We have listened carefully to the views of individual citizens and citizen groups in a real effort to sense the needs and aspirations of the people who live in the valley and the millions who visit our Nation's Capital and the historic and beautiful Potomac valley. Publication of an Interim Report two years ago proved to be a useful means for obtaining citizen participation. This report summarizes a series of studies made in response to the President's directive. Although it is our final report, we urge that it be looked upon as the next step in a continuing planning process. It points to action to meet present and near-term needs and to the desirability of continued planning to provide sound bases for the further resource-use decisions which citizens of the Basin will be called upon to make as those decisions become more timely. The body of the report is a Department of the Interior document, couched whenever possible in nontechnical language in the hope that it may find a wide lay readership. The program for action, which constitutes the final chapter, is concurred in by the Federal agencies on the Interdepartmental Task Force. Comments of the Potomac River Basin Advisory Committee are set forth in the attached letter from its Chairman, Mr. James J. O'Donnell. Responsibility for leadership in proceeding with the proposed actions is identified, as appropriate, to specific Federal agencies, States or local governmental entities. Other reports have been or will be issued which form integral parts of this endeavor. These include the following: _Potomac Interim Report to the President_--January 1966 ... _The Creek and The City_--Urban Pressures on a Natural Stream--Rock Creek Park and Metropolitan Washington--January 1967 ... _The Potomac_--The Report of the Potomac Planning Task Force--Assembled by the American Institute of Architects--September 1967 ... _Report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army Corps of Engineers, Potomac River Basin, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia_ (This report, now in the process of official review, will provide a basis for action on water supply and related matters.) In addition to the published documents, each of the four Sub-Task Forces established by the Interdepartmental Task Force prepared reports which constituted invaluable working documents on several aspects of Potomac Basin planning. These include the following: _Report of the Water Supply and Flood Control Sub-Task Force_ ... _Report of the Water Quality Sub-Task Force_ ... _Report of the Sedimentation and Erosion Sub-Task Force_ ... _Report of the Recreation and Landscape Sub-Task Force_. Copies of these working documents will be distributed to concerned local, State and Federal agencies and will be on file in those offices.