| OCR Text |
Show 158 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER III. Federal subsidies are unprecedented: 1. Non-reimbursables written off, $73,000,000. 2. Interest, $465,600,000. 3. Contributed in electric energy, $315,000,000. Total, $853,600,000. IV. Results would not justify the cost; the project would bail out large landowners who have speculated in a war-boom development in the face of a known shortage of underground water and also permit irri- gation of a large acreage of new lands. The works would, at a cost of $1,750 per acre, irrigate land worth, with water, $300 per acre* V. Estimates of Colorado River water needed are exag- gerated; the United States Geological Survey indi- cates the basic factor on which the actual need should be evaluated are unknown and should be investigated. VI. The plan of repayment cