hard choices as to how to protect these individuals and at the same time protect the river for all people's enjoyment.

Before I conclude, Mr. Chairman, let me say that to all Arizonians present today, whether you have problems with the Colorado River or whether immigration problems or whether it is the problems of the Indian tribes of Arizona or whatever problems Arizonians have, when your Congressman Mo Udall speaks in Washington from his powerful position as chairman of this Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, not only does the entire Congress hear of your concerns but the American people hear, too.

So I commend the Representatives you have sent to Washington like Mo Udall. I am delighted to join with him in these hearings and with my colleague from Nevada, Mr. Reid, Congressman McCain from here in Arizona, and Congressman Stump from Arizona, also.

Í look forward to the hearings today and pledge my assistance in working with the chairman of the Interior Committee and Congress to solve your problems.

The CHAIRMAN. I like that part of your statement Congressman Rahall, so we will give you more time on that, if you need it. All right, we will go to Congressman Reid.

Mr. REID. Chairman Udall, I appreciate the opportunity of being able to participate in your committee.

As some of you may know, I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Representatives, and we have scheduled, approximately 30 days from now, some hearings that will be held to deal with other jurisdictional problems that relate to this problem that we have with the Colorado River.

I represent the greater Las Vegas area. I represent the areas that include the Davis Dam and the Hoover Dam. I, of course, represent the city of Las Vegas which is famous for its neon and its great weather and things of that nature, but even though we are dependent on many different things to make our city a success, we understand that if we are going to remain the entertainment capital of the world and place for leisure time activities, we must depend more on the Colorado River because the Colorado River is really what has made Las Vegas what it is.

It is the single most important thing in the chain of survival in my district. Without water we cannot survive; we cannot grow.

To me and everyone else in my district, water is the most critical issue. Because of the importance of water as the issue in my district it is imperative that we take advantage of this time provided by the Interior Committee to better understand, control, and utilize this river for the benefit of everyone.

That is why I seek, and I think we all seek at this hearing, not to find fault or to certainly cast aspersions on any one group or any one agency but to develop the facts of what happened and why.

But I think it is important that we, and that I recognize the work that has been done these past many weeks by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, Bob Broadbent. We have all depended on him a great deal to put at our disposal the assets that he has in the Bureau of Reclamation to provide information for us, staff time, and even though a lot of the attention has been directed to the Bureau of Reclamation for many reasons I personally ap

plaud and commend Commissioner Broadbent for the work he has done in helping us get to the facts of this case.

I certainly am looking forward to the facts as they develop here. It is important to recognize that these hearings are the beginning of a tedious process to come to the Congress so that we can recommend perhaps legislation to the entire Congress.

I want to thank the witnesses for the time that they have taken to come here and give us their time and provide their information to us and again, Chairman Udall, I appreciate very much the time that you have taken to provide this opportunity for all of us to perhaps better understand this great body of water called the Colorado.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, very much.

With that, Congressman McCandless of California, who is very interested in this matter and has worked closely with us.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the distinguished chairman of the House Interior Committee inviting me here and for his statement last night, as I was passing through the agricultural inspection station, that I was neither a fruit, a nut, or a vegetable. I am especially appreciative of being seated to the far right of center for these hearings.

I would like to emphasize that the Colorado River is a resource that deserves the best possible management because of its high level agricultural and recreational impacts on all of the States involved, and the need to handle those resources in the best possible way.

I appreciate again, Mr. Chairman, your invitation to join in this process.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have you here and for all your help in trying to find answers.

We will start with the first witness, Governor of the State of Arizona, Bruce Babbitt.

Before he begins, let me make a few more housekeeping announcements.

In view of the interest in these hearings, I am not going to call for the usual luncheon break of a couple hours. We have to get to Needles for a similar hearing tomorrow and we want to finish here at a good hour today.

We will play leapfrog and have one or two of us here while the other two go next door to get a sandwich. We will try to get to the witnesses as soon as we can and we will work through the luncheon hour. We would hope that witnesses will limit their statements, except for the Governor and the Members, to 5 minutes if you can, which will save us time for questions for the witnesses. Our first witness is the Governor of Arizona, the Honorable Bruce Babbitt. Welcome to our hearings, Governor. We will be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF HON. BRUCE BABBITT, GOVERNOR OF THE

STATE OF ARIZONA

Governor BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I certainly speak for all of the residents of the State in thanking you personally for bringing this committee and its members to Yuma.

I think most of us recognize the configuration and shape and productivity of this river is in large measure the result of your efforts going clear back to the resolution of the Marble Canyon-Bridge Canyon controversies of the 1960's. Also the configuration and authorization and planning for the central Arizona project, and for the Mohawk project and its operation, and the salinity control issues with Mexico. Once again I acknowledge and thank you on behalf of all Arizonians.

I welcome Congressman McCain, Congressman Stump, Mr. Rahall, Mr. Reid, Mr. McCandless. We are very grateful for your willingness to come to the far corners of this remote State to address this problem. I will keep my remarks brief. Most of my points will be followed up by Mr. Steiner, and other representatives of the State.

Congressman Udall, I believe, characterized the problem correctly when he said this is a unique event in the history of the river. For the first time in the history of the Colorado River the large storage lands are all in place, the system is full, and brimming over. It has never happened before and inevitably it poses questions, and it is time for reexamination and possibly for some changes.

Mr. Steiner will tell you that in his opinion the Bureau of Reclamation operated the system correctly according to the criteria in effect. He will be backed up by Myron Holbert of California, Steve Reynolds of New Mexico, water engineers from all the basin States.

