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1 \ and extending the life of the program through Fiscal Year 1963. From Fiscal Year 1953 to Fiscal Year 1960 inclusive, Congress has appropriated a total of $5,775,000 to carry out the purposes of the Act. This is an average annual appropriation of less than $725,000, which, if compared with other Federal programs is quite small. Regardless of the size of our appropriations, we are quite proud of what we have been able to accomplish with the monies we have received. At the time this program got underway, the cost of converting sea water to fresh ranged upward from $5 per 1,000 gallons. Today, there is a plant on the Island of Aruba; in the Caribbean, that is producing 2.7 million gallons of fresh water per day at a cost of about $2 per thousand gallons. Of the land-based plants scattered about the globe, with a combined capa- ,city of about 20 million gallons of fresh water per day, the plant at Aruba is the most efficient. Based on our cost standards, these plants are ex- pensive producers, but they are in existence because the cost of water from alternative sources is even higher. As an example, over the past several years the Department has barged over 100 million gallons of fresh water from ,Puerto Rico to supply the minimum requirements of the people of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, at a cost of about $5 per thousand gallons. ' Public Law 85-883, approved by President Eisenhower on September 2, 1958, added a new responsibility to the Office. It authorizes $10 million for the design, construction, and operation of five saline water conversion plants to demonstrate the reliability, engineering, operating, and economic potentials of sea or brackish water conversion processes. The law provides that three of these plants shall be for the conversion of sea water to fresh. One to be located on the east coast, one on the west coast, and one on the gulf coast. At least two of these plants shall have a capacity of 1 million gallons of fresh water per day. Two of the plants will be designed to convert brackish water to fresh. One to be located in the Northern Great Plains and the other in the arid areas of the Southwest. One of these plants must have a capacity,of at least 250,000 gallons per day. Each of the 5 plants must utilize a different processs. An accurate barometer of the nation-wide interest in the saline water conversion program is provided by the number of requests received from, civic bodies, public officials, industrial organizations, for one of the authorized plants. This interest is not confined to a few hot and arid States in the South and Southwest. Over 200 applications have been received from cities and communities in every State on the coastal perimeter, from 12 inland States and from Alaska and Hawaii. Turning to the major methods now under development, our research is now concentrated in five broad groups: (1) distillation through artificial heat; (2) solar heat distillation; (3) separation of salt by membrane processes; (4) freezing; and (5) other chemical or electricial means of separation. At the, present time we do not believe that anyone process will provide an answer to all the complex problems,of providing fresh water from G-3 ,