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(') ~ ~ ~ ~ Virgin River, about 20 miles north of Sto George, Utah. The spring has a salinity of about 10,000 ppm, and its flow of about 12 cubic feet per second results in a total annual contribution of salt to the river system of 107,000 tons. The proposed project would consist of facilities to bypass the river's flows around the springs, divert the spring's flow to an off-river site where a reverse- osmosis desalting plant would remove 103,000 tons/year of salts, and the desalted water would then be returned to the river. The brine from the operation would be disposed of by evaporation. Capital cost of this project would be about $20 million, and annual operation and maintenance costs would be about $1.8 milliono Las Vegas Wash Las Vegas Wash, which flows into Lake Mead, drains the Las Vegas Valley. Saline ground water has been rising into the Wash, carrying approximately 170,000 tons per year of dissolved salts into Lake Mead. This rising saline water can be controlled by a well pumping system, which would capture the water before it entered the Washo The salty water could be exported to a nearby dry lake or existing evaporation ponds for disposal by evaporation. The cost of this project is still under investigation; however, preliminary estimates indicate that construction cost would be in the order of $15 million. The total capital cost of the three projects to be authorized by the re- cently introduced Colorado River Salinity Control Bill is $92 million with an estimated annual operating cost of $2.3 million. These projects will benefit both the United States and Mexicoo By comparison, the program proposed for the benefit of Mexico has a capital cost of no less than $119 million and an annual operating cost of $10 million a yearo OTlIER SIGNIFICANT SALINITY CONTROL MEASURES In A.ddi.tJ OIl to the sAl tni,ty C":ol1t.rol expected to be achieved under ne'tlT Federal 12