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Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, I want to thank all the panelists for 

 doing such a good job of staying within the allotted time, and we 

 will move on to some questions. 



Let us start first with an observation, General Harrell. I am con- 

 cerned at the sUppage in the time lines, particularly the John Day 

 drawdown. I know the Corps has not had the experience perhaps 

 of some other federal agencies in this region, but it seems to me 

 that we are kind of skating with no jeopardy opinions and respond- 

 ing to the pending litigation, you know, instead of trying to get 

 ahead dramatically of the Endangered Species Act curve. My obser- 

 vation is that you are just sort of teetering there. I mean all due 

 deliberation or whatever is not necessarily going to protect us. And 

 I would hate to see a situation where the operation of the dams 

 under the auspices of the Corps goes to Mr. Smith's agency, but 

 that could be well what a federal judge might decide. 



So with that, I know that there is apparently a legal opinion that 

 is being developed by the Corps regarding the John Day drawdown. 

 I am not sure exactly what that legal opinion goes to, whether it 

 goes to your authority to do the drawdown itself — I do not think 

 that is in question — or whether it goes to some of the predicted im- 

 pacts of that drawdown and potential obligations that the Corps 

 might have to persons who would claim injury in a drawdown. 

 Could you address what is going on with the legal opinion and is 

 there a way to accelerate the time line for the John Day drawdown 

 as specified by the Council? 



General Harrell. In a broader context let me first address bio- 

 logical drawdown testing. In April of last year, NMFS and the 

 Corps jointly announced that there would be a joint initiative to 

 conduct biological tests under the drawdown concept. And that was 

 to determine whether a drawdown provides improved survival for 

 the juveniles as a measure of recovery action. We stated that we 

 thought that the test could occur as early as next year, and as we 

 began to address and look at some of the activities requiring engi- 

 neering logistics and other preparation for the EIS requirements, 

 that began to slip. We continue to coordinate. In fact, I asked if we 

 would be able to meet that target, since that date was announced 

 back in April of last year and the region at least would expect us 

 to do the test during 1994, despite the fact that we were having 

 all of these difficulties in pulling the engineering logistics and envi- 

 ronmental EIS together. It became apparent we would not make 

 that target. 



Currently, we are on a schedule to have a draft environmental 

 impact statement available in February of 1994, with a final EIS 

 available in October of 1994. And we will continue to look at that. 

 We are looking at it now as we speak, throughout the process, to 

 see how we csui shorten that time, but in order to satisfy those re- 

 quirements, there are a lot of shortcuts that would be available in 

 other actions that are not available in this one. 



Mr. DeFazio. I understand some of the constraints of NEPA in 

 dealing with the EIS, but on the other hand, apparently there is 

 contemporaneous design work and other things that could be going 

 on. I mean if your EIS is going to be complete in the end of October 

 1994, then I would assume that if it finds it would not, that 

 drawdown is allowable and desirable, that in fact that could take 



