OPA

The Department of the Interior announced today the transfer of Homer M. Gilliland, superintendent of the Fort Berthold Indian Agency at New Town, N. Dak., for the past two and a half years, to the post of superintendent at the Colorado River Agency, Parker, Ariz.

Gilliland succeeds John C. Dibbern, who has headed the Colorado River Agency for the past six years and is now moving to the Indian Bureau's area office at a11up, N. Mex., as assistant area director for economic development.

Before moving to Fort Berthold as superintendent in the fall of 1960, Gilliland served for six years at Colorado River first as soil conservationist and later as agency land operations officer. From 1943 to 1954, he worked as principa1- teacher and later soil conservationist at the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina. He was born at Tremont, Miss., in 1912 and has an agricultural degree from Mississippi State College. Before joining the Bureau, he worked as a public school teacher and in private industry in Mississippi.

Born at Los Angeles in 1919, Dibbern had 12 years experience in teaching and in range jobs with the Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service before joining the Indian Bureau as range conservationist at Sells, Ariz., in 1950. After four years in this position, he was appointed land operations officer at Whiteriver, Ariz., and one year later moved to the Bureau's Washington office as program officer. In 1956 he was designated assistant to the Assistant Commissioner for Resources and one year later was given the appointment as Colorado River superintendent. He holds a doctor's degree in plant ecology received from the University of Chicago in 1947.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart Lo Udall and Vernon Smith, Council President for the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community near Scottsdale, Arizona, discussed the industrial development potential of the 46,000-acre reservation on November 20.

Mr. Udall promised his support for a proposal to construct a million dollar electronic plant on the reservation. Area Redevelopment Administration financial support for the Dickson Electronic Corporation project is also being sought, Mr. Smith said. Employment for more than 200 Indians is forecast.

The Scottsdale, Arizona, Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the project and has promised its full cooperation. For several months, reservation Indians and non-Indians from the surrounding area, including representatives of the Dickson Company, have been meeting to develop plans and work out the details of the project.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of S. 3198, a bill which would permit leasing of Indian lands on all reservations for terms up to a maximum of 99 years, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

Such authority was provided for lands of the Palm Springs Reservation in California by legislation which Congress enacted last year, Mr. Ernst pointed out, and similar bills are pending in Congress which would affect lands of the Navajo Tribe, the Seminoles of Florida and the Torres-Martinez Indians of California.

Under present law, leasing of lands on reservations except for Palm Springs is limited to 25 years with an option to renew for an additional 25-year period.

“There is no reason," Mr. Ernst said, “why the authority should be granted to one tribe and denied to another. All tribes should have the authority available for use when it is needed.”

Mr. Ernst explained that difficult problems arise under present laws limiting leases to the equivalent of a 50-year period. By the time the lessee obtains financial backing, the lease has less than 50 years to run, and the Federal Reserve Act and the National Housing Act require a minimum of 50-year leases before approving loans secured by lease holdings.

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I am delighted to be with you again at your annual meeting and to help you celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. In the martyrdom of Lincoln,

Jenkin Lloyd Jones saw the interruption of an unfulfilled task. In memory of the Great Emancipator, he determined to create an institution that would be truly equalitarian, both as to people and as to ideas.

Now, a century later, we meet, and we, too, stand in the shadow of martyrdom. Some of John F. Kennedy's greatest accomplishments lay in the control of inter­national and interracial violence. How tragically ironical that he should have died by the violence he sought to eliminate.

But the country must go on, just as it did a century ago. We are fortunate to have in President Johnson a man of experience, of humble origins, and with a determination to be strong, frugal, and compassionate.

You may wonder why I have come to the south side of Chicago to talk about American Indians and the war on poverty. Jenkin Lloyd Jones would not have wondered, for his interest in human welfare transcended region and race.

President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message in January, declared unconditional war on poverty. He pointed out that poverty is a national problem and that we, as the richest Nation on earth, should not rest until the war on poverty is won. Poverty, he pointed out, exists in many different kinds of places--in city slums, in small towns, in the shacks of sharecroppers, and in migrant worker's camps, on Indian reservations, among whites as well as Negroes, among the young as well as the aged, in boom towns, and in distressed areas.

He specifically mentioned as weapons in the war Area Redevelopment, the Youth Employment Act, the National Service Corps, a Commission on Automation, Federal aid to education, improved medical care, housing and urban renewal, improved mass transit, and tax reduction.

These are very large programs indeed, but the President has committed his Administration to them and we are all determined to carry them out in a national drive on poverty.

My part in this drive concerns the Indian reservations. Let me tell you about them. No one is obliged to stay on a reservation. Reservations do not belong to the Government; they are made up of private land belonging to tribes or individual Indians; the Government is merely the trustee. The superintendent of a reservation is not there to run the tribe or the people; he is there as the representative of the trustee. He is the head of a service agency whose mission is to help Indians help themselves.

Indians are citizens; they vote; and they perform military service just like other citizens. They pay the same taxes that others pay, with one exception. On some tribal and individual Indian lands held in trust by the United States for the use and benefit of Indians, there are no real estate taxes. But personal property, automobile licenses, cigarette and liquor taxes--the whole range of State, local, and federal taxes other than those on certain kinds of real property--are borne by Indians just as they are by anyone else.

"Reservations" have the name they do because the lands that comprise them were "reserved" by the Indians for their own use when they gave up title to their other lands so that you and I and others like us might live here. Many Indians can and do prefer to live away from the reservations, but others prefer to stay there. There are several reasons why this is so. Indian people are bound to their lands by religious ties, by family association, and by a feeling that land is not a commodity to be bought and sold, but an essential of life, to be used and enjoyed and passed on to the next generation.

Some Indians, both tribes and individuals, have received spectacular income from gas and oil, and other minerals; or from commercial leases; but these are the exception. Most Indians are poor, desperately poor--as poor as anybody we know of in this rich country of ours.

Let me tell you how poor Indians are: Unemployment on the reservations runs between 40 and 50 percent--seven or eight times the national average.

Family income on the reservations average between one-fourth and one-third the national average.

Nine out of ten Indian families live in housing that is far below minimum standards of comfort, safety, and decency.

Average schooling of young adults on reservations is only eight years--two-thirds the national average.

The average age at death on the reservation is 42 years, two-thirds the figure for the national population.

About 380,000 Indian people come within the scope of the programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Most of them live on reservations in sparsely populated rural areas far from cities where industrial employment is readily available. Many Indians lack the vocational training needed to compete for the few skilled jobs that can be found in their home areas. The unskilled agricultural jobs upon which many Indians have depended for years are steadily disappearing as more and more farmers follow the trend toward mechanized operations.

The average income of $3,000 received by the lower fifth of families in the overall population constitutes a national "poverty line." Families cannot exist at a decent level on so low an income. The stark reality of Indian poverty is revealed by the income of $1,500 received by the average reservation family in 1962.

Indian housing ranks among the worst in the country, as shocked visitors to almost any reservation can attest. Poverty is present in a cruel form when one or more large families must live crowded together in one or two-room shacks or cabins, and when the dwellings have no sanitary facilities, no nearby water supply, no electricity, no safe or adequate means for heat, often no flooring except the bare earth.

A young adult with no more than an eighth-grade education must generally content himself with a low-paying job that requires little or no skill and that leads nowhere in terms of salary and advancement. In these days, he is lucky to get a job of any kind. Much worse is the plight of the Indian, who has less than an eighth-grade education, or no education at all.

