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-10- times, to 35 billion gallons, by 2017. The experts noted that more fertilizer and pesticides are used on corn than any other crop. Switching to more corn crops could send more nitrogen into the water system. The report did note that ways to reduce nutrient pollution exist, such as injecting fertilizer below the soil sutTace and using special controlled-release fertilizers. The committee added that erosion, which contributes to fertilizer runoff might be reduced if perennial crops like switchgrass and poplars were used instead of row crops like corn. SOUTHWEST STREAMS SHOW IMPROVED WATER QUALITY: High levels of dissolved solids can make water unsuitable for agriculture or drinking. However, over the past 20 years, salinity levels have dropped at nearly half the sites studied. Several agencies have instituted salinity-control projects since the 1970s. Streams and other surface water sources in the American Southwest are showing declining levels of salt and other dissolved solids, a sign that salinity-control projects in the region are working, according to news from the U.S. Geological Sun~ey (USGS). USGS scientists studied dissolved-solids measurements taken from 1974 through 2003 at sites in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. They found that, while salinity levels in streams and other groundwater sources still vary widely, the amount of salt and other dissolved solids has generally dropped over the past two decades. High levels of dissolved solids can make water unsuitable for agriculture or drinking. Several government agencies -- including the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management -- have implemented salinity-control projects in the Southwest since the mid-1970s. Their efforts are aimed at complying with the 1974 Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act, which was created to control the salinity of U.S. waters flowing into Mexico. The USGS study also found that declining salinity levels were more noticeable at the surface than in underground aquifers. About half of the aquifers examined had dissolved-solids concentrations higher than 500 milligrams per liter, the standard established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for acceptable secondary drinking-water. WARNING'S COSTS TO TOP ITS BENEFITS: The costs of climate change to the United States will outweigh its benefits, according to a new University of Maryland study. The analysis, conducted by the university's Center for Integrative Environmental Research and funded in part by the advocacy group Environmental Defense, represents the first comprehensive economic analysis of global warming's impact on the nation in the years to come. But the study's authors declined to put an overall price tag on climate change's future impact, saying it is impossible to predict how it would affect the U.S. economy on a broad scale. Global warming will strain public budgets and raise the costs of cooling American homes, the authors write, and it will provide only temporary benefits to the mid-Atlantic's agricultural sector. For example, a predicted rise in sea level would require Hawaii to spend nearly $2 billion on upgrading its drinking water and wastewater facilities over the next 20 years. The report was less broad than the Stern report the British government released a year ago, which estimated that failing to address climate change could lead to environmental problems that would cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual gross domestic product. Flood Protection • Water Project Planning and Finance • Stream and Lake Protection Water Supply Protection • Conservation Plarming