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CHARLES W. HODDE gives reasonable assurance that interests and goals of State, Federal and local government and the pri- vate sector will get consideration in selection of alternatives available for water resource development in the region. The Pacific N.orthwest River Basins Commission is not the beginning of regional water plan- ning in the Pacific Northwest. It is rather a child of necessity springing from a great diversity of water and related land planning that has preceded it for over a century in an area where the first sizable ex- port industry was furs from animals living in and along the streams of the region; where the second great resource development utilized the sea-grown salmon as they crowded the rivers in their strange migration to reproduction and death; where the first industrial power was water power. The rivers of the Northwest were the highways of the region while covered wagons creaked over the trails of the Southwest. Up from the sea and down from the North came a hardy breed almost before the camp- fires of Lewis and Clark had stopped smoldering. Irrigated agriculture was a fact 150 years ago. Man, by himself and through government and corporate structure, has been planning and using water in the Northwest as a varied tool for progress for a long time. We do not have the ancient canals of the Southwest, but we are not "Johnny-come-lately's" in the water business. There is a temptation for me to make this presentation a historical recitation .of our present attainment. We are easily trapped into reciting the acres of land that are presently being watered, and the number of kilowatt hours that are being produced, and the volume of fish that are being canned, and almost as many being hooked by the sportsmen (they don't all get away), and the number of plea- sure boats that fairly litter the lakes and rivers and salt water bays; and the millions of tons of cargo that pass up and down the Columbia; and the industry and cities that border these waters; and the wa- ter skiers and swimmers and beachcombers and picnickers, and just plain lookers that throng to the water from cities and farms, both near and afar. From this we can move to almost any sized future you wish to predict and make a good case that our future requires a jealous regard for our waters in spite of their relative size in comparison with those of less favored areas. It is always hard for any of us to see the problems .of others except as we compare them to our own. The man with a plain wife who is a good cook envies the man with the pretty wife, and the man with the pretty wife wishes that she could cook. We think in the Northwest, insofar as water is con- cerned, that we compare to the man that has a pretty wife that can cook, so how C.ould we have any trouble. The answer lies in an explanation a lady of distinction who once worked as my secretary gave me when I remarked recently that she remained as beautiful as ever. Her answer: "Thank you; I work a lot harder than was formerly necessary to look this way." Just as you see resources threatened by ground water depletion in parts of the Southwest, we see important water related resources threatened because of the narrow range between present con- ditions and critical factors. In recent public hearings on quality standards for water in streams of the Northwest, the discussion almost exclusively centered on what stream temperature must be main- tained in our streams. A satisfactory temperature level in the mainstream of the Columbia, nor opt- imum but felt to be toleragle, is suggested in pending qUality control standards as 68 degrees Fahren- heit. From its junction with the Yakima and Snake Rivers to the mouth, a distance of 325 miles, the Columbia was approximately four degrees over this figure for the greater part of August and Septem- ber. Except for a greater flow than average, the situation would have been worse. The volume of flow is a major factor in temperature. For several years, the situation in the Willamette River in the vicinity of Portland has been so bad, both from industrial and temperature rise, that a fish disaster has only been averted by release of water stored for power ahead of scheduled use to maintain a flow during late summer above the extremely critical level. Navigation maintenance on the lower Columbia is an expensive but necessary operation. Nine million yards of sand are removed from the river channel each year. In the past eight years the yardage dredged equals the volume of California's Oroville Dam. A ship floats as wen on the top foot of -38-