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W -...l en "-l construction. The current Federal discount rate of 7.375 percent was used to compute interest costs during construction and to amortize the capital investment. Annual equivalent costs consist of the amortization of the investment costs, plus annual operation and maintenance costs. Construction costs are based on generalized cost data for pipelines, pumping plants, and other features, to which have been added contingen- cies and overhead. The cost estimates presented in this chapter vary between appraisal and subappraisal. 3. Evaluation of Costs and Cost Savings The investigation of alternatives involved a two-step process. First, the alternatives were formulated to capture and dispose of the saline water or salt, without credit for participation with coal slurry trans- port or local use for powerplantsor coal gasification. Plans called for water to be furnished topowerplants or for coal transport, but no incremental costs or benefits for beneficial use were taken into account. The second step was to quantify any additional costs or benefits of saline water use, particularly related to coal slurry transport and for cooling. In chapter VI, joint uses were developed as add-ons to the alternatives initially formulated and the cost savings shown for comparison in terms of cost-effectiveness, B, Alternatives 1. Conceptual Alternatives Considered A number of general planning elements were considered, ranging from local use of water for energy production, long distance export for disposal, coal slurry pipelines, wastewater collection, and solar salt gradient ponds. Alternative plans formulated could be arranged into three general categories: (1) collection and transport of saline water to nearby sites of proposed powerplants for use in powerplant cooling; (2) collec- tion and export of collected saline water or wastewater to dry desert lakebeds for disposal by evaporation; (3) collection and use of saline water in coal slurry pipelines to southern California; and (4) composite plans involving multiple uses such as coal slurry transport, wastewater co 11 ect i on, and so 1 ar gr ad i ent pond deve lopment. I n the second type of project, as many saline sources as could reasonably be linked together were included in a collection pipeline system. In general, it was found that preliminary cost-effectiveness of using saline water for local energy projects and for coal slurry was in the realm of acceptability, while the export of water out of the Basin to dry lakebeds was not. The discussion in this chapter summarizes these study assumptions and presents and reviews a broad range of alterna- tives, In chapter VI, a summary table displays the alternatives evalu- ated relative to the base case in terms of net cost-effectiveness reflecting net Federal costs after adjustments for savings or added costs resulting from beneficial use of the saline water, V-2