Indian health conditions are far below those of the general population. At birth, Indians have a life expectancy of 62 years, but the poor health of the older Indian people brings the average age at death on the reservation down to 42 years. Infant mortality is high. Indian babies have little more than half the chance that non-Indian babies have of reaching their first birthday.

The programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs are designed as a two-pronged attack on poverty. Some of our programs improve individual Indians' capabilities and relate them the job opportunities wherever they may be found. Others develop reservation resources so as to increase their job and income potential.

Education is essential to the success of all other Bureau programs. It is our biggest single activity, both in terms of man power and of money. Over fifty percent of our budget goes for the education of children and adults, and for school construction. We operate an education system of elementary, high school, and vocational schools for 47,500 Indian children and youth in schools and dormi­tories located in 17 States, primarily west of the Mississippi. This is only a part of the Indian school-age population. More than 90,000 are enrolled in public schools.

Our goal in Bureau-operated schools is to bridge the cultural gap between Indians and non-Indians. Our major effort in recent years has been to expand the system and remedy past neglect. We are providing classrooms and dormitories for the rapidly increasing Indian population. We are upgrading the quality of instruction, we have been emphasizing school construction and the rehabilitation of existing school buildings to overcome a long-standing shortage of classrooms. The Congress has been generous with funds for this purpose. During the past two years we have been able to add nearly 7,000 classroom seats and related dormitory facilities to our school system.

Many adult Indians desire education denied them in their youth. In 1955, adult education was brought to five Indian communities. In the beginning, adult education was designed only to develop literacy. Today, adult education seeks to spread knowledge and improve the understanding of civic, economic, and social problems. We now have adult education programs in 140 communities, and 24,000 adults are currently participating in them.

Special programs to prepare Indian youth for employment serve about 6,000 yearly. Since 1946, nearly 70,000 young Indians have enrolled in this program, with a high rate of employment after graduation. In recent years we have been making special efforts to reduce the rate of high school dropouts, which, among Indian youngsters, runs much higher than the alarming national average.

Our employment assistance program involves two principal activities: relocation, and vocational training. The first part of the program is the oldest. It is, of course, wholly voluntary. Relocation is available to Indians who decide on their own initiative to leave the reservations and re-establish them­selves in urban communities where jobs are more abundant. The Bureau helps them make this transition in many ways. We counsel with them. Before they leave the reservation. We provide transportation and subsistence for the job-seeker and his immediate family. We help at the receiving end in finding a job, locating housing, and adjusting the family to the urban environment.

But experience has taught us that many relocates return to the reservations unless they are adequately trained to hold an industrial job. We are now placing increased emphasis on vocational training.

In 1956 Congress enacted a statute which authorized us to provide Indians, principally between the ages of 18 and 35, with three kinds of occupational training: vocational training in regularly established technical schools; on-the-job training; and apprenticeship.

Trainees may receive up to two years of vocational training in the occupation of their choice in an approved institution. All of the expense is borne by the Federal Government, including transportation, tuition, health insurance, tools and supplies, subsistence for the trainee and for his family if he has one. The Bureau also bears a substantial proportion of the expenses involved in on-the-job training, mainly conducted in industrial plants located on or near the reservations.

Right now the total enrollment in all phases of the program is 3,500. The total permanent placements during the past 12 years number 17,000, affecting 36,000 family members. More than 70 percent of all who go through the full program find full time employment.

In addition to the young Indians who benefit from the Bureau's vocational training program, 1,300 others have been assisted to enroll in vocational train­ing courses under the programs of the Area Redevelopment Administration and the Manpower Development and Training Act during the past two and half years.

Indian employment and employment potential have also been helped through

The Bureau's growing program of industrial development. During the past three years the Bureau has negotiated the establishment of 25 small manufacturing plants on or near the reservations. To do this, we have drawn upon the financial aid available through the Small Business Administration, the Area Redevelopment Administration and other agencies, as well as from our own revolving loan fund. Current Indian employment in these plants is 750, with good prospects of substantial expansion during the next several years.

Bureau programs in irrigation, soil and moisture conservation, forestry, and other efforts to improve grazing and agricultural resources on the reserva­tions currently provide 2,200 man-years of employment. The potential is much greater. It is estimated at 54,000 many years.

Our programs of road construction and the maintenance and repair of buildings and utilities on the reservations provide jobs for Indians under a policy of Indian preference in Bureau employment. These activities currently provide 3,800 man-years of employment annually. The potential employment is estimated at more than 20,000 man-years.

In addition to these long-run programs which are so essential to overcoming Indian poverty an immediate attack on the problem was launched late in 1962 under the Accelerated Public Works Program. Twenty million dollars has been spent or obligated on the reservations in the past 15 months. Accelerated Public Works has maintained temporary employment at an average level of more than 3,000 Indian workers.

The cost of public works as a means of providing Jobs for the unemployed is very great. The Accelerated Public Works program on the reservations has enabled us, on the average, to provide work for a little more than one year for only one out of every twenty unemployed. The benefits of such public works, how­ever, go far beyond the assistance to the unemployed. Hundreds of miles of roads, thousands of acres of Indian forest lands, many hundreds of miles of fence and soil erosion works have been provided by the Accelerated Works program. There are lasting benefits to the reservations and the people who live on them when money for public works is available.

After many years of neglect and inattention, real progress is about to be made in the field of Indian housing. Until recently, the Federal housing programs initiated during the 1930’s were of little help to Indians on reservations. Today, Indians are eligible to participate in these programs as other citizens do. In 1962, in cooperation with the Public Housing Administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs brought low-rent housing to the Indian reservations for the first time. In that year construction began on a low-rent housing project on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota Since then, construction has started on several other reservations and is scheduled for an even larger number. Seventeen hundred units of low-rent public housing and 1,600 units of mutual-help housing have now been reserved by the Public Housing Administration for the reservations, a total of 3,300 dwellings.

Mutual-help housing is a new program under which the Indian is able to acquire an equity in his home by contributing his own labor to its construction. This concept will be helpful to the many Indian families who cannot afford even the low monthly sums required by low-rent housing. Actual construction of homes has so far reached less than 5 percent of the total units authorized, but the housing program is at last under way and the future looks brighter. So far, 58 tribes have formed housing authorities, and 48 of these are in active operation.

Among the many causes of poverty on the Indian reservations is a shortage of credit. As far as economic development goes, the Indians and the pioneer settler started out in pretty much the same footing. Both lived directly off the land, but the pioneer settler had the desire to develop and improve his land, to farm it or to mine it; and he had a banking system open to him that would loan him money with his land pledged as security. The Indian also had his land, but he was not accustomed to banking and the money lenders, in any case, would not have accepted land held in trust by the United States as security for a loan.

To close this gap, public funds for credit were provided more than half a century ago, but the amount was small in comparison to the need, and it still is. Today we are finding ways to help Indians get loans from conventional sources.

The tribes use their own money and carry on lending operations through credit committees of their tribal councils.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a revolving loan fund and backstops the tribal operations with both cash and technical assistance. Via the Bureau of Indian Affairs' credit program, both individuals and tribes have been helped to do an amazing variety of things. For example, individuals have been helped to go to school, to start small businesses, to improve their homes, and to buy live­stock. Tribes have been helped to build and operate motels, to develop and improve tribal herds, to build and operate canneries, to build and operate saw mills, and to engage in many other forms of enterprise.

