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<br />0[;2152 <br /> <br />The Brownell Task Force and the Mexican Salinity Problem: <br />A Narrative Chronology of Events <br /> <br />,.., <br /> <br />Fifteen years ago this summer, in June 1974, President Nixon <br />signed into law P.L. 93-320, the Colorado River Basin <br />Salinity Control Act. Title I of the Act authorized the <br />Federal government to take measures to eliminate the effects <br />of brackish return flows (or drainage) from the <br />Well ton-Mohawk irrigation project on water delivered to <br />Mexico under a 1944 treaty allocating the waters of the Rio <br />Grande and Colorado Rivers between the U.S. and its southern <br />neighbor. At the heart of the Title I program was a 100 <br />million gallon per day (mgd) desalting plant to be built at <br />Yuma, Arizona. The desalting plant was to be the solution <br />to a water quality dispute that had strained U.S.-Mexican <br />relations since 1961. <br /> <br />The plant was to remove 90 percent of the dissolved salts <br />from the return flows, by a process called reverse osmosis. <br />This desalted water was then to be blended with the <br />remaining drainage to yield water of the quality guaranteed <br />Mexico under a 1973 agreement. Its original cost was <br />slightly under $100 million. <br /> <br />Completion of the plant is now thirteen years behind <br />schedule. Its capital cost has risen to more than $400 <br />million, and projected yearly operation and maintenance <br />costs from $10 to $30 million. The blended waters to be <br />delivered to Mexico may cost as much as $500 per acre-foot <br />to produce. <br /> <br />Why did the Federal government choose such a costly--and <br /> <br />1 <br />