(a) Size of location and a map of the watershed. (b) Description of the physical, economic, and social conditions in the watershed. (c) An estimate of the extent of flood, sediment, erosion, and water management damages, needs for improved water management, recreation, fish and wildlife resource improvement, water supply, and opportunities envisioned for improving the environment which is dependent on the land and water resources. (d) An estimate of the alternative measures which might be applicable in improving conditions in the watershed and an indication of feasibility for a Public Law 566 project. (e) Probable sources of non-Federal financing. (f) Information on the qualifications of the sponsoring local organizations which would indicate ability to fulfill non-Federal obligations. Assistance for completing an application is available from the local soil conservation service office. Prior to submitting the application, the sponsoring local organization gives proper notification of its intent to the appropriate planning and development clearinghouses (OMB Circular A-95). Any comments received will be considered by the sponsors and attached to the application. The clearinghouse is kept informed of all future actions in regard to the watershed. The application is signed by each sponsoring local organization and addressed to the Secretary of Agriculture. However, the application is submitted through the Governor, or his designee, of the concerned State, for concurrence. Following receipt of a valid application, a field examination is carried out by the responsible State agency, technical specialists of the SCS, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and other interested agencies, both Federal and State. If the State agency disapproves the application, it notifies the local organization. If it approves, it sends the application to the SCS State Conservationist for forwarding to the Secretary of Agriculture. Based on planning priorities recommended by the State agency and other concerned Federal and State agencies, the SCS and the local organizations conduct a preliminary investigation, and reconfirm the local desire to go ahead with preparing a work plan. At this time a widely advertised public meeting is held to ensure public knowledge of the proposed project and to solicit the views of the public. The SCS State Conservationist recommends to the SCS Administrator, that detailed planning help be authorized. The Administrator notifies the local organization when help is authorized for the development of a work plan. THE PLANNING AND REVIEW PHASE The planning and review phase includes two distinct processes: (1) work plan preparation, and (2) review and approval of the work plan. The development of the work plan is the responsibility of the sponsoring local organization. During work plan preparation the Soil Conservation Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and other interested Federal and State agencies assist the local organization by making detailed field studies to determine the various alternate measures that may be installed, the cost of these measures and the resulting benefits. After a project has been formulated, the local organization prepares a draft work plan with SCS assistance. The draft describes the problems, the proposed measures, the benefits, how the project will be financed, and other details of installation. The Soil Conservation Service maintains four regional technical service centers. These centers provide assistance in all technical disciplines to their assigned States. When a draft work plan is completed, the State Conservationist forwards copies to the SCS Regional Technical Service Center for technical review and to the Washington office for administrative policy review. At the same time, a preliminary draft of an environmental impact statement is sent to the Washington office. After administrative and technical review of the plan and draft environmental statement, the SCS administrator authorizes the State conservationist to prepare a final plan and hold informal field reviews with the local sponsoring agency and interested Federal and State agencies at the filed level. A second public meeting is required by our policy at this time to again assure public knowledge and to receive comments from any individual or group. Many times, several additional meetings are held throughout the field investigations and plan preparation. After the informal field review, the local organizations sign the watershed work plan agreement. The State conservationist forwards the plan together with the revised draft of environmental statement to the SCS Washington office. During the review and approval phase of those plans requiring approval by congressional committees, the administrator transmits copies of the work plan and the draft environmental statement to other Federal agencies and the State Governor for review and comment. The draft environmental statement is also submitted to the State, regional and metropolitan clearinghouse for review at this time. Upon receipt of comments, consideration is given to the recommendations and the plan is revised, if necessary. A final environmental statement is prepared to accompany the final plan and a copy of the final statement is sent to the Council on Environmental Quality. Next, the plan and environmental statement are sent through the Department of Agriculture to the Office of Management and Budget which transmits it to Congress. Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives approve the plan before Federal assistance is made available. If the estimated Federal contribution to construction cost does not exceed $250,000 and the work plan does not contain any single structure having a total capacity of more than 2,500 acre-feet, the work plan may be approved administratively by the Soil Conservation Service. The review procedure for such plans and environmental statements is very similar to those requiring approval by the committee of Congress except that the comments of other Federal agencies are solicited at the State level by the State Conservationist and the plan is not sent to the Office of Management and Budget until after it is approved for installation. A copy of the final environmental statement is filed with the Council on Environmental Quality before the plan is approved. Less than 30 percent of all work plans fall into this category. THE OPERATIONS PHASE The SCS administrator allocates funds for watershed projects from money appropriated each year by Congress. The local organization is generally responsible for needed soil and water conservation treatment. SCS technicians and others can provide additional technical assistance to accomplish this work during the time specified in the work plan. Engineers make field surveys and prepare designs and specifications for construction. The SCS and the local organization enter into a project agreement covering each potential contract for the construction of works of improvement. This agreement is the basis for obligating Federal funds, except in cases where the sponsors request the SCS to handle the contracting for them. In the latter, the actual contract becomes the Federal obligating document. The major responsibilities of the local organization are to 1. Acquire land easements and rights-of-way needed for structures or other improvements on private land. 2. Let contracts for construction or request the Federal agency to administer contracts and enter into an agreement covering each contract for construction (or for land rights for recreation or fish and wildlife development). 