Last fall we helped one tribe buy, and it is now operating, a ski-lift in eastern New Mexico. Such tribal enterprises do not in themselves relieve unemploy­ment, but they are an essential part of our economic development program, until enterprise development on the reservations equals that of the non-Indian neighbor, the Indian people will continue to be less well off than their neighbors.

One of the great Indian assets is their claim against the United States for wrongs done them a century ago. Nearly 20 years ago the Congress recognized the need to settle these ancient disputes once and for all and passed the Claims Act and created the Indian Claims Commission. Actual settlement has been long and arduous, and both Government and Indians are dissatisfied with the slow progress. Only about. 20 percent of the claims have been settled so far, but they are now being concluded somewhat faster. So far, nearly 95 million dollars has been awarded to the Indian claimants. The Bureau of Indian Affairs does not take part in the settlement of the dispute; but we do take part in the planning with the Indian tribes for wise and productive use of the money.

As an example, the handling of the award to the Crow tribe of Montana will 1how how much can be done with settlement money.

In 1962 the Crow tribe was successful in pursuing a claim against the United States for inadequate compensation for lands purchased from them in the last century. After payment of attorneys' fees and other expenses of the litigation, the tribe had a net award of approximately 10 million dollars.

The Crow reservation in Montana is a big one. It contains some very beautiful scenery and will have part of the shoreline of the reservoir formed by the Yellowtail Dam, now under construction. It also contains within its bound­aries some of the finest dry farming lands of the West Fortunes have been made by wheat farmers on lands leased from the Crows.

But few of these benefits have flowed to the Crow Indians. Some of them are successful and prosperous ranchers; some have moved to nearby cities and are successful business and professional people; but the majority of the Crows remain on the reservation, poorly housed, and seemingly unable to make money from their own lands.

With technical assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the elected officers of the Crow tribe began to plan for the wise use of this money. The Crows are poor and like poor people everywhere, they are cash-hungry. A movement arose, sponsored equally by the more prosperous and highly acculturated Crows and the impoverished full bloods, to distribute all of the money in individual cash payments to tribal members. Wiser heads prevailed, and the Crow Tribal Council of resolution, adopted a fair sighted plan.

Four and one-half million dollars was to be set aside for long-range family improvements--education, housing, business loans, and the like. The balance was to be set aside for tribal improvements: one million dollars for economic devel­opment; one million dollars for a land leasing program; one million dollars for land purchases. Smaller amounts were set aside for education, law and order, a tribal headquarters building, and similar projects.

Not every single member of the Crow tribe agrees with this handling of the money, but the majority have stayed with it. It is the Indian's own plan, approved by the Secretary of the Interior as trustee, and will stand until changed by both parties to the agreement.

Last summer I had the satisfaction of examining a half dozen of the two hundred homes that have been improved with family plan money on the Crow reservation. From ranch homes that would be the envy of the most prosperous cattleman in the neighborhood, to one- and two-room rehabilitated cabins, about 200 Crow families are living better today because of careful planning and thoroughgoing cooperation between tribal and Bureau officials.

The Seminoles of Florida give us a good example of what tribal enterprise and the Bureau of Indian Affairs' technical assistance can do working together.

A decade ago the Seminoles were living on three reservations in Florida. Their way of life was, and still is, not very different from the one they developed more than a hundred years ago when they fled into the Everglades to escape Federal troops in the Seminole Indian wars. About ten years ago they gave up their resistance to accept help from the United States. Today the two branches, Seminoles and Miccosukees, are organized tribes with Federal charters.

The Seminoles have developed an outstanding beef herd; an arts and crafts cooperative; their own commercial tourist attractions; and they are engaging in the long-term commercial leasing and development of some of their lands. They have an outstanding housing project and some excellent projects that are still on paper but which will materialize in the near future. Among the latter are a series of stores, restaurants, bait shops, and boating marinas along the Tamiami Trail.

In 1927 the first school was established for Seminole children. Eleven years later the Seminoles asked for a second school. Today, there are schools in all Seminole communities. Nearly 70 percent of the Seminole children now attend public schools. Their high school records are good and two are enrolled in college,

Poverty has not come to an end for these people, but their economic base is greatly improved. Living conditions are much better and will improve even more in the near future. The end of unemployment and poverty is in sight if present and projected programs are adequately funded and are successfully carried through.

I have told you about the situation on the reservations and the programs we have to combat poverty, mostly because I wanted you to be informed about them. However, I also have a larger purpose in mind. We are about to embark on a national campaign against poverty and the experience with deeply rooted rural poverty on the reservations is related in some degree to the problem of combating poverty in cities, such as Chicago.

We have learned the following things:

1. Hard-core poverty is self-perpetuating. After a few generations, it becomes a way of life with its own values and customs. When parents are poor, under-educated, under-employed, and dependent on public assistance, their children are likely to be weakly motivated, to drop out of school, to be under­employed, eventually unemployed, and in time to become dependent on public assistance. To combat poverty successfully, it is necessary to break the cycle of dependency, and this is not easy.
2. Education alone is not enough. We Americans tend to believe that education will solve all problems, and we approach the problem of poverty with this same philosophy. We think that if we provide better educational opportuni­ties and training, young people will break the poverty cycle, will find the desire for achievement that is lacking in the poverty culture. But this is not neces­sarily the case. Some individuals thus trained and educated will make the break; these do not make others find the failure and the frustrations in urban life too much. These do not make the break at all, or drop back into the patterns of dependency.
3. The most successful programs are those which relate training to job Opportunity. In the Bureau of Indian Affairs we have been engaged in vocational education for decades, We have many tens of thousands of successful graduates of our institutions, but we are learning that we can be more successful with everyone and can help those who wish to make a successful break with the reservation if we accompany vocational training with extensive counseling and supporting services, including job placement at the end of the training period.

Even so, there will remain many who do not wish to leave the home environ­ment, for the roots of neighborhood and community go deep. Vocational training for such persons will be successful only if it is accompanied by economic development which generates job opportunities.

1. Relocation by itself solves nothing. Like other Americans, Indians have joined the trek to the city. Many tens of thousands have moved into such urban areas as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, the Twin Cities, and Chicago. For nearly fifteen years we have had a program of helping those who wished to make this move. But as long as relocation was merely a program to transport people from one pocket of poverty to another, little was accomplished and the return to the reservations was about as frequent as the permanent relocations. Not everyone likes city living--not everyone is suited to it. To combat poverty successfully will require programs that relate people to jobs wherever they may choose to live.
2. Wars are expensive, and the war on poverty will not be an exception. Credit, economic development, public works, industrialization, tribal enterprise these things take money in large quantities. Education, vocational training and rehabilitation, the upgrading of social services, community development--these are also expensive programs. Good housing and the renewal of blighted areas are most certainly essential to the successful elimination of poverty, and they are expensive, too.

But these costs are investments in America's future. It costs us $4,200 to train an Alaskan or Athabascan high school graduate to become an electronics maintenance technician, but when he has completed his course he earns that much in about five months. If he is single, his income taxes repay the cost to the Government in less than two years.

In contrast, a large family on public assistance, less and less inclined to break the cycle of dependency as years go by, can readily consume $3,000 of public funds annually year after year, and still be miserable.

