As far as the Madison is concerned, I think that we probably could 

 spend the entire afternoon discussing the merits and demerits of all of the 

 arguments about the Madison acquistion. I think most of you know that it 

 is supplied with water which drains off the Big Horns and off the west 

 side of the mountains in South Dakota--the Black Hills--and that it is a 

 deep aquifer. I don't want to appear here as a hydrologist today or to 

 debate this on a hydrological basis. I do want to point out that I thor- 

 oughly agree with my friend Fred here when he said that there is very 

 little known about it and that is certainly true. The research that's taken 

 place even to date has not revealed a great deal that we need to know 

 about the Madison. There are many figures. I could stand here the rest 

 of the afternoon, which I certainly do not intend to do, and quote you 

 figures on this. But I think that this is certain: no one has any idea 

 what the recharge into the Madison is. And there have been a lot of 

 figures kicked around about, thousands of acre-feet and so forth about 

 that. But, I think this much is clear, some of the better authorities on 

 this such as the South Dakota School of Mines, put it as low as 8,000 acre 

 feet a year. And when your talking about taking 15, 20 or 30 thousand 

 acre feet a year out of there you do have a deficit. I mean I don't know. 

 I'm not a hydrologist but I do have to rely on the figures that are 

 furnished me by people who do claim to know. 



I think some other environmental questions were raised in addition to 

 that of the water and in the water area too. I think Larry just 

 admonished me that I should stay with the water and I won't get back into 

 any of the matters of dust and so forth which Fred raised here, although 

 if you do want to talk to me about it later I will. As far as water is 

 concerned I think I wquld like to just comment very briefly on the 

 suggestion that water could be used from Fort Peck and some of the the 

 other areas and I think there that again we're in a situation where we 

 must consider that it isn't strictly a matter of going over to one of those 

 reservoirs and picking out whatever water you wish from there and feeling 

 that it's free to be used, for any purpose. Right at the present time I 

 think all of you realize what Montana has done in sequestering the water 

 for the use in slurry pipelines and this has been done for a very good 

 reason. I am sure that the legislature was considering many things 

 besides the impact on the rail industry when it made that decision, or 

 those decisions regarding the use of the water. I am sure it has been 

 taken into consideration in other states, such as Nebraska and Kansas, 

 over which the lines would pass. And I know Nebraska is very conscious 

 of its water and the impacts on it. I know South Dakota has been very 

 anxious about what the ultimate use of this water would be out of those 

 various reservoirs and it's because of that apprehension that they have 

 taken the action that they have. I think the costs are very significant in 

 this. Unless I misunderstood--and some of those charts went by a little 

 fast--there was a figure given there for one of these that's $3,500 an 

 acre-foot and around $230 a ton for water. Well if we're using that 

 amount of water you've got to have $230 to move a ton of coal and right 

 now I think probably the highest rate we have for moving any coal is 

 around $21 so I think we've got some economic problems along with some of 

 the environmental problems that might revolve around the water. 



I'm going to conclude now even though we could have a lot of fun 

 going here the rest of the afternoon in this discussion, particularly if we 



