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!'-, ~j c-) .,...~ AQUATRAIN offers positive benefits to society by helping to preserve water quality for 12 million people who depend on the Colorado River for municipal, industrial, agricultural, and recreational use. Without methods to control salinity sources, the river's quality would decline to unaccepable levels, creating undesirable environmental, social, and economic consequences and seriously impacting further development in the basin. (_:) (..) AQUATRAIN's collection of saline water from various sources will be accomplished within the mandates of established water rights and compacts in the Colorado River Basin. To prevent undesirable environmental impacts from streamflow depletion, some water replacement may be necessary. Water supply and water rights issues are being addressed as planning progresses. By converting a damaging substance into a resource through saline water use in powerplants, AQUATRAIN can make thousands of acre-feet of freshwater available for other more beneficial uses. This is especially significant in the arid West where the population is growing rapidly and related demands for water are mounting. Use of saline water in powerplants is expected to create no adverse impacts, and the highly concentrated water discharged from powerplants will be disposed in lined solar evaporation ponds or dry lakes, resulting in minimal environmental effect. Economic benefits would accrue as powerplants replace costly freshwater with saline water. Availability of lower priced coal for domestic use and possible export could create a demand for more mining, with related effects on the environment and the economy. Most of the coal to be mined is under current or potential Federal leases in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, and is both underground and surface mineable. Miners in those areas (now experiencing 25-30 percent unemployment) could return to work, creating boosts for area economies, while local air quality and physical environments would be affected. The development of western coal reserves could be orderly and planned, rather than sporadic as experienced in recent years in response to periodic gluts and shortages of foreign energy supplies. Dependence on foreign sources could be reversed, while the United States energy base can be strengthened. Use of domestic coal supplies would help provide consumers with less expensive, more inflation-proof, and predictably priced energy. In addition, export of U.S. coal would further aid the economy by enhancing the balance of trade. The potential downward push on the price of generating electricity, made possible by the AQUATRAIN Project through the availability of saline water in place of expensive or scarce freshwater and more economically priced coal, could positively affect decisions to build additional powerplants to increase generating capacity in the Southwest. This possibility also may cause 30