As America has grown, we have become accustomed to the pockets of poverty in our midst, whether we have been talking about rural Negroes, migrant workers, the ethnic minorities, the old Americans in Appalachia, or the American Indians on their reservations.

America has grown affluent, but the processes of economic development have left these communities in cultural isolation, cut off from the affluence around them.

Today we are in the process of awakening to this need in our midst and to the proven capability of solving the problem by technical assistance and upgraded community services. The war against poverty includes much more than American Indians on their reservations, but in that war Indians must and will be in the forefront.

The Department of the Interior announced today that Charles S. Spencer, superintendent of the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho, has been named to head the Yakima Agency headquartered at Toppenish, Washington.

Spencer will assume his new duties on July 1. He replaces Melvin L. Robertson, who retired from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in March.

Spencer's successor at Fort Hall Agency is John L. Pappan, tribal operations officer at the Nevada Agency, Carson City, Nevada. The effective date of Pappan's transfer has not yet been determined.

Spencer joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1931 as farm agent at the Crow Agency in Montana. Subsequently, he served as extension agent at the Western Shoshone Agency, Owyhee, Nevada, and as soil conservationist at the Wind River Agency, Fort Washakie, Wyoming. He was named superintendent of the Rosebud Agency, Rosebud, South Dakota, in 1952, and was superintendent of the Blackfeet and Flathead agencies in Montana prior to his appointment as superintendent at Fort Hall.

He is a native of Victor, Idaho, and was graduated from the University of Idaho with a B.S. degree in agriculture in 1929.

Pappan, an enrolled member of the Kaw Indian Tribe, entered the Indian Service as a soil conservationist in 1950 at the Colorado River Agency, Parker, and Arizona. In 1957 he transferred to the position of program officer at the Riverside Area Field Office in California, and since 1962 has been tribal operations officer at the Nevada Agency. A native of Newkirk, Oklahoma, he attended Oklahoma A&M College and is a veteran of the United States Navy.

New high levels of conservation accomplishment designed to meet the unprecedented and still increasing demands being placed on America’s basic natural resources by the Nation’s rapid growth were outlined today in the Department of the Interior’s annual report entitled “New Horizons in Natural Resource Conservation.”

"The conservation crisis of the 1960’s, “secretary of the Interior Steward L. Udall says in the report, “has resulted neither from ignorance nor folly, but from our very success as a Nation the rush of progress symbolized by our burgeoning cities and thriving industry, and hastened greatly by expanding population.”

Highlights of the report include the following:

Parks and Recreation: The president’s consistent support of programs to provide adequate recreational facilities to meet our growing needs has been a major factor in outstanding two year record of accomplishments.

Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Point Reyes in California, and Padre Island in Texas have been authorized as new National Seashore Areas as part of a comprehensive program to provide outdoor recreation areas adjacent to metropolitan centers.

Under revised regulations effecting the construction of federally financed reservoirs, sufficient land can now be acquired to preserve the recreational potential of large water impoundments.

A Bureau of Outdoor Recreation has been established in the Department to coordinate Federal Recreation programs stimulate and provide assistance to the States in the development of recreation programs; sponsors and conduct research; encourage interstate and regional cooperative recreation projects; conduct recreation resource surveys; and formulate a national plan on the basis of State, regional and Federal plans.

The president, by Executive order, established a Cabinet level Recreation Advisory Council consisting of Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Health, Education and Welfare, and the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency – to facilitate coordinated efforts among the various Federal agencies concerned with outdoor recreation.

Preliminary hearings have paved the way for congressional action on the president’s request for establishment of a “pay as you go” land conservation Fund to finance acquisition of lands for conservation and recreation purposes.

Congress authorized use for recreation of facilities at wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries provided it use does not recreation interfere of with facilities at primary conservation wildlife refuges objectives.

Important new legislation will permit the orderly movement of millions of acres of agricultural land not needed to produce food and fibers recreational and other uses.

Water resources: The second session of the 87th Congress authorized the $171 million Fryingpan – Arkansas project in Colorado and the $220 million San Juan Chama and Navajo Indian irrigation projects in Colorado and New Mexico the first time in the 60 year history of the Department’s Bureau of Reclamation that Congress has approved two water resource projects of this magnitude in single.

The Reclamation program reached its highest level in history with total expenditures of $347 million for all activities in fiscal year 1962.

Congressional approval was given to Federal participation in the Delaware River Basin development program on a partnership basis with the States of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania involving a potential billion dollar investment in water conservation projects.

Congressional authorization of a $75 million expenditure through fiscal years 1962-1967 made possible a considerably accelerated research and development program by the Department’s office of the Saline water.

Electric Power: The department has moved forward more rapidly in electric power development including significant innovations until recently considered impractical or impossible than at any other time in many years.

Today in the United States, and throughout the world, we are met at a “new frontier” in electricity. Giant new generators are being built with a capacity of a million or more kilowatts, one of which alone can produce enough power to supply a city the size of Washington D.C.

Work is being accelerated by the Bonneville Power Administration on tests relating to high voltage direct current transmission. Significantly different from any tests previously undertaken in the United States, they will, in fact, provide data not yet available either here on Europe. While direct current transmission is used in Europe, notably in Sweden, most of it is under ground or under water. The Bonneville tests will be performed on insulators and conductors strung on towers in a manner similar to alternating current transmission lines.

Approval was given at the close of the second session of the 87th Congress to construction of world's largest atomic power plant at Hanford, Washington, to utilize steam from the Atomic Energy Commission's new production reactor.

Sport Fisheries and Wild life: It is estimated that one man in every four goes fishing today, one in every five goes hunting, end the percentage it still rising.

With an authorized 7-year advance of $105 million to acquire lend ahead of rising prices, the Department has been enabled to move forward with a greatly accelerated program for the preservation of wildlife as a major recreational resource.

Four new wildlife refuges have been established--in Ohio, Michigan, Mississippi, and Georgie. In all, a total of well over 100,000 acres is scheduled to be added to the Nation's wildlife and waterfowl sanctuaries.

Public Land Resources: An 18 month moratorium on most types of non-mineral locations of public land, ordered in 1961, permitted time to reduce an overcoming backlog of such applications. To move forward with a long needed inventory, evaluation, and classification of public lands and to review and revise departmental regulations and initiate legislative proposals necessary to modernize the nations land laws.

The Department has considerably expanded its cooperative efforts with the Department of Agriculture to improve on timber sale practices end achieve a further standardization of forest inventory procedures. As a result, increases of some 175 million board feet in the annual allowable harvest of western Oregon timber lands administered by the Department of the Interior have been made possible.

The Department has submitted to Congress a comprehensive program for modernization of public land laws, establishing new authority to manage and develop the public land's natural resources. The five-year program--with projections to 1980--recommends major expansions of conservation projects on the public land reserve and accelerated efforts to provide recreational facilities; halt soil erosion, and protect forest resources.

For the first time the need to reverse the trend of, deterioration and to build toward full sustained yield production of the 194 million scores of range resources administered by the Department has been placed in perspective as a major national problem. Over 500,000 acres of range lends have received conservation treatment in the form of such projects as brush water, seeding, control structure, stock water developments and fences.

