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A. PROGRAM STATUS 1. Bureau of land Management Salinity Control Program The July 1987 Report to Congress, "Salinity Control on BLM-Administered Public Lands in the Colorado River Basin," addresses the extent of salt contributed from public lands, current actions and future recommendations to achieve the objective of minimizing salinity contributions while recognizing multiple-use objectives and authorized uses. During 1 991, BLM established a salinity strategy for future project funding and implementation beginning in 1994. The strategy provisions include: Phase I - ranking of watersheds in the Colorado River Basin by inter- agency teams. Phase II - reconnaissance plans of watersheds by interagency multi- disciplinary teams who determine which areas have the best potential for improvement. This phase uses Pacific Southwest Interagency Committee (PSIAC) procedures to determine the physical feasibility of potential treat- ments. Phase III - comprehensive plans will use the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to estimate soil erosion. Planning will involve all users and interested publics to ensure coordination and implementation; economic analysis is based upon cost-effectiveness and is comparable with Reclamation and USDA procedures. Phase IV - implementation will be accomplished as rapidly as funding is available. Phase V - maintenance will assure continued functioning of treatments. Phase VI - monitoring will be designed for efficient and effective progress evaluations and quantified to assure assumptions used in planning were correct and realistic. During 1995, the BLM worked in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service {NRCSl. the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Arizona Department of Water Resources to complete identification of high priority watersheds where management could signifi- cantly decrease salt yields. With the assistance of the DEQ, 84 watersheds were digitized and entered into a Global Information System, together with soil salinity and other key resource themes. The final 30 watersheds (nearly half of which involve tribal lands) were ranked for salinity control feasibility. 71