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that projects should be delayed until that planning process is in 

 place, but the proper function of the national council would be to 

 establish requirements and priorities for a watershed comprehen- 

 sive planning process, provide support for it, and then accept guid- 

 ance from local councils on that matter. 



Mr. HOCHBRUECKNER. Thank you. Ms. Norcross? 



Ms. NORCROSS. Well, you have put me in a tough spot. You 

 know, we are a national environmental organization based here in- 

 side the beltway. I would like to be able to tell you we could do 

 it all from here, but of course we cannot. 



What we have found time and time again, as I said in my intro- 

 ductory comments about our colleagues at CRUW, that the only 

 way to restore and protect aquatic ecosystems is from a grassroots- 

 driven process. Someone asked me yesterday how we got our 

 project ideas, as if I went out looking for them. Well, we get them 

 from the ground up, and they come to us from people looking for 

 help and looking for some assistance. 



The infrastructure is in the ground, the interest is on the ground 

 and the people that are going to carry these out are those who are 

 invested in, who live by these rivers, not by those of us who live 

 in Washington. 



What I think that we can provide through this legislation is tech- 

 nical assistance. We can provide the funding, and we can provide 

 some consistency and potentially some national standards that 

 might be helpful in integrating these projects in a meaningful way. 



Mr. HOCHBRUECKNER. Thank you. Ms. Marcus. 



Ms. Marcus. I have planned and implemented about 10 different 

 projects of this kind and I do not think I have ever had one that 

 I did not use a local advisory group. And the reason for that is that 

 most of the watersheds that I deal with are private land, and when 

 we are working with private landowners they want to feel that 

 they have a major stake in saying how they manage their lands 

 and how they deal with the river or stream that goes through their 

 property. 



Undoubtedly, what we are trying to do in turning around the 

 State and the country's rivers is changing land management atti- 

 tudes and the way that you do that is on a local level. 



It is also quite true in most urban areas that I have dealt with 

 that local government has the greatest amount of control over the 

 land uses that affect the rivers. So you have to have some very 

 basic buy-in by a majority of the local interests in order to get a 

 successful program. However, it is also very important to have the 

 Federal agencies that regulate a lot of the other uses that affect 

 these systems in there, too. 



So I would say that having a strong local commitment through 

 a Committee, combined with Federal agency involvement, is about 

 the best thing you can do. 



Mr. Hochbrueckner. Thank you. 



Mr. House. May I make one more comment, Mr. Chairman? 



Mr. HOCHBRUECKNER. Yes, Mr. House. 



Mr. House. There is also a need to recognize work that has al- 

 ready been done in the field. There is a danger of a remote agency 

 coming in and reinventing the wheel. In a case like ours, especially 

 in the field of comprehensive planning, we have been working at 



