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-- plan avoids 33,600 acres of wetlands. USDA will make every effort to work with cooperators to include wildlife practices in their conservation plan. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Soil Conservation Service and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service is being negotiated. That agreement could establish that cost sharing for salinity control practices is conditional on the farmer installing, with available cost sharing, those salinity control and associated wetland and wildlife practices in the conservation plan of operations. Such a memorandum already exists for the Uintah Basin in Utah. At the present time wetland losses resulting from USDA activities in the Salinity Control Program in the Uintah Basin are being minimized by including wildlife conservation practices in the conservation plan for the individual farms. Conservation measures for salinity control are being applied only on those lands which have been cultivated for four of the last five years, and wetlands are not being drained to convert them to other uses. The wildlife practices are available at a 75 percent cost share rate on long-term agreements. The USDA agencies will be working with the state divisions of wildlife and with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the development of the individual conser- vation plans. A second mitigation scenario would be for the USDA wetland mitigation to be included in the off-farm mitigation plan, and therefore be included in the USBR report, which will eventually be submitted to the Congress for authorization and funding. However, there is no present plan for such an arrangement. A third mitigation scenario, which is outside the jurisdiction and present authority of USDA, would be for Congress to fund USDA wetland mitigation for the plan to be implemented at the time Congress approves the ASCS, Agricul- tural Conservation Program, or other funding for the salinity control practices. The funding, estimated at $17,600,000 for full mitigation, could be tied to the levels of habitat improvement shown in Table A-1-4. It would be desirable to develop blocks of land (purchased or obtained by wildlife easement) for wildlife use rather than on the individual farms or on contiguous farms where the salinity control practices ,are being installed. However, this would also require additional authorities if ASCS was to handle the cost sharing and provisions for operation and maintenance. Public ownership or management by lease or other arrangements for those wetlands that could be upgraded, as shown in the alternatives, may be necessary to assure adequate development and long life of such areas for mitigative purposes. It would be necessary to overcome the problems of water rights, operation and maintenance and taxation of the wetlands devoted to mitigation. Conflicts The concept of mitigating for loss of wetland habitat and of reducing the salt load carried by the Colorado River present a possible conflict between environmental values. The Colorado River Basin SQlinity Control Act, Public Law 93-320, firmly establishes that the purpose of salinity studies is to develop alternative actions to reduce the salt load carried by the Colorado River. Much of the salt load is attributed to the irrigation systems and practices throughout the valley. These same irrigation systems and practices are the source of water for some wetlands in the valley. As seepage from the irrigation systems is reduced and as irrigation efficiency is increased, these irrigation induced wetlands will be unavoidably lost. Each alternative plan IV-24