Mineral and Energy Resources: While there are no easy resources in the field of energy, major moves have been taken in recent months with the intent of expanding uses of the Nation's great coal reserves, One of the most significant steps in this direction was taken with establishment in the Department of a new Office of Coal Research, designed to complement the continuing research programs of the Bureau of Mines with the particular aim of achieving break through where possible on a short range, rather than long range basis. The interest stimulated by this action is shown in the fact that, since its establishment, the office has received more than 250 research proposals from private companies, individuals, research organizations, and educational institutions. In fiscal year 1962, contracts with a total value of nearly $3 million were granted for research in the fields of coal production, utilization, processing, equipment, and transportation.

The first Federal mineral leasing on the Pacific Coast Outer Continental Shelf marked a conservation landmark when some 80,000 acres of submerged lands off the coast of Southern California were offered for competitive oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf of Texas and Louisiana--the largest in terms of acreage offered and in the value of revenue earned .for the Federal Government.

Fiscal year 1962 applications for minerals exploration assistance increased 175 percent over 1961 following the revision and streamlining of its regulations by the Department's office of Minerals Exploration, including the addition of gold, silver, and iron are to the eligibility list.

Other Accomplishments: Secretary Udall lists similar advances, assisted by significant increases in appropriations, in Indian Affairs, Territorial, Oceanographic and other scientific programs and concludes:

"The world has undergone mighty changes since the days of the early conservationists. Enormous population gains and swift technological development have combined to create resource pressure which would have been totally inconceivable even a few decades ago.

"In the past it was sufficient to concentrate on resource management, to curb waste and destruction. Today, while these elements or conservation remain essential, a vital new factor has been added the need to apply the great discoveries of science to the task of. · · 'creating new resources and enlarging the use of those existing.

Obviously, a great deal remains to be done in fulfilling our national conservation goals.

“But the progress of the past two years has placed us well on our way toward a record of achievement unmatched since the administration of the two Roosevelts.

“If current momentum is maintained and it appears certain that it will be in the years immediately ahead the nation can feel a new confidence in the adequacy of natural resource supplies to meet the rapidly growing needs, both of today and tomorrow.”

The Department of the Interior today announced cffi1cellation of an April ) sale of oil and gas leases on the 27,000-acre Tyonek Reserve (Moquawkie Reservation) near Cook Inlet, Alaska, coupled with the beginning of negotiations for an alternative method of leasing that will be more favorable to the native village of Tyonek.

The Tyonek Reserve was withdrawn from the public domain by executive orders in 1908 and 1915 for the use and benefit of the Alaska natives of Tyonek Village.

The April 3 sale was authorized under a procedure which would have held the proceeds in escrow pending a later determination as to disposition. More recently, however, a reexamination of the purposes for which the Reserve was established under the 1915 executive order has led the Department to conclude that the lands can be leased pursuant to the Act of March 1, 1927 (44 stat. 1347, 25 USC, sec. 398a) under which the proceeds of the sale would accrue to the benefit of the natives.

Robert L. Bennett, Alaska area director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has been instructed to begin consultations with the Tyonek Village Council on leasing of the lands under the 1927 statute.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced approval of 35 Accelerated Public Works projects in 18 States and the Virgin Islands totaling $1,988,000 and simultaneously reported that these allotments have committed the total of APW funds for all Federal projects by the Department of the Interior.

Since start of the work-generating program the Department has launched 512 Federal projects and provided grants-in-aid to about 440 additional State fish and wildlife projects. The entire program will create 105,000 man-months of employment in a wide range of improvements touching many phases of conservation and benefiting most States.

The first allotment to the Department, made in October 1962, totaled $38 million. The second, approved May 28, 1963, was for $25 million, thus making the total available $63 million.

"These funds have been invested wisely and have resulted in immediate as well as long-term benefits," Secretary Udall said. "Their immediate benefit has been the creation of thousands of new jobs at the site of work and many other thousands in providing goods and services. The longer-range benefits now are being realized. Our rangelands, our national parks, our fish and wildlife refuges, our roads, our Indian Reservations have been improved. Fire hazards in timbered areas have been curbed, streams have been cleared, and new trails have been built. Costly soil erosion has been lessened. Also, we now have many new campgrounds, more parking areas, and additional boat-launching facilities, more swimming and picnicking areas.

"Many of these projects normally would have been years in developing. Today they are completed and the public is using them. “

The final projects announced today, all centering on forestry improvements and all certified by the Area Redevelopment Administration as important to allevi­ating unemployment in local areas, will generate 2,400 man-months of work. They are:

ARIZONA

Grand Canyon National Park

The National Park Service will rehabilitate boundary fences in Coconino County to prevent overgrazing in Grand Canyon National Park. This $35,000 project will provide 48 man-months of employment.

Navajo National Monument

In Navajo County, the National Park Service plans to improve fire trails in the Betatakin Canyon at Navajo National Monument. This project is estimated at $15,000 and will provide 18 man-months of work.

CALIFORNIA

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Ground improvements and reforestation work will be undertaken by the National Park Service at the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in Shasta County, near Redding. The $50,000 available for this work will provide 54 man-months of employment.

Yosemite National Park

In addition to a previous allocation of $150,000, Yosemite National Park is being provided with $188,000 to continue campgrounds and forest preservation work in Mariposa and Tuolumne Counties. This will increase the National Park Service employment in these counties by 240 man-months.

Eureka Project

In Humboldt County, an additional $15,000 has been allocated for the Bureau of Land Management to spray 500 acres for control of forest pests, to construct 4 miles of fire breaks, and to fell snags on 3,400 acres. The new investment will provide 15 man-months of employment. The total project funds are now $345,000.

Lassen Project

The Bureau of Land Management has been allocated an additional $25,000 for reforestation of 545 acres in Lassen County, which will provide 24 man-months of employment. Previously authorized funds were $50,000.

COLORADO

Conejos Project

Site improvement and tree planting on 40 acres of public lands in Conejos County has been authorized for the Bureau of Land Management. The work will involve mistletoe control and collection of forest tree seedlings. It will create 12 man-months of employment from an investment of $8,000.

FLORIDA

Jefferson County

Under a supplemental project for forest preservation, $100,000 additional will be invested by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife in the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. A previously approved project, already underway, was for $100,000, thus bringing the new total to $200,000. The latest allotment will create 120 man-months of on-site employment.

INDIANA

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial

The National Park Service plans investing $40,000 in Spencer County on woodland clearing, seeding, and boundary marking work at Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. Some 120 man-months of employment will result from this project.

MAINE

Acadia National Park

In order to continue the rehabilitation of fire roads and trails started with a previous allocation of $28,000, the National Park Service has received an additional $10,000 to provide 12 man-months of employment at Acadia National Park in Hancock County.

MARYLAND

Catoctin Mountain Park

General cleanup and site restoration will be accomplished in Washington County where Catoctin Mountain Park has received $5,000 to provide 12 man-months of employment. The project will be supervised by the National Park Service.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Monument

The National Park Service will direct protective clearing and cleaning of wooded areas of and adjoining the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Monument in Allegany County. Sixty man-months of employment will be generated under an investment of $50,000.

Dorchester County

In Dorchester County, an additional $100,000 will be invested by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife for forest preservation in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, creating 120 man-months of employment. An earlier $75,000 project already is underway.

MICHIGAN

Isle Royale National Park

Keweenaw County will benefit through the investment of $100,000 at Isle Royale National Park, where the National Park Service will improve its fire pro­tection facilities. The project is expected to create about 130 man-months of employment.

