The following table indicates total requirements under construction for fiscal years 1954, 1955, and 1956: Schedule for preparation of plans and initiation of construction of new Federal public works projects and programs [Fiscal years. Dollars in thousands] 1 Preliminary investigations only. 1 Diablo Dam is authorized by the 1944 treaty; construction of a powerplant in connection with the dam is subject to authorization by the Congress. Total estimated cost of project $850,000 including portions allocable to Mexico and to city of Calexico, determinations of which are subject to negotiations. Schedule for preparation of plans and initiation of construction of new Federal public works projects and programs-Continued 4 Construction cost to United States subject to terms of pending agreement with Mexico and city of Calexico. Schedule of Federal public works construction on continuing projects or programs [Fiscal years. Dollars in thousands] 1 It is proposed to allot $15,000 of the Anzalduas Dam funds to the Nogales flood-control project to modify existing works. The amount officially set aside for the acquisition of the Andrade properties from the Imperial Irrigation District is $600,000. However, due to the flood on the Rio Grande in June 1954, congressional concurrence was obtained to divert temporarily $200,000 of these funds for the purpose of completing the investigative phase of the upper dam by June 30, 1955. RIO GRANDE INTERNATIONAL DAMS PROGRAM In article 5 of the 1944 treaty, the two Governments agreed to construct jointly through their respective sections of the Commission, the dams required on the main channel of the Rio Grande, for the optimum regulation and use of the annual flow of the river. The article further provides that 1 of the storage dams shall be constructed in the section between Santa Helena Canyon and the Pecos River; 1 in the section between Eagle Pass and Laredo, Tex.; and a third in the section between Laredo and Roma, Tex.; and states that one or more of the stipulated dams may be omitted and others than those enumerated may be built subject to the approval of the two Governments. It further provides that construction of the international storage dams shall start with the lowest major dam which shall be completed within 8 years of the date of entry into force of the treaty. Falcon Dam Construction of the lowermost of the international storage dams, Falcon Dam, was completed in fiscal year 1954, and storage and regulation of the international waters began in August 1953. The dam was dedicated by President Eisenhower and President Cortines of Mexico in October 1953. Generation of hydroelectric power at Falcon Dam began in October 1954, with deliveries of the United States share being made to the Secretary of the Interior for transmission and disposition pursuant to the terms of Public Law 406, 83d Congress. The benefits which have already accrued from the Falcon Dam and Reservoir project in its first year of operation are noteworthy. Before its completion, the dam, by installation of expedient and provisional works, impounded floodwaters in August 1953 which, together with smaller flood inflows in the months immediately following, provided a full supply of domestic and irrigation waters for the lower Rio Grande Valley in both the United States and Mexico during the year ending June 1954. The gross value of crops produced in that period in the portion of the valley in Texas is estimated to exceed $100 million. If the dam had not been built, the natural flow of the river would have permitted diversion on only about half of the total irrigation requirements and the remainder would have wasted to the Gulf of Mexico. In the last days of June 1954, when the reservoir was nearly depleted, a recordbreaking flood poured into the Rio Grande from the Pecos and Devils Rivers, having a peak discharge of about 1,100,000 second-feet at Del Rio, Tex., nearly twice that of the previously recorded peak, and including more than 2,500,000 acre-feet of water. This flood, while it took a disastrous toll of lives as well as property in the border cities of Del Rio-Ciudad Acuna, Eagle Pass Piedras Negras, and Laredo-Nuevo Laredo, it was entirely contained in Falcon Reservoir, |