At the outset there was some problem with the Bureau in terms of communication. There was a lot of frustration here in Yuma, along the Parker Strip, because of the inability to get everybody together and anticipate and discuss and plan appropriately. That is a lesson we have learned. Water engineers met in Phoenix with Commissioner Broadbent at my invitation last week and I believe we are now putting into place consultative mechanisms and meeting mechanisms to make certain that we know who is on first and that we communicate quickly and effectively as problems arise again.

As Congressman McCain suggested, it is certainly appropriate to reexamine the guidelines under which the Bureau operated and operates the river. That reexamination will surface significant tradeoffs, generation of hydroelectric power, recreation, and flood control. I don't know that those criteria should be changed. I never really had to get into that issue before. It has never been particularly a pressing issue.

I would suggest to you that the real issue is flood control and recreation and hydroelectric power; and not whether or not the Bureau did a competent job. They did. They ran the river according to the guidelines.

General Tanguy will talk with you about the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and he will be critical. FEMA,

much to our disappointment, has not responded with any sense of urgency or energy to this crisis.

FEMA has thus far failed to proclaim its willingness to aid in construction of public facilities. We had an encephalitis problem from flooded areas, and the State health department has begun mosquito spraying. We have exhausted a lot of resources. Normally FEMA as a routine part of its disaster aid would be up against that issue helping. They have so far failed to respond at all.

We have in the Yuma area a serious ground water problem which I will discuss briefly. FEMA has been unwilling to lend any aid or assistance with the ground water problem. The summation of that is that I think the efforts of this committee, as you question witnesses, will appropriately be directed to why it is, at least in our perception of State officials, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not been aggressive or forthcoming.

Last, as we look toward the future mitigation and all related issues, I think it is appropriate to ask some questions about what the State and local governments have been doing about management. I suspect you will have reason to be critical of State, county, and municipal governments. I think we have a lot to learn and inevitably the State and local level will have to alter its flood plain management.

Finally in the Yuma area, in the city that we sit in today, we have a phenomenon that none of us really anticipated or expected. We have a ground water flood. We have a permanent ground water inundation which is going to cause this city, in this area, far more damage than any of the direct flood damage that we have seen along the river.

What has happened is simply that the levees along the river contain the surface flow but the elevated level of the river created a hydrostatic imbalance which results in the infiltration of ground water on the land side of the levees and the agricultural, and other areas of this city are inundated with ground water which is rendering sewer systems and water systems ineffective. We had a public health problem and we will have a long-term economic problem which is severe for agriculture and for the cities and public health. The State department of water resources is studying that problem. It is going to have to be resolved. We will have to take mitigation measures because there will be higher levels in the future, and we have a lot at stake. At this point, the alternatives under study involve dredging the river which is a possibility but there are some engineering problems. The other possibility would be to set up a well feed on the land side of the levee and be prepared to pump to keep the ground water down during the flood stages by delivering ground water back into the river channel.

I suspect that within the next few months we will be working with the local folks here, county engineers and Department of Water Resources, have a preliminary fix on the best method of mitigating this semipermanent ground water flooding.

I think at that point it is likely we will be back to the Arizona members of the delegation for a form of Federal assistance constructing whatever configuration of well fields for dredging may prove to be necessary.

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I would commend that to your attention and possibly questions for the witnesses.

Mr. Chairman, committee members, with that I would simply again reiterate on behalf of all the folks our thanks for your being here.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Governor.

Governor, we thank you for your appearance. Also, we thank you for the leadership you have taken to try to get FEMA and the Federal agencies involved through disaster assistance.

Are there questions for Governor Babbitt to my right here?
Any questions on my left?

Governor BABBITT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Bruce.

Senator DeConcini wanted to be here and he asked if I would have his statement read by Colleen Newman, so we will take that up at this point. We welcome you here.

[Prepared statement of Hon. Dennis DeConcini may be found in app. I.]

STATEMENT OF HON. DENNIS DeCONCINI, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA; PRESENTED BY COLLEEN NEWMAN MS. NEWMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator DeConcini has asked me to personally express his regrets for not being with you today. As many of you are aware, Senator Henry Jackson was a true friend of Western States. Because of Senator DeConcini's close working relationship concerning the Western States and his personal close relationship with Senator Jackson, he felt that it was necessary to attend the funeral services today.

I appreciate the opportunity to read the testimony of Senator DeConcini.

Mr. Chairman, it is indeed unfortunate that these hearings have to be held. It is not only unfortunate, but frustrating that we have to begin to unravel the sequence of events that resulted in such widespread and damaging flooding-when such a likelihood was clearly prophesied by so many people for so long. Such prophesies began before 1977 and, ironically, it was the Bureau of Reclamation which was the most emphatic in predicting damage of this kind.

I became seriously concerned that we were not prepared in 1979 after we had a higher runoff than normal that year. I asked the Department of Interior representatives, including the Bureau of Land Management, a series of questions at the appropriations hearings. I was assured at that time, by the Assistant Secretary, that public hearings would be held, and that there would be a better operation plan for the Colorado River.

In fact, the next year, 1980, runoff in the Colorado River was again well above normal, and the Bureau released water from Hoover Dam in excess of downstream water user requirements and Mexico treaty obligations. Those extra releases were limited to 19,000 cubic feet per second and caused no flooding problems. The Bureau Commissioner at that time told me he was optimistic that the Bureau's operating plan would keep adequate storage space in