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In May 1961, Secretary Udall established an application and permit program. It is administered in the field by the Department's Lower Colorado Land-Use Office at Yuma, Arizona, headed by Albert Romeo, office administrator. The program allows an occupant to pay a rental and remain on the land until December 31, 1965. Even then, if the land is not needed for recreational development, the permittee may continue to rent on a year-to-year basis. When he established the Land-Use Advisory Committee in June 1961, Secretary Udall asked that "highest and best uses" be formulated for the more than 500 miles of riverfront lands on both sides of the Lower Colorado. The four primary land-use categories are: Areas suitable for national recreational development; for National Wildlife Refuges; for State parks and recreation areas; and those which should be established or retained as State game and fish refuges. The plan just announced by Secretary Udall even envisions five urban development sites, agreed upon by the counties involved, subject to final approval by the Department's Bureau of Land Management. These are: In California--Near Cross Roads, San Bernardino County, approximately one section for a small residential area for permanent inhabitants; Palo Verde Properties, Riverside and Imperial Counties, 12 miles south of Blythe, large water-oriented resort community, using private lands; Imperial Dam, Imperial County, permanent urban trade center to serve recreationists attracted to the proposed Squaw Lake, Senator Wash. and Ferguson Lake recreation complex. In Arizona--Site Six, Mohave County near Lake Havasu, now planned for an eventual urbanized area of 20,000 acres, privately developed but involving some public domain, State, and Bureau of Reclamation lands: Parker, Yuma County, new townsite proposed four miles east of existing Town of Parker, which is surrounded by the Colorado River Indian Reservation and is unable to expand. In areas administered by the Department's Fish and Wildlife Service, the plan calls for adjustment of the boundaries of the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge, which extends on both sides of the river into San Bernardino, Mohave, and Yuma Counties; for release from refuge status of portions of the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, in Imperial and Yuma Counties; and for establishment of Cibola National Wildlife Refuge as a northward extension of Imperial Refuge, also in Imperial and Yuma Counties. Interior's Bureau of Reclamation will continue its channelization and dredging operations on the Lower Colorado River. It will also work at eradication of certain plants (phreatophytes) which waste an estimated 568,000 acre feet of Lower Colorado water yearly. Experts estimate that 30 to 50 percent of this water can be salvaged through their removal. The Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs is involved because five Indian reservations lie along the Lower Colorado within the plan area. These are the Fort Mohave, Chemehuevi, Colorado River, Yuma, and Cocopah Reservations, lands held in trust by the Bureau for their tribal and individual Indian owners. The tribes and BIA recognize the benefits which can be derived from the tourism and recreational development resulting from the plan. Programs are now under way to 3Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 14,096,384 byte