OCR Text |
Show THE ALL-AMERICAN CANAL. 55 nine-tenths of $2,100,856, the cost of Laguna Dam, or $1,900,000. This obligation would then be subject to apportionment on the basis of acreage within and outside of the district. The lands in Imperial and Coachella Valleys outside of Imperial Irrigation District would have only a small interest in power because only the water of the lower mesa canal (500 second-feet) would be available for power at mesa power station No. 1. These lands should be charged with one-twelfth of the cost of making the power installation at mesa power station No. 1 this being the ratio of 500 second-feet to the full capacity of flow for the utilization of which the power installation is there to be made. Power wherever developed should be made available to both the Yuma project and the Imperial Valley for pumping water, for irrigation, or drainage and for other canal operation and maintenance requirements, and there should be a charge for the power thus used at cost plus 10 per cent. Power in excess of such requirements, whether generated at a Pilot Knob power station or at the proposed mesa power stations, would be commercial power. The cost of power development and its transmission should include interest on whatever capital investment has been charged to power down to Araz. Below Araz the canal may be regarded as constructed solely for irrigation purposes, with power development as an incident which is not to be charged with any further cost of ordinary canal construction. Accepting this view, the controlling gates and offtake gates and the chutes to lower levels at each power station would be chargeable to power. So, too, might be considered the extra cost of constructing the canal on a looation such that its excess fall can be used for power. If not so located, however, other structures to take up grade would have been necessary. No attempt has been made to determine whether or not the local conditions would have justified any addition from this cause to the power-plant construction charge, and it is recommended that none be made. Of the ordinary canal operating and maintenance expenses from the headworks at Laguna Dam down to the power station near Pilot Knob a small proportionate part to be fixed by the Secretary of the Interior should be charged to power, wherever this power is generated. The canal operating and maintenance expenses from the Laguna Dam down to the siphon drop, which are chargeable to irrigation, should be distributed to the Yuma project and to the Imperial Valley interests, respectively, in the ratio of the relative amounts of water carried for each. The distribution of profits from the sales of power should be to the Yuma project and to the Imperial Valley interests in the same ratio that is determined to be the basis of their relative contributions to the cost of constructing the power plants. |
Source |
Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : California exhibits. |