losses of more than a million dollars would have been prevented had Dayton Reservoir been in operation during those floods.

Other recently authorized projects and those presently in the blueprint stage reflect similar environmental planning. Some wildlife refuges will be developed, some fish hatcheries will be built, and systems for extensive water salvage will be incorporated in a number of projects to improve the quality of waterways plagued by salinity and sedimentation.

Devils Lake in North Dakota was once a famed resort and fishery but is now unused because of extreme saltiness of the water; it will be restored as a feature of the Garrison Diversion Unit being constructed by the Bureau. Also, major recreational areas will be developed at eight water impoundments on the project, while fish and wildlife resources will be developed at nearly 40 locations.

The benefits to fish and wildlife habitat enhancement are among the most important environmental results of Reclamation development. Some of the best fishing in the West is to be found in reservoirs behind Reclamation dams.

A notable example is the recently built Flaming Gorge Reservoir; it has become a magnet for anglers, who caught 3.7 million fish in the depths of the lake during its first five years. The 35-mile stretch of the Green River below

the dam, which previously supported only negligible fishing because of siltation, is now recognized as one of the top trout fisheries of the Nation. In 1969 it yielded more than 25,000 trout. The managed release of clear, cold oxygenated water from the reservoir created this fabulous fishery and others on Reclamation projects throughout the West.

Managed releases from reservoirs also make possible nesting areas for waterfowl. The osprey, a large fish-eating hawk, whose numbers have been rapidly diminishing, has found an ideal home on Reclamation's Crane Prairie Reservoir in northwestern Oregon. The reservoir water has backed up into an area of dead lodgepole pine trees which suit the osprey perfectly as foundations for its nests. Located in the Deschutes National Forest, the reservoir section is being developed by the Forest Service as the Nation's first management area to preserve breeding grounds for this species that was in danger of extinction.

Not only reservoirs and regulated rivers but canals and ditches of distribution and drainage systems provide wildlife benefits on Reclamation projects. Irrigated fields are responsible for a phenomenal rise in pheasant population in the Dakotas and neighboring States as well as for an increase in non-game song birds. Excellent fishing has been developed in some of the large canals.

One of the Bureau's latest innovations to improve fishing in the West is the creation of artificial spawning beds for fall chinook salmon on the Tehama-Colusa Canal under construction in California.

A 3.2-mile canal stretch just below Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the Sacramento River is being developed to serve the dual purpose of salmon nursery and conveyance channel for irrigation water. In its delivery-room capacity the waterway will offer near-ideal conditions for spawning: Carefully selected gravel, water of the proper temperature flowing at a controlled velocity and with its naturally high oxygen content unimpaired.

Some of the salmon headed for the upper reaches of the river to spawn will be guided into this canal section to lay their eggs. Later, as the hatched fry emerge from their graveled sanctuary, they will be swept gently downstream to begin their journey to the sea. Four years later, their life span nearing its close, they will swim back to their birthplace to spawn and thus become the founding generation of the Tehama-Colusa strain of salmon.

The instability of the channel of the lower Colorado River, together with erosion of the banks and consequent heavy silting, has long posed problems related both to water supply and to the environment.

About 25 percent of expenditures of the Bureau's program there goes for fish and wildlife and recreation features to meet the requirements of the dozen or more Federal, State, and county recreation areas and wildlife refuges located along the river below Lake Mead.

Improvement of the quality of the water is being accomplished by reducing the amount of sediment transported. Dredging of selected stretches of the river and the contemplated control of phreatophyte growth along the banks will salvage much water, leaving sufficient cover to provide wildlife habitat.

The marshland in the area actually owes its existence to Reclamation dams and other regulating facilities on the river. There were almost no marshes in the lower Colorado basin prior to 1935, when Hoover Dam was built, because the streams in the area dried up every year in the late summer. Now marshes, with their fish and resident and migratory waterfowl populations, occupy between 10,000 and 20,000 acres of the valleys of the lower river.

One of the most ambitious plans for overall environmental preservation and enhancement is being undertaken at the Grand Coulee Dam area on the Columbia River in Washington. There the Bureau is building a third powerplant which will make the Coulee power facility one of the largest hydroelectric installations in the world. (A noteworthy aspect of hydroelectricity is that it produces no pollution side-effects.)

