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Show 38 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER the books of the U. S. Treasury. This was a gimmick with a lot of posibilities, and a lot of loopholes that would let money leak in various directions. Into the Basin Fund would go all the appropriations made by Congress for the development of the Upper Basin. Likewise, all revenues collected in connection with the operation of the project would go into the Basin Fund, and, without further consent from Congress (or any one else), would be available to the operators of the project, which happened to be the Bureau of Reclamation. Revenues in the Basin Fund, in excess of those needed to repay costs allocated to power and municipal water would be divided among the Upper Basin states: 46 per cent to Colorado; 21.5 per cent to Utah; 15.5 per cent to Wyoming; and 17 per cent to New Mexico. The Upper Basin states, of course, were delighted with the prospect set up by the Basin Fund idea.41 So was Nevada.42 The Department of Agriculture took a cool view of the Basin Fund scheme.43 An account of this kind, in the opinion of the Secretary, Charles F. Brannan, would set an undesirable precedent. There were numerous other ideas in the crsp plan which Brannan did not like.44 He noted that it proposed a study by Interior Department agencies of erosion con- trol and stream sediment abatement. Just a minute, said Brannan. These were fields in which his department had conducted studies for years, and he questioned the necessity for duplicating them.45 It would soon be graphically illustrated before Con- gress that the Upper Basin's greatest opportunity for development was not in agriculture but in industry. |