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systems. When fully implemented, the on-farm program will reduce the salt loading by an estimated 52,900 tons per year. Implementation is continuing under EQIP. o Dolores Proiect/McElmo Creek (Reclamation and USDA): Irrigation and other nonpoint ~ sources in the McElmo Creek area of southwestern Colorado result in an estimated salt load of l-" 119,000 tons per year to the Colorado River. Salinity control, as an added feature of the Dolores Project, already under construction by Reclamation in 1984, was authorized by the 1984 Salinity Control Act. Reclamation modified the design of Towaoc Canal to allow abandonment and consolidation of certain ditches, and has lined other ditches and installed pipe laterals and has reduced salt loading from ditch seepage. These improvements, completed in 1996, reduced salt loading by an estimated 23,000 tons per year. The McElmo Creek Unit plan was described in the Natural Resources Conservation Service's (NRCS) 1989 Environmental Impact Statement. The plan, updated in 1994, will remove an estimated 46,000 tons per year of salt from the Colorado River. Implementation of the plan is continuing under EQIP. San Juan River-Hammond (Reclamation andUSDA): The San Juan River Unit drainage contributes approximately one million tons of salt annually to the Colorado River Basin. In the Hammond area, Reclamation has completed a planning reportJEA and begun implementation. The project will line sections of the Hammond Project Irrigation system. The estimated salt load reduction would be about 48,000 tons per year. The project is scheduled for completion in 2002. The NRCS completed an investigation in 1992 to explore the potential for a USDA program in the Sanjuan River Basin in the Hammond area. Investigations indicated that a USDA on-farm program is not cost-effective at this time. . Price-San Rafael Rivers (Reclamation and USDA): An estimated 430,000 tons of salt annually reaches the Colorado River from these two river basins. The Price and San Rafael Rivers, tributaries of the Green River, are 120 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. The fmal planning reportJEIS was completed and issued in December 1993. The preferred plan would reduce salt loading to the Colorado River by an estimated 161,000 tons per year based on a projected treatment rate of 65 percent of the irrigated acres in the project area. In fact, participation has exceeded expectations. Consequently, Reclamation and USDA intend to continue implementing measures that are cost-effective. Portions of the project are under construction with funding from USDA's EQIP, and from Reclamation's new Basinwide Salinity Control Program (p.L. 104-20 which, in 1995, authorized the competitive "Request for Proposal" process). USBR Basinwide Program: The Salinity Control Act as amended by P.L. 104-20 in 1995 and P,L. 106-459 in 2000 (see Appendix A), authorized the Secretary of the Interior to undertake a variety of salinity control measures without returning to Congress for individual construction authorizations and to implement salinity control measures by funding State, local, or private-sector 4-8