The architectural concept of the third powerplant building, the forebay dam and related facilities also calls for an attractive visitors' center and tour circuit system which includes an outside glass-enclosed elevator and viewing galleries to enable visitors to see the details of the installation as well as the beauties of landscape and riverscape.

The aim of the Grand Coulee environmental plan is to meld the natural beauty of the area and its unique geological history with the manmade features of the great dam, its reservoir and the powerplant. This should make Grand Coulee, already an outstanding tourist attraction, a world-famous showplace.

Looking beyond the third powerplant construction, the Bureau contracted with a second architectural firm to develop a coordinated master environmental and recreation plan for the area surrounding the complex. Federal, State, and local government agencies and other organizations have been invited to participate in formulating and carrying out comprehensive environmental planning through an advisory council. The panel will consider such activities as zoning, routing of highways, parking areas, public utilities, schools, hospitals and development of the tremendous scenic and recreational potential of the area. Thus, the civic, industrial and social development of the entire area can be coordinated.

The Columbia Basin project, of which Grand Coulee Dam is a principal feature, has already had a significant impact on the basin. In addition to upgrading agricultural production and producing great quantities of hydroelectric power at Grand Coulee, it has sparked growth and progress in many small towns and has been directly responsible for establishment of some new towns. As the Nation seeks to solve the problem of overcrowded urban areas, with their teeming, ugly ghettoes, the development of smaller communities in the West-furnishing opportunities for employment and pleasant living in a clean environment, with easy access to open spaces-presents a possible solution.

Supplying water for municipal and industrial use has assumed an increasingly prominent position in the Reclamation program as larger numbers of people and businesses have moved West.

The accelerated demand of industry for electric energy

has stimulated development of the coal deposits of the West to provide fuel for thermal-generating plants in locations where water, as well as coal, is available. Unlike hydropower generation, steam generation involves the prospects of air and water polluting by-products. To combat this danger, the Bureau of Reclamation includes provisions in its contracts requiring strict compliance with air and water pollution control measures.

Since 1962, the Bureau of Reclamation has been conducting research into weather modification with a view to helping resolve water resource problems, especially in the arid West. By selectively seeding clouds and storm systems in the mountains, the amount of precipitation can be significantly increased in the upper reaches of the western river systems, resulting in greater storage in Reclamation reservoirs. It is estimated that up to 2 million acre-feet of water can be added annually to the Colorado River storage by cloud seeding, a circumstance that would go far toward relieving the drastic water shortage in that basin. Managing the atmosphere by seeding and other methods being investigated by both public and private interests can help solve many water-related problems by augmenting stream flows during low flow to aid in reducing pollution; diminishing the damaging effects of hail, drought and flood; and lowering fire hazards. Also, increased precipitation can aid in scouring pollutants from the atmosphere, thereby cleaning the air.

A study conducted for the Bureau to investigate effects of weather modification on the ecology concluded that the changes in animal and plant life resulting from the seeding program would be very gradual and that no catastrophic changes in ecosystems are anticipated.

Early in 1970, the Bureau contracted with a private firm for a cloudseeding pilot project in the San Juan range of the southwestern Colorado Rocky Mountains. At the same time, it engaged three Colorado educational institutions to plan a comprehensive ecological monitoring program in the area before any actual seeding is commenced. By such means, ecological changes can be identified and steps taken to avert or mitigate undesirable effects and to promote beneficial aspects of the operation.

Another seeding pilot project is underway in the Truckee-Carson River basin in California and Nevada. The five-year program is being accomplished by an educational institute under contract to the Bureau, in the hope that it will point the way to increasing the inflow into Pyramid Lake. During the past few years, this trout fishery has suffered as a result of a steadily lowering water level, and increased precipitation in the headwaters should help alleviate the debasement of the fish habitat as well as provide an adequate water supply for other water users.

"Project Skywater," Reclamation's atmospheric water resources program, constitutes one of the brightest prospects for meeting today's environmental crisis. It holds. great promise for preventing depredations to the living land that is America.