MONTANA

Projects on Five Indian Reservations

Forest preservation and multiple-use development projects now underway on five Indian Reservations in Montana have been expanded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The new works, valued at $150,000, are scheduled to begin within 30 days and will create 278 man-months of employment. The Indian Reservations are:

Crow Indian Reservation - A $25,000 increase will provide an additional 48 man-months of employment in Big Horn County, and will bring the total investment in the project to $105,000 and employment to 192 man-months.

Flathead Indian Reservation - Counties to benefit from a $50,000 increase in funds are Lake (48 man-months), Missoula (15 man-months), and Sanders (25 man-months). Flathead County is not affected by this increase. The new work will bring the total investment in the project to $162,000, with 302 man-months of employment.

Fort Belknap Indian Reservation - A $25,000 increase earmarked for use in Blaine County will create an additional 48 man-months of employment. The project, which includes work in Blaine and Phillips Counties, now totals $105,000, with 192 man-months of employment.

Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation - A $25,000 increase will provide an additional 48 man-months of employment in Rosebud County. The project, which includes work on reservation lands in Big Horn and Rosebud Counties, now totals $125,000 and will develop 228 man-months of employment.

Rocky Boys Indian Reservation. - New work valued at $25,000 will provide additional employment in Chouteau County (24 man-months) and Hill County (22 man-months). This work will bring the total investment in the project to $55,000 and employment to 94 man-months.

NEVADA

Lincoln Project

In Lincoln County, the Bureau of Land Management has been authorized $87,000 for construction of fire-control facilities, including a dispatch office and ware­house for storage of fire-fighting equipment. Improvement of 15 miles of forest access roads also will be accomplished with the new allocation, providing 144 man months of additional employment. Previous allocations bring the Lincoln County total to $210,000.

Goldfield Project

The Goldfield Project, in Esmerelda County, has been established for realign­ment and surfacing of JO miles of forest access roads on public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. An investment of $35,000 will produce 40 man-­ months of new employment.

NEW MEXICO

Laguna Indian Reservation

A forest preservation and multiple-use development project valued at $50,000 is scheduled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Laguna Indian Reservation lands in Valencia County. The project will provide an estimated 85 man-months of employment.

NORTH CAROLINA

Blue Ridge Parkway--Watauga County

The National Park Service will undertake $115,000 in forest-protection activities along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Watauga County. Work will provide 280 man-months of employment.

Blue Ridge Parkway--Wilkes County

A similar forest-preservation project, reflecting an investment of $50,000, will be started by the National Park Service on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Wilkes County. The project will create 95 man-months of employment.

PENNSYLVANIA

Gettysburg National Military Park

At Gettysburg National Military Park in Adams County, the National Park Service will direct the removal of fire hazards by clearing and grubbing 130 acres of historic fields. The $75,000 project will create 180 man-months of employment.

­­Hopewell Village National Historic Site

Restoration of historic landscapes and reduction of fire hazards will get underway through the use of $5,000 which the National Park Service plans on investing at Hopewell Village National Historic Site in Chester County. Twelve man-months of employment will result.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Chesterfield County

­An earlier $300,000 project of forest preservation in the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge will be supplemented by $100,000, creating an additional 120 man-months of employment. The $400,000 project is being supervised by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.

Clarendon County

An additional $100,000 is being invested in forest preservation on the Santee National Wildlife Refuge, creating 120 man-months of employment. A $75,000 project already is underway. The new total thus is $175,000. The improvements are being directed by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.

TENNESSEE

Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park

In Hamilton County, the National Park Service will supervise rehabilitation of 10 miles of foot trails and vista clearing of 20 acres at Chickamauga­-Chattanooga National Military Park. The $15,000 project will create 36 man-months of employment.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The equivalent of 144 man-months of employment in Great Smoky Mountains National Park will result from a $45,000 project. The National Park Service will direct trail and related improvements and site restoration in portions of the park in Sevier and Cocke Counties.

VIRGIN ISLANDS

Virgin Islands National Park

Virgin Islands National Park will augment its program of forest preservation and protection with an allocation of $100,000. The equivalent of 120 man-months of employment will be required to complete this project which centers mostly on improving access roads.

VIRGINIA

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

The National Park Service will supervise woodland preservation and protection work as well as trail improvements at George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Westmoreland County. This project valued at $20,000, will produce 96 man-months of employment.

WASHINTON

Quillayute Indian Reservation

An allotment of $18,000 for a forest preservation and multiple-use develop­ment project scheduled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Quileute Indian Reservation in Clallam County will provide an estimated 30 man-months of employment.

Mount Rainier National Park

With an allocation of $235,000, the National Park Service will direct construction of dormitory-type quarters for ranger personnel and rehabilitate structures and campgrounds in the Lewis County area of Mount Rainier National Park. About 120 man-months of work will result. The project earlier had received an allocation of $165,000.

WEST VIRGINIA

Harpers Ferry National Monument

In Jefferson County, the National Park Service will rehabilitate trails and increase fire protection at Harpers Ferry National Monument. Some 132 man months of employment will result from this investment of $47,000.

An application for 160 acres of grazing land near Craig, Colo., filed by Kiowa Indian Amos A. Hopkins-Dukes, has been rejected by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall on the grounds that the land cannot qualify for allotment under an 1887 act providing l60-acre allotments for Indians.

The Secretary's ruling may forestall a flood of applications which would lead to great waste of public and private funds. The Indian Allotment Act of 1887 allowed from 40 to 160 acres for Indians wishing to leave reservations and become farmers or ranchers. The grants were to be made from the public domain, now administered by Interior's Bureau of Land Management.

Secretary Udall issued a strong note of caution to other Indians. “While the law is still open to bona fide applicants," he said, “ there is very little likelihood that suitable land could be found on the public domain today.”

Long-established Interior rulings have held tha.t allotted lands must be capable of supporting an Indian family. The law allowed 40 acres for irrigable land, 80 acres for non-irrigable agricultural land, and 160 acres of non-irrigable grazing land. Very little agricultural and pasture lands remain in the public domain capable of supporting a farm or ranch family in such small units. In the past 5 years only 17 allotments embracing 2,250 acres were approved for patent.

In his decision Secretary Udall said that the land Hopkins-Dukes had applied for can support only two cows on a year-round basis, and that economic ranch operations in the area required 100 animals.

Publicity concerning Hopkins-Dukes' application has stirred considerable interest among Indians in Colorado, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. The Kiowa Indian, described in newspaper interviews in Colorado as a motion picture stuntman-actor and writer, has recently stimulated Indian interest in the 1887 law through the Iowa Tribal Land Association.

Bureau of Indian Affairs officials have indicated doubt that many of the 7,000 eligible Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches living in the three states would be able to find lands suitable for allotment. Secretary Udall's decision confirmed this when he pointed out that lands incapable of supporting an Indian family cannot be allotted.

Secretary Udall pointed out that the public lands in the Western States were withdraw from entry and selection in 1934, and that the Taylor Grazing Act requires him to use his discretion in classifying lands as suitable for entry.

In ruling against Hopkins-Dukes' application, Secretary Udall said he considered "the capability, suitability and physical characteristics of the lands for the purpose for which they were sought, and for the other purposes for which the public land laws were enacted."

Secretary Udall pointed out that the Indians' relation to the allotment law is the same as all citizens' relation to the homestead laws. All citizens are born with a homestead right, but only a handful will receive homesteads because of the lack of good agricultural lands in the public domain.

