Proclamation 3688—Water Conservation Month

Of all the natural resources with which our nation has been so richly blessed, none is more important than water.

Both urban and rural citizens rely on our water resources to satisfy human needs, to maintain farm and industrial production, and to provide electric power. Our rivers, lakes, and similar bodies of water constitute a vital segment of our transportation and communication system, and provide recreational facilities that enhance our use of leisure time.

The good health of the people of this nation is in no small measure dependent upon the quantity and quality of our water.

But none of our resources has been more grossly abused by waste, and pollution. Concern as to the quantity and quality of our supply of water is being expressed in all quarters of the nation. The problem, in many places, is not a need to find new sources of water, but, instead, is a need to develop sound conservation practices and to make more effective use of water resources now available.

We must be farsighted and bold in managing and using our water. What must be done—and done as soon as possible—is to reverse the trends of waste and man-made pollution and contamination which have assumed such massive and lethal proportions as to threaten the health, economy, and natural beauty of the nation.

The first session of the Eighty-ninth Congress made a number of significant contributions to the strengthening of the Federal government's role in water resources management. Accordingly, it is particularly fitting that the Congress has enacted House Joint Resolution 671 of November 7, 1965, which calls upon the President to issue a proclamation designating the month of November 1965 as Water Conservation Month.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the month of November 1965 as Water Conservation Month, and I call upon the citizens throughout the nation to participate in observance of that month.

I direct the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of the Army to cooperate with other national, state, and private agencies and organizations in suitable observances of Water Conservation Month, including public meetings, exhibits, and news-media features. I urge that these observances specially emphasize the need for immediate private and public participation in the nation-wide effort to cleanse our rivers, lakes, estuaries, shore water, and water underground so that they may serve us and our children and our children's children better.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this tenth day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninetieth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

Secretary of State