3. Obtain agreements from farmers and ranchers to plan and apply soil and water conservation measures and provide assurance of the application of a high percentage of these land treat ment measures. 4. Comply with State laws governing watershed improvements, water rights, or specifications for structures. In most projects a certain amount of land treatment is dependent upon the installation of structural measures to make it possible or practical to complete the needed land treatment work. The SCS continues to provide needed technical assistance during this final stage of the operations phase. TIME LAPSES IN MAJOR PROCESSING STEPS To make my remarks about processing time meaningful to this committee, I would like to start by placing the topic in its proper perspective with respect to overall national needs and goals for protecting and preserving our natural environment. The importance of this work was probably as well stated as anywhere by Dr. Henry L. Algren, Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, in a lecture series presented at the USDA Graduate School in November and December 1970 when he said: I believe that what happens in non-metropolitan America in the next 20 to 25 years will determine-in a large measure-the future of our country. I have no doubt of this. I, too, firmly believe this. Thus, we welcome the opportunity to consider with this committee every possible way to improve the processing steps of the Public Law 566 program to make it more responsible to overall national needs. I will begin by describing 1. Size of the job. 2. Where we are in each major phase. 3. Current progress in relation to size of job. APPRAISING THE JOB AHEAD The 1968 revision of the Soil and Water Conservation Needs Inventory shows over 19,000 upstream watershed areas with resource problems. About 8,900 containing over 726 million acres, or about onethird of all land in the United States and Puerto Rico, are considered feasible for project action at this time (chart 1). By the end of fiscal year 1970, 2,885 applications had been received. Planning assistance has been authorized on 1,561 of these, and 1,001 projects, or about 12.5 percent of the potential, have been approved for operations. Construction had been started on 724 and completed on 291. All planned work had been installed on 273 projects covering 8.9 million acres. Up until 1966, watershed sponsors had been submitting applications at the rate of about 200 per year; however, our planning resources have been sufficient to service only about half this number. By 1966, the backlog of unserviced applications had reached almost 1,300 and the waiting time had extended from about 2 to 4 or more years. MAJOR PROCESSING PHASES Processing time can best be considered under three major phases. Chart 2 shows that applications which were authorized for planning are presently averaging about 4 years in the application stage. It also shows that the plans approved for operations are averaging a little over 2 years in plan preparation and slightly less than 2 years in the review process for a total of another 4 years before any installation work can be started. This chart shows that the projects in which construction has started have averaged slightly under 2 years in the preconstruction stage; those in which construction has been completed have averaged from 4 to 5 years in construction; and the completion of all planned work is averaging another 1 to 2 years. In total, the projects which have moved through each successive phase are averaging a little over 15 years from receipt of application to completion. APPLICATION PHASE The next chart (chart 3) shows that a very definite trend has occurred in the length of time projects have remained in the application stage. Chart 4 shows the gap is widening and that the backlog time can be expected to be about 8 years by the time applications on hand can be serviced. PLANNING PHASE The average amount of time required for a project to progress through the planning and review phase has doubled during the period from 1968 to 1970. Chart 5 shows that by the end of fiscal year 1968, the time lapse from beginning of planning to approval of the work plan had stabilized at about 2 years. Work plans approved in fiscal years 1969 and 1970 required approximately 4 years to go through this same process. Our records indicate that at present this increase is about equally proportioned between work plan preparation and the review stages. Planning and review time for the 1970 work plans increased considerably. Planning began on the average plan in this group in fiscal year 1966. During the period between 1966 and 1970 the Soil Conservation Service has been striving for complete development of land and water resources in each watershed. We worked diligently to incorporate recreation, irrigation, municipal water supply, and fish and wildlife development in every watershed work plan where a need existed for such measures. We have worked with the residents of each of these watersheds to include measures that will stimulate economic conditions and improve the environment in which they live. Complete land and water resource planning takes additional time and manpower. More alternate solutions must be investigated and more decisions reached. Other governmental agencies, both Federal and State, are also taking more interest in providing technical recommendations during work plan development. OPERATIONS PHASE A detailed analysis of lapsed time for completed projects showed no significant change or trend in time required for the preconstruction phase. The work in this phase includes surveys, investigations, preparation of detailed designs, specifications, and engineering cost estimates for construction of structural work. It also includes technical assistance for applying land treatment for watershed protection. The project construction stage begins with the execution of the first project agreement or Federal contract for construction of structural works of improvement. This obligates the Government to furnish its share of the construction costs. By July 1, 1970, construction work was underway on 433 projects and had been completed on 291. Chart 6 shows no significant change in the time required for the construction stage from 1959 up until about 1967. Since that time, there has been a definite and steady increase from an average of about 3.5 years to nearly 5 years in 1970. The chart also shows that the completion of all land treatment work in the final stage of the operations phase has remained about constant throughout the entire period. The increase of construction time has resulted in a backlog of construction work as shown on chart 8. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal testimony. I will be glad to try to answer any questions the committee may have. Mr. WRIGHT. Without objection, the charts supporting Mr. Williams' statement will appear at this point. (The supporting charts follow:) |