COLORADO RIVER STORAGE PROJECT MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1954 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met at 10:45 a. m., pursuant to call, in room 457, Senate Office Building, Senator Eugene D. Millikin presiding. Present: Senators Eugene D. Millikin, Colorado (chairman of the subcommittee); Arthur V. Watkins, Utah; and Clinton P. Anderson, New Mexico. Present also: Senators Edwin C. Johnson, Colorado, Thomas H. Kuchel, California; and Wallace F. Bennett, Utah. Present also: Elmer K. Nelson, staff consulting engineer, and N. D. McSherry, assistant chief clerk. Senator MILLIKIN. The subcommittee will come to order. This will be the opening of hearings on the upper Colorado River Basin storage program. There will be inserted in the record S. 1555, a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the Colorado River storage project, and participating projects, and for other purposes. (The bill S. 1555 is as follows:) [S. 1555, 83d Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the Colorado River storage project and participating projects, and for other purposes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, in order to initiate the comprehensive development of the water resources of the Upper Colorado River Basin, the Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional authority to provide for the general welfare, to regulate commerce among the States, and to make all needful rules and regulations respecting property belonging to the United States, and for the purposes, among others, of regulating the flow of the Colorado River, storing water for beneficial consumptive use, making it possible for the States of the Upper Basin to utilize, consistently with the obligation undertaken by the States of the upper division in article III of the Colorado River Compact, the apportionments made to and among them in the Colorado River Compact and Upper Colorado River Basin Compact, respectively, providing for the control of floods and for the improvement of navigation, and generating hydroelectric power, hereby authorizes the Secretary of the Interior (1) to construct, operate, and maintain the following initial units of the Colorado River storage project, consisting of dams, reservoirs, power plants, transmission facilities, and appurtenant works: Echo Park, Flaming Gorge, Glen Canyon, Navaho, and Curecanti: Provided, however, That the Curecanti Dam shall be constructed to a height which will impound not less than nine hundred and forty thousand acre-feet of water or will create a reservoir of such greater capacity as can be obtained by a high water line located at seven thousand five hundred and twenty feet above mean sea level; and (2) to construct, operate, and maintain the following additional reclamation projects (including power generating and transmission facilities related thereto), hereinafter referred to as participating projects: Central 1 Utah, Emery County, Gooseberry, Florida, San Juan-Chama, Shiprock-South San Juan Indian irrigation, Hammond, LaBarge, Lyman, Paonia (including the Minnesota unit, a dam and reservoir on Muddy Creek just above its confluence with the North Fork of the Gunnison River, and other necessary works), Pine River Extension, La Plata, Seedskadee, Silt, and Smith Fork: Provided, That no appropriation for or construction of the San Juan-Chama project or the ShiprockSouth San Juan Indian irrigation project shall be made or begun until coordinated reports thereon shall have been submitted to the affected States pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1944 (58 Stat. 887), and approved by the Congress : Provided further, That no appropriation for or construction of any part of the Central Utah project, beyond the initial phase thereof, shall be made or begun until a report thereon shall have been submitted to the affected States pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1944 (58 Stat. 887), and approved by the Congress. The benefits of the Act of July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 564), are hereby extended and shall apply to all Indian lands served by each of the foregoing participating projects. SEC. 2. Except as otherwise provided in this Act, in constructing, operating, and maintaining the units of the Colorado River storage project and the participating projects listed in section 1 of this Act, the Secretary shall be governed by the Federal reclamation laws (Act of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 388, and Acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto): Provided, That (a) irrigation repayment contracts entered into pursuant to those laws may, except as otherwise provided for the Paonia and Eden projects, provide for repayment of the obligation assumed thereunder over a period of not more than fifty years exclusive of any development period authorized by law; (b) contracts relating to municipal water supply may be made without regard to the limitations of the last sentence of section 9 (c) of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939; (c) in constructing, operating, and maintaining the Shiprock-South San Juan Indian irrigation project, the Secretary shall be governed by the laws relating to the development of irrigation projects on Indian reservations where applicable; and (d), as to Indian lands within, under or served by either or all participating projects, payment of construction costs shall be subject to the Act of July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 564). Said units and projects shall be subject to the apportionments of the use of water between the Upper and Lower Basins of the Colorado River and among the States of the Upper Basin fixed in the Colorado River Compact and the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact, respectively, and to the terms of the treaty with the United Mexican States. SEC. 3. The Colorado