'
Arkansas-Red River Basins Water
Quality Conservation Project
Jerome H. Svore, Director
The Arkansas-Red River Basins Water Quality Conservation Proj-
Public Health Service, Region VII
U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Dallas, Texas
The Arkansas-Red River Basin Water Quality Conservation Project was initiated on July 1, 1957, under authority of the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act of 1956. These rivers and their tributaries are interstate streams flowing through parts of Colorado, New
Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
The portions of the Arkansas and Red River Basins which this Project
has under study comprise an area of some 180,000 square miles. This
is a water-hungry, fertile, agricultural land with extensive untouched
natural resources. Its full development is still in the future and is
dependent upon the utilization of millions of acre-feet of water which
now flow through the area each year virtually unused. The purpose
of this project is to pin-point the reasons why these waters continue to
flow unused and to determine the extent of the mineral pollution and
whether or not something can be done about it. We are not primarily concerned with next year or necessarily the next decade but
with the ultimate utilization and development of water resources in
this part of the country.
The project was started rather unpretentiously as a somewhat
routine type of interstate pollution investigation of the two rivers. It
was soon apparent that this was no ordinary investigation. Rather, it
was a problem of great magnitude and its solution would yield tremendous benefits.
In organizing the project as a major undertaking it was decided
to conduct it in phases. During the first phase, now completed, all
known documented information was assembled, studied, and analyzed.
Phase 2, which is the present phase of the project, is being devoted to
making field studies to supplement the information obtained in Phase 1
and to obtaining detailed information on sources of man-made and
natural pollution. New stations are being established to fill in the gaps
indicated by analysis of data assembled during the first phase.   Phase 3
84