It has been wet, but the recent storms have been warm. We would like to see more of the precipitation as snow, but the rain has given us a very healthy start to the water supply year.

It has not been a great turnout because of the storms that hit the central part of the state.

Acceleration of the original schedule to 2008 requires additional funds for obligations during fiscal year 2006. I would respectfully urge subcommittee members to support the administration's request for $44.5 million in fiscal year 2006 supplemental appropriations for this project.

It's going to be fairly expensive. I haven't seen any, you know, figures we have a high degree of confidence in. I do think there's a good chance it will be over $100 million, and in that case we have to consider what are the opportunity costs of doing that particular bit of work compared to other work (Cooperative Threat Reduction) or any other program is doing in the former Soviet Union, in Central Asia, or in any of the other places we're working.

We're watching these winter storms very carefully as well as the storm surge and surf conditions that are off our coast, because all of that combine to create some real serious situations for us.

Any time you have a situation where you have grapefruit- sized hail with damaging winds, those are some severe storms.