River storage project and participating projects shall be treated and accounted for as one project; the capital investment in the commercial power features of said project shall be returnable within a period not exceeding fifty years from the date of completion of such features unless, in the judgment of the Secretary, concurred in by the Federal Power Commission, a longer period is deemed justified; interest on the unamortized balance of the investment in the commercial power features of the said project shall be returnable at a rate not less than the average rate paid by the United States on its long-term loans outstanding at the date of authorization of the said project; interest at such rate shall be paid annually out of the net revenues of the commercial power features thereof into Miscellaneous Receipts of the Treasury; and the return of that part of the costs of the project (including, but without limitation, those portions of the reimbursable construction cost of the Paonia project (including the Minnesota unit, a dam and reservoir on Muddy Creek just above its confluence with the North Fork of the Gunnison River, and other necessary works) and of the irrigation features of the Eden project, as authorized in the Act of June 28, 1949 (63 Stat. 277), which are, in the case of the Paonia project, beyond the ability of the water users to repay within the period prescribed in the Act of June 25, 1947 (61 Stat. 181), and, in the case of the Eden project, in excess of the amount prescribed in the Act of June 28, 1949) allocated to irrigation but returnable from net power revenues, authorization for which said allocation and return under the Federal reclamation laws is hereby confirmed, shall begin on a date not later than the date upon which the return of the capital investment in the commercial power features of the said project has been completed. SEC. 4. The hydroelectric powerplants authorized by this Act to be constructed, operated, and maintained by the Secretary shall, to the fullest practicable extent consistent with the purposes of this Act, the Colorado River Compact and the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact, be operated in conjunction with other Federal powerplants, present and potential, so as to produce the greatest practi cable amount of power and energy that can be sold at firm power and energy rates. Neither the impounding nor use of water solely for the generation of power and energy at such plants shall preclude the use and consumption of water of the Upper Colorado River System for domestic or agricultural purposes; and the Secretary, upon the application of any party proposing to make any such use (which application is concurred in by the appropriate officials of the State or States in which such use is proposed to be made), after notice given by said party to all other interested parties and opportunity for public hearing on the issues involved and unless good cause be shown why such application should not be granted, shall release to the extent required for such use any right that the United States may have to impound and use water solely for the generation of power and energy as aforesaid. The Secretary is hereby authorized to enter into such contracts or agreements as, in his opinion, are feasible based upon a recognition and evaluation of the benefits arising from integrated operation of other hydroelectric powerplants and of the works herein authorized. Electric power generated at plants authorized by this Act and disposed of for use outside the States of the Upper Colorado River Basin shall be replaced from other sources, as determined by the Secretary, when required to satisfy needs in the States of the Upper Colorado River Basin, at rates not to exceed those in effect for power generated at plants authorized by this Act. Contracts for the sale of power for use outside the States of the Upper Colorado River Basin shall contain such provisions as the Secretary shall determine to be necessary to effectuate the purposes of this Act, including the provision that if and when the Secretary finds (a) that such power cannot practicably be replaced from other sources at rates not exceeding those in effect for power generated by plants authorized by this Act, and (b) that such power is required to satisfy needs in the States of the Upper Colorado River Basin, then such contracts shall be subject to termination or to modification to the extent deemed necessary by the Secretary to meet power requirements in the States of the Upper Colorado River Basin. SEC. 5. In order to achieve such comprehensive development as will assure the consumptive use in the States of the Upper Colorado River Basin of waters of the Colorado River system the use of which is apportioned to the Upper Colorado River Basin by the Colorado River Compact and to each State thereof by the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact, it is the intent of the Congress to authorize the construction, operation, and maintenance of further units of the Colorado River storage project, of additional phases of participating projects authorized in this Act, and of new participating projects as additional information becomes available and additional needs are indicated. It is hereby declared to be the purpose of the Congress to authorize as participating projects only projects (including units or phases thereof) (1) for the use, in one or more of the States designated in article III of the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact, of waters of the Upper Colorado River system the consumptive use of which is apportioned to those States by that article ; (2) whose total benefits exceed their total costs including, but without limitation, costs attributable to the direct use of the facilities of the Colorado River storage project or any other project and an appropriate share of the costs of the Colorado River storage