The Department of the Interior today recommended enactment of legislation for construction of the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and the initial stage of the San Juan-Chama Project.

In a report to Congress, the Department supported R.R. 2352 and R.R. 2494, identical bills authorizing construction and maintenance of the two projects as participating projects of the Colorado River Storage Project.

The proposed plan of development for the Navajo Irrigation Project contemplates construction of facilities to provide a water supply for irrigation of lands to be developed solely for Indian use. Construction cost of the project is estimated at $135,000,000 at January 1959 prices. A net area of 110,630 acres would be irrigated under the project.

The proposed plan for the San Juan-Chama Project is designed to improve the economy of the water-deficient Rio Grande and Canadian River basins of New Mexico by providing supplemental water. As recommended by New Mexico, 110,000 acre-feet would be diverted annually from the San Juan River. Construction cost of the project is estimated at about $86,000,000 at January 1959 prices.

In the Department’s report, Under Secretary Elmer F, Bennett said authoriza­tion of the irrigation development such as the proposed Navajo Indian Irrigation Project would implement recognition of the Nation's responsibility to help alleviate the severe economic distress among the Navajo people by providing them an opportunity to maintain a respectable standard of living.

Secretary Bennett said a development such as that embraced in the initial stage of the proposed San Juan-Chama Project might help materially to meet the pressing need for additional supplies of water in the Rio Grande basin where the uses of water have been developed to the point where they far exceed available supplies.

The Bureau of the Budget has advised that it has no objection to the submission of the Department's report.

The text of the Department's report is attached.

Juan River basin. This would be accompanied by associated water requirements for municipal, domestic, and miscellaneous purposes in the adjacent areas. Prospective municipal and industrial water users have already expressed interest in receiving water from the proposed Navajo Canal and have approached the Department in that regard. Section 4 of the bills would authorize the pro­vision of additional capacity for such purposes over and above the diversion requirements for irrigation on the Navajo Indian irrigation project.

Water for irrigation of the lands proposed to be included in the Navajo Indian irrigation project would be diverted from Navajo Reservoir which is now under construction as a storage unit of' the Colorado River storage project. A main gravity canal would extend from Navajo Dam to Kutz Canyon. There the water would be dropped through a power plant to develop electrical energy for pumping water to lands in the Newcomb and Bennett Peak areas for the project. “The main canal would extend an additional 77 miles beyond the power plant to serve project lands.

A net area of 110,630 acres of irrigable land has been proposed for development. The area would include off-reservation lands to be acquired in the South San Juan Division and Navajo Indian Reservation lands in the Shiprock Division. Section 3 of the bills would provide authority for the acquisition and addition of the off-reservation lands to the proposed project. The projects productive area, which would exclude farm steads and other nonproduc­tive areas within farm units, would comprise (a) 8,918 acres served by gravity below the main canal in the South San Juan Division and 70,359 acres in the Shiprock Division, and (b) 25,882 acres served from the pump canals in the Shiprock Division, or a total of about 105,100 acres. San Juan River would be required for that purpose. This would result in an average annual stream depletion of about 252,000 acre-feet, exclusive of reservoir losses.

The estimated construction cost of' the proposed Navajo Indian irrigation project is about $135,000,000 at January 1959 prices. Operation, maintenance, and replacement costs are estimated to average about $481,000 annually at January 1959 prices for both 50-year and 100-year periods of analysis. The benefit cost ratio for the project would be 0.64 to 1 on the basis of direct irrigation benefits only, and 1.44 to 1 on the basis of total irrigation benefits. The appraisal of annual economic costs includes the $2.00 per acre foot depletion charge of the storage project assigned to all participation projects for all benefit-costs ratio purposes.

As provided by sections 4(d) and 6 of the Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956 (70 Stat. 105), authorizing the Colorado River storage project and participating project. In the event that the Navajo participating projects, in the event that the Navajo participating project is authorized, payment of costs allocated to irrigation of Indian-owned, tribal or restricted lands within the capability of the land to repay is subject to the Act of July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 564); the costs beyond the capability of such lands to repay are to be determined and, in recognition of the fact that assistance to the Navajo Indians is the responsibility of the entire Nation, shall be non-reimbursable.

The proposed plan of development for the San Juan-Chama project is designed to improve stabilize the economy of the water deficient Rio Grande and Canadian River basins of New Mexico by providing supplemental water to meet rapidly increasing needs. This would be accomplished by diverting water from the upper tributaries of the San Juan River. The water would be used for supplemental irrigation, for replacement of watershed depletions in the Rio Grande basin, and for additional supply for municipal, domestic, and industrial purposes. Recreation and conservation and development of fish and wildlife would also be purposes of the project. On the basis of January 1959 prices, the estimated construction is about $149,000,000. The evaluated total annual benefits for such a development would exceed the estimated annual costs in a ratio of about 1.7 to 1.

The proposed plan for initial stage development for the San Juan-Chama project, as recommended by the State of New Mexico, contemplates an average annual diversion of about 110,000 acre feet from the San Juan River for utilization in the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The imported waters would be used for an additional municipal and industrial water supply (57,300 acre-feet) for the city of Albuquerque; a supplemental irrigation water supply (30,100 acre-feet) to about 39,300 acres of land in the Cerro, Taos, Llano, and Pojoaque tributary irrigation units in the Rio Grande basin in New Mexico; and supplemental water (22,600 acre-feet) for irrigation of about 81,600 acres of irrigable land in the existing middle Rio Grande conservancy District. Recreation and conservation and development of fish and wildlife would also be purposes of the initial stage of development.

The proposed plan of development for the initial stages would involve three major elements, namely, diversion facilities (diversion dams and conduits), regulation facilities (Heron No. 4) Dam and Reservoir, and enlargement of outlet works of the existing (EL vado Dam), and water use facilities (principally for the tributary irrigation units). Minimum basic recreation facilities would also be provided at the five project reservoirs.

The estimated construction cost of the project features of the proposed initial stage, on the basis of January 1959 prices, is about $86,000,000, which includes about $400,000 for minimum basic recreation facilities. Project operation, maintenance, and replacement costs are estimated at about $346,000 annually for 50-year period and about $378,000 annually for a 100 year period. Of the estimated project construction costs, reimbursable allocations of about $29,200,000 have been made tentatively to municipal and industrial water supply, $53,400,000 to irrigation, and $3,000,000 to future uses. The recreation costs would be no reimbursable. The proposed initial stage development would have engineering feasibility and would be economically justified in that the evaluated total benefits would exceed the estimated annual costs in a ratio of 1.26 to 1 for a 100-year period of analysis. If direct benefits only are considered in a 50-year period of' analysis, that ratio would be about o.81 to 1.

Costs allocated to municipal and industrial water supply, including interest during construction, would be repaid over a 50-year period with interest on the unamortized balance. The total to be paid by the municipal and industrial water users would be about $58,600,000. The cost of raw municipal and industrial water would be about 7.7 cents per 1,000 gallons, or about $25 per acre-foot.

This estimated municipal and industrial water rate would apply to water developed by initial stage construction. Repayment contract terms and water rates under subsequent development would be subject to re-examination as plans develop and additional quantities of municipal and industrial water would be contracted. Where necessary, in the adequate financing of any subsequent development, water rates and repayment provisions could be designed to reflect any significant change in municipal and industrial use, operation and main­tenance costs associated therewith and other relevant considerations.

Irrigation water users probably would repay about $8,000,000 of the allocation to irrigation. Repay1nent contracts would be negotiated and entered into with organizations of the type provided in section 4 of the Colorado River Storage Project Act or April 11, 1956 ( 70 Stat. 105), for contracting on the participating projects authorized by section 1 of that Act. Tile costs allocated to irrigation in excess of the irrigator’s ability to repay would be paid from New Mexico’s appointment of the Upper Colorado River Basin Fund revenues as provided in the act. Costs allocated to future uses, which would involve the provision of excess capacity in the initial stage to permit later project expansion would also be an obligation against New Mexico’s share of the Basin fund revenues, to be paid from that appointment if not otherwise collected as a result of subsequent allocations to the water users.

Authorization of an irrigation development such as the proposed .Navajo Indian irrigation project would implement the recognition given in the Act of April 11, 1956, of the Nation's responsibility to help alleviate the severe economic distress among the Navajo people by providing them an opportunity to earn a respectable standard of living. It would enable an estimated 1,400 families to establish homes on irrigated farms. The proposed project has the support of the Navajo Indian tribe and it is our understanding that an on-the-farm training program, financed with Tribal funds, has been undertaken already to prepare members of the Tribe for irrigation farming.

A development such as that which is embraced in the initial stage of the proposed San Juan-Chama project might help materially to meet the pressing need for additional supplies of water in the Rio Grande basin where the uses of water have been developed to the point where they far exceed available supplies. This need of the Rio Grande basin vitally affects the welfare of more than half of the population of New Mexico and, if it is not satisfied in the near future, threatens to check the economic development of the State Besides the requirement for irrigation, more water is needed to meet the domestic requirements of a growing urban population and of industry, particularly in the Albuquerque area.

The Bureau of the Budget has advised that there would be no objection to the submission of this report to your Committee.

Hon. Wayne N. Aspinall, Chairman

Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs

House of Representatives

Washington 25, D, C.

Enclosure

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

BUREAU OF THE BUDGET

WASHINGTON 25, D. C.

My dear Mr. Secretary:

This is in reply to your letter of July 3, 1958, transmitting your coordinated report on the San Juan-Chama project in New Mexico and Colorado and the Navajo Indian irrigation project in New Mexico, both of which are proposed for authorization as units of the authorized Colorado.

River store project. You request advice as to the relationship of the two projects to the program of the President.

The initial stage of the San Juan - Chama development, recommended for authorization in your report, would provide for a maximum annual diversion of 110,000 acre-feet of water from the Upper Colorado River basin to the Rio Grande basin to supply supplemental irrigation water for about 121,000 acres and additional municipal and industrial water for the Albuquerque metropolitan area. The principal features of the initial stage include three diversion dams, about 29 miles of conduit, and one storage dam and reservoir. The total estimated cost is $86,000,000 based on January 1958 prices, tentatively allocated as follows:

Muncipal and industrial water	$29,200,000
Irrigation	53,400,000
Future Use	3,000,000
Recreation	400,000
Total	86,000,000

All the costs allocated to municipal and industrial water supply would be repaid with interest within 50 years. About $8 million of the costs allocated to irrigation would be repaid by irrigation water users over a 50 year period and the balance would be repaid from New Mexico’s shore of surplus power revenues of the Colorado River storage project. The allocation to future use would also repaid from these power revenues if it is not otherwise collected from water users. The benefit cost ratio for the project based on a 50 year period of analysis, is estimated at 1.03 using total benefits, and 0.81 using direct benefits only.

We note that about 57,000 acre-feet of water--over half of the total annual diversion- would be allocated to municipal and industrial water supply. In view of the rapid growth of population and the increasing emphasis on industrial development in the Rio Grande basin of New Mexico, we believe this feature of the project would make an important contribution to the future development of the region.

­ Information in the report indicates that the Cerro, Taos, Llano, and Pojoaque tributary irrigation units are suffering increasing economic distress as the result of increasing population pressure erratic water supplies, deterioration of existing irrigation works, and subdivision of ownership among heirs resulting in uneconomic farm units. Although the economic justification for undertaking these works at this time appears to be somewhat questionable their inclusion in the overall recommended plan may be warranted because of the anticipated beneficial effects in sustaining the economies of these existing agricultural communities. We would recommend, however, that their inclusion on this basis be contingent upon the development of a joint Federal-State program to provide for the consolidation of farm developments into units large enough to provide reasonable family incomes.

We note that several of the concerned States have not furnished views on the project. We also understand that Colorado and New Mexico interests have been involved in negotiations aver differences with respect to the proposed transfer of Colorado River basin waters originating in Colorado for use outside the basin in New Mexico. We have been advised, however, that Colorado and New Mexico have recently reached agreement on the proposed transfer of waters.

The proposed Navajo Indian irrigation project would require the annual use of about 280,000 acre-feet of water of the San Juan River allocated to New Mexico under Colorado River compacts to irrigate about 110,000 acres within and adjacent to the Navajo Indian Reservation. These lands would be solely for Indian use. The principal features of the project include a main carnal over 150 miles in length, pumping plants, a power plant to provide project pumping energy, and associated works. The total cost is based on January 1958 prices, is estimated at $135,330,300 tentatively allocated entirely to irrigation, The benefit cost, ratio on the basis of a 50 year period of· analysis is estimated at 1.3 using total benefits and 0.52 using direct benefits only.

We believe this proposal raises a number of important questions of public policy with respect to Federal water resources and Indian assistance programs.

In a dry area like New Mexico, availability of water is essential to continued economic growth. On the basis of present trends, demands for water for industrial and municipal use can be expected to increase substantially in future years notwithstanding this fact, this project would result in committing to agricultural uses a major part of the last source of unappropriated water in the State of New Mexico, the water of the San Juan River allocated to the State under Colorado River compacts. We recognize, however, that the project is primarily intended as an Indian assistance measure, and that other factors are involved in these circumstances.

The plan of development for the Navajo project indicates that eventually about 1,400 families would be operating irrigated farms. It is predicted that service industries in the project area would support 2,800 families and that, in total, sufficient employment opportunities would be provided to support 20,000 Indians. The construction period for the project, however is estimated to be 14 years. Although construction could be accelerated, this period appears desirable to allow the integration of the irrigated land into the Indian economic base. Considering the normal lag between authorization and initiation of construction., it could be 16 to 20 years before the full benefits from the project become available if it were to be authorized this year.

Current population estimates on the Navajo Reservation range from 75,000 to 100,000. In view of the recent interest which has developed in industrial utilization of the large coal deposits on the Navajo Reserva­tion, commitment of a major portion of the waters of the San Juan River to agricultural purposes could impede industrial development on the reserva­tion and the correspondingly greater employment opportunities which such development would provide. We would, therefore, question whether a federal investment of $135 million is justified for a project which would ultimately establish not more than 25 percent of these people in an agricultural enterprise of marginal economic value.

Accordingly, subject to your consideration of the above views, the Bureau of the Budget would have no objection to the submission of your proposed report to the Congress. No commitment can be made, however, as to when any estimate of appropriation would be submitted tor construction of these projects, if authorized by the Congress., since this would be governed by the Presidents budgetary objectives as determined by the then prevailing fiscal situation.

The Honorable The Secretary of the Interior.