204 



Senator Kempthorne. Mr. Sampson, if I may, excuse me, I will 

 come back and allow you to fmish, but Senator Craig, unfortu- 

 nately, again, has to run to another meeting. 



So let me turn to Senator Craig, who has a question. 



Senator Craig. Thank you very much, Senator Kempthorne, and 

 to the panel, I apologize that I could not be here for your extempo- 

 raneous comments. I will read the record, and I appreciate your 

 presence. 



As I mentioned in my opening comments today, I am extremely 

 pleased that Senator Hatfield has generated this hearing. 



This will be one of many, and you all will be at the table, because 

 I think that the consequence of what we do is so great here that 

 if it cannot be resolved in a balanced fashion for the region, then 

 we will attempt to legislate a solution. 



Obviously, we are now at the extremes of that test. We will not 

 let the Bonneville power system go down, and we will not allow the 

 dewatering of hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated agri- 

 culture in the basin. That is not an acceptable proposition. 



Somehow we ought to be able to find our way through our tre- 

 mendous ability technologically to save salmon, and to build a via- 

 ble population base. But I was also very blunt earlier when I said 

 I am going to ask at what cost. 



I do believe the region has a right to make that decision. I do 

 not believe it can be at any cost. And tragically enough, that is 

 where the act takes us. 



Senator Kempthorne has the responsibility in this new Congress 

 of reviewing that act, and we will, as a Congress, take it very seri- 

 ously and see if we cannot bring some balance to it. 



But let me also say, DeWitt, I am pleased you are here rep- 

 resenting some of Idaho's critical interests. I was looking through 

 your testimony while Senator Kempthorne was asking questions. 



I had broached the subject some time ago when we saw the origi- 

 nal or we saw some of the estimations of the original biological 

 opinion, and I had made the proposal, or I had suggested that one 

 of the conclusions could be drawn in the dewatering of 400,000 to 

 500,000 acres of current Idaho agriculture, and I see that you are 

 referencing 1.7 million acre-feet, and 400,000 acres. 



You have come to the conclusion of about a $44 million annual 

 cost. From what basis did you draw that conclusion? 



Mr. Moss. Senator Craig, those were numbers provided recently, 

 in a December document, produced by BPA, Corps of Engineers, 

 and Bureau of Reclamation. I simply paraphrased and took some 

 of those numbers out. 



They get horrendous as you move up into the 2 million acre-feet 

 of water that was being proposed, and I just simply pulled out the 

 427,000, because that is the biological opinion number that says we 

 are mandated to meet this year. 



I want you to know that the key to that is that 95 percent reli- 

 ability. Those are not my numbers. Those are NMFS's. That is 

 what they want, 95 percent of the years that they can have that. 



And their problem out there is that the first time those res- 

 ervoirs do not refill, then where do they get that water? That is the 

 400,000 acres — yes. 