project; (3) which are able, with their anticipated revenues from irrigation, based on the irrigators' ability to pay, to meet the operation, maintenance, and replacement costs allocated to irrigation and to pay within a period of fifty years following a suitable development period at least part of the construction cost allocated to irrigation; (4) which have available, to aid them, an appropriate district, preferably of the water-conservancy type, which is satisfactory to the Secretary, one purpose of which shall be to provide revenues for the project over and above those paid by the irrigators, to assist in repayment of construction costs allocated to irrigation; and (5) for which pertinent data sufficient to determine their probable engineering and economic justification and feasibility shall be available. It is likewise declared to be the policy of the Congress that a new project, unit, or phase thereof shall be authorized as a participating project only when and to the extent that all sources of revenue directly available to said project, unit, or phase are insufficient to return its reimbursable costs during a fifty-year payout period. SEC. 6. There is hereby established in the Treasury a special fund, designated the "Upper Colorado River Development Fund," to which shall be transferred at the end of each fiscal year, beginning with the initial year of commercial power production by the Colorado River storage project 71⁄2 per centum of the net power revenues for that year after such net revenues exceed $5,000,000 annually, but not to exceed $1,000,000 in any one fiscal year. The moneys so transferred shall be available upon appropriation (such appropriation to remain available until expended) for expenditure by the Secretary, without prejudice to the use by him for the same purposes of other appropriated moneys, for studies and investigations relating to the development, conservation, and utilization of the waters of the Upper Colorado River Basin, all expenditures from said fund to be nonreimbursable and nonreturnable under the reclamation laws. Funds appropriated for carrying out the authorizations contained in section 1 of this Act shall also be available for carrying out the studies and investigations set forth in this section. SEC. 7. There is hereby established in the Treasury, from the receipts of the Colorado River storage project, a continuing fund of $1,000,000 to the credit of and subject to expenditure by the Secretary to defray emergency expenses and to insure continuous operation of the project. SEC. 8. The Secretary shall report to the Congress as of the close of each fiscal year beginning with the fiscal year 1955 upon the status of the revenues from and the cost of constructing, operating, and maintaining the Colorado River storage project and the participating projects. The Secretary's report shall be prepared in such manner as accurately to reflect the Federal investment allocated to power, to irrigation, and to other purposes and the progress of return and repayment thereon, and the estimated rate of progress, year by year, in accomplishing full repayment. SEC. 9. The Secretary is authorized and directed to plan, construct, operate, and maintain public recreational facilities on lands withdrawn or acquired for the development of the Colorado River storage project or of the participating projects, except on lands in Indian reservations, to conserve the scenery, the natural, historic, and archeologic obiects, and the wildlife on said lands, and to provide for public use and enjoyment of the same and of the water areas created by these projects by such means as are consistent with the primary purposes of said projects; and to mitigate losses of and improve conditions for the propagation of fish and wildlife in connection with the development of the Colorado River storage project and of the participating projects. The Secretary is authorized to acquire lands and to withdraw public lands from entry or other disposition under the public land laws for the construction, operation, and maintenance of recreational facilities in connection with the said projects, and to dispose of them to Federal, State, and local governmental agencies by lease, transfer, exchange, or conveyance, upon such terms and conditions as will best promote their development and operation in the public interest. The costs, including the operation and maintenance costs, of all said undertakings shall be nonreimbursable and nonreturnable under the reclamation laws, and funds appropriated for carrying out the authorization contained in section 1 of this Act shall, without prejudice to the availability of other appropriated moneys for the same purposes, also be available for carrying out the investigations and programs authorized in this section. SEC. 10. The Secretary is hereby authorized to undertake the investigations and programs of cooperating Federal agencies outlined in paragraphs 33 to 39, inclusive, of the report of the regional director, region 4, Bureau of Reclamation, dated December 15, 1950, and entitled "Colorado River Storage Project and Participating Projects, Upper Colorado River Basin". The cost thereof shall be nonreimbursable and nonreturnable under the reclamation laws, and funds appropriated for carrying out the authorizations contained in section 1 of this Act shall, without prejudice to the availability of other appropriated moneys for the same purposes, also be available for carrying out the investigations and programs authorized in this section. SEC. 11. Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to alter, amend, or repeal the Boulder Canyon Project Act (45 Stat. 1057) or the Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act (54 Stat. 774). SEC. 12. Construction of the projects herein authorized shall proceed as rapidly as is consistent with budgetary requirements and the economic needs of the country. |