep well injection. We also are studying the possibility of going to dryness. Each location will dictate a different set of circumstances for the disposal of brine. Mr. MCCLURE. I am sure this underscores what is a difficulty to us in almost every field. Every time we try changing something, we come up with another problem. The disposal of brine is going to be a remaining problem wherever we operate, but particularly inland. Mr. O'MEARA. Yes, sir. Especially inland. But sometimes people are prone to manufacture problems. When a desalting plant was built in Plains, Tex., it was only a 100,000-gallon-per-day plant and the State water board was concerned about the brine from that plant. The brine was going right back into the same river in which the water always had been disposed. The only thing that had changed was while the water was going through the city pipes and being used by the people, it was of better quality. The amount of salt discharged in the river virtually was the same it had always been. There was no change in that. So we haven't created a new problem, we only changed the situation so the people had good water while they were using it. Mr. McKEVITT. Would the gentleman yield? Mr. McCLURE. I yield. Mr. McKEVITT. I am getting confused. Are you not getting better use of the water? For example, let us take the city. Is all of that water going back into the river? |