water volume is rapidly approaching, 

 if not already passed, the point of 

 over allocation, and a viable man- 

 agement structure has not yet sur- 

 faced. The implications of over 

 allocation to the estuary and the 

 river's natural systems is profound. 

 Only now through the Columbia River 

 Estuary Data Development Program 

 and other research programs on the 

 Columbia is the first piece of that 

 puzzle called the Columbia River 

 being studied systematically. Let 

 us hope that the solution of this 

 puzzle is found before it is too 

 late for us to control changes in 

 the way the Columbia River is man- 

 aged. 



be taken care of by conservation 

 rather than production of more power: 



REPLY ; KENT; I haven't seen 

 any figures on how much of that in- 

 crease of energy consumption could 

 be met by conservation. Some of the 

 figures that have been tossed around 

 have been as high as 50 percent. 

 But as far as the northwest is con- 

 cerned, I don't know. It is a fact, 

 for what it is worth, that the 

 northwest region has historically 

 had very cheap electrical energy. 

 It may very well be that shifting 

 to alternative sources of energy 

 could result in meeting most of 

 these demands . 



DISCUSSION 



QUESTION : I would like to ask 

 whether you think that, with an in- 

 crease from seven to eleven million 

 people, how much of the apparent 

 increase in energy supply needs can 



Along the same lines, I read 

 recently in Business Week that the 

 per capita consumption of electrici- 

 ty in the northwest is twice the 

 level of consumption of the rest of 

 the country and that would certainly 

 suggest to me that the 50 percent 

 figure is not far off. 



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