Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management

Federal statutes and regulations and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines and policies tend to aid and encourage land application of municipal wastewater effluents and sludges and make that method of treatment increasingly attractive. Land application systems are made more attractive by federal law relating to eliminating the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters, stringent standards on discharges from treatment works, and restrictions imposed on permits for discharging effluents and sludges into navigable waters and the ocean. Provisions of federal law tending to aid and encourage land application systems relate to cost‐share grants for construction of treatment works, level of effluent and sludge treatment prior to application on land, pretreatment requirements for pollutants introduced into treatment works, federal grants awarded for research and demonstration projects, and requirements for developing public information and education programs.

The environment of a weather station site is important in estimating consumptive use by irrigated crops. Consumptive use may be overestimated when air temperature and vapor pressure data from a weather station with an arid local environment are used without modification. To document the effect of weather station aridity on consumptive use estimates, three sites in irrigated areas and two sites in nonirrigated, arid rangeland in southern Idaho were instrumented with weather stations during 1981. Air temperatures were higher and vapor pressures were lower at the arid sites. Use of air temperatures and dewpoint estimates from arid sites caused an overestimation of ${\mathrm{ET}}_r$ by 17% (210 mm) over the irrigation season. Results indicate the importance of weather site evaluation and adjustment of siting effects and weather before consumptive use estimates are made. A procedure is outlined for adjusting historical temperature data to reflect an irrigated condition.

The conflicts between water demands for energy production and irrigation development on the Canadian prairies and the available supply are reviewed. The water requirements for energy production in the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan arise from the development of oil sands and heavy oil. Manitoba has a large amount of developed and potential hydroelectric capacity. While a considerable area in the prairies is presently irrigated, a very large increase in irrigated area is possible in the forseeable future. All major rivers in the prairie provinces, flow from west to east. Consumptive uses in the western parts of the region reduce the potential for water‐based developments in the east. Ground water is not a feasible source of supply across much of the region. A water allocation agreement is currently in force among the three provinces. While there are not problems apparent with the present allocation, areas of potential conflicts have been identified. A growing imbalance between supply and demand suggests that increasingly severe water shortages may be anticipated in many areas in the near future.

The Minnesota Waste Management Board (WMB) is in the process of siting a hazardous waste land disposal facility, using regional and site‐specific criteria. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has the responsibility for certifying the “intrinsic suitability” of each site proposed by the WMB. This paper considers the WMB's environmental siting criteria as they relate to the MPCA's certification factors.

There has been a great deal of concern in the Western States regarding the concept of federally reserved water rights. History has shown that the federal government has reserved rights to both surface and ground waters on reserved or withdrawn lands to fulfill the purpose of the reservation. While those reserved rights may not have been fully disclosed, any water planner must consider them and recognize both their existence and the potential of a future claim of senior priority. The full extent or limit, or both of those reserved rights are yet to be explored.

The Metropolitan Washington, D.C., area water supply study being conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presents an approach in planning for water supplies that can lead to regional management. The challenge, however, rests with the local decision‐makers in seeing that a management plan is adopted for the Metropolitan Washington area. Unfortunately, local governments find themselves in a dilemma revolving around the economic and selfsufficient nature of governance. This paper explains how the Metropolitan Washington area has reached a point when new supplies must be developed. The area's supply base is a finite resource where previous independent actions have not caused any serious problems. Now there are obvious advantages in cooperating to develop a regional water policy as well as sharing in the development of cost‐effective solutions.

The National Water‐Use Information Program is a cooperative program between the states and the Federal Government. The purpose of the program is to determine how much fresh and saline surface water and ground water is withdrawn and for what purpose, how much water is consumed during use, and how much water is returned to a water body (stream, lake, or aquifer) after use. To accomplish its purpose, the program's goals are to: (1) Collect and compile water‐use data; (2) develop and refine computerized wateruse data systems at both the state and national levels; (3) devise new methods and techniques to improve the collection and analysis of water‐use information; and (4) disseminate this information to those involved in establishing waterresources policy and to those managing the resource. The program was established in 1977, when the Congress of the United States recognized the need for uniform information on water use and directed the U.S. Geological Survey to establish a program to complement the Survey's data on the availability and quality of the Nation's water resources.