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002515 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BUREAU OF RECLAMATION WASHINGTON 25. D. C. IN REPLY REFER TO: August 19, 1963 The Secretary of the Interior Sir: Pursuant to your appointment of a Department of the Interior Task Force to prepare a comprehensive water and related resource development plan for the Lower Colorado River Basin and adjacent area, and of your concurrent appointment of an Over-View Policy Committee, there is transmitted herewith a report on the Pacific Southwest Water Plan. This report blue- prints actions to develop facilities needed to meet present requirements under reduced ground-water overdrafts, plus future municipal and industrial requirements of the Pacific Southwest region until about the year 1990. '.' ~\ The plan presented provides for stage developments of the works which are characterized in the report as phases 1 and 2. phase 1 is estimated to cost about $1,900,000,000. It embraces the feasible units which should be initiated now to meet the most urgent need at the earliest possible date. Phase 2 includes units which will require additional investigation prior to authorization and which can be initiated at appropriate later dates. Several alternatives to the basic plan are presented to illus- trate the range of potential solutions to a most complex problem. The list of alternatives is by no means all-inclusive and is prepared to establish the availability of water to meet growing demands rather than to supply an absolute list from which a source must be selected. -. The benefits from the total development promise to exceed the associated costs by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. Thus, the project amply meets the established criterion of economic justification. The plan contemplates the establishment of a Pacific Southwest Development Fund in which surp'l~s revenues from the sale of