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1e Colorado River Basin le Colorado River is the primary source of domestic water supply for ne 27 million people in the seven Colorado River Basin states. It also Dvides irrigation water for more than 3.5 million acres of farmland thin the basin and hundreds of thousands more acres outside the sin. In addition, the United States is required by the Mexican Water 'aty of 1944 to annually deliver 1.5 million acre-feet of water. Near headwaters in the Rocky Mouncains, the salinity concentration of : Colorado River is typically 50 pares per million or less. lOUt one half of the salinity in the river comes from natural .lcces and the orher half comes from human uses of the ,tee and accivities near the ~iver. At Hoover Dam, the er delivers about 9 million [Dns of dissolved salts per H. At Lake Havasu, from which water is diverted the southern California coastal plain and to lttal Arizona, the concentration of salt :ults in impacts to residential, commercial, iustrial, and agricultural water users. 11so impacts groundwater and :ycled water resources; and lity distribution systems. lon reaching the last rersion point in the S. at Imperial Dam, : concentration of salt ::reases crop yields d increases water atment COSts. Lrrent economic mages in the lower sin states are about 30 million per year. e quality of water in : Colorado River is ~refore critical to : economics of all communities .:I large cities in both , u.s and Mexico. The Colorado River Basin Salinitv Control Proaram The Program reduces salinity by preventing salts from dissolving and mixing with the River's flow. Irrigation improvements and vegetation management reduce water available to" transpon salts vertically, laterally and on the soil surface. Point sources, such as saline springs are also controlled. A long term, interstate and interagency public/private partnership effon is being carried out to reduce the amount of salts in the River and its associated impacts in the Basin. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required development of water quality standards for salinity in the' Colorado River in 1972. The Basin states formed the Colorado River Basin Salinity Conrrol Forum (Forum) in 1973 to develop these standards including numeric salinity criteria and a basin-wide plan of implementation for salinity conrrol which EPA subsequenrly approved. In 1974, Congress enacred the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act with subsequent amendments. This authorized the construction, operation, and maintenance of salinity control works in the Colorado River Basin. Title I of rhe Act addresses the U.S: commitments to Mexico established by agreement of the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico. This agreement addressed the quality of water deliveries CO Mexico pursuant to the Mexican Water Treaty of 1944. Title' II ~f the Acr created the Colorado River Basin Saliniry Conrrol Program and direcred the U.S, Departmenr of the Inferior (USDI) and rhe u.s. Departmenr of Agriculture (USDA) manage the River's salinity, including salinity contributed from public lands. The law direcred thar preference be given to those projects which are the most cost-effective _ that is, obtaining the greatest reduction in salinity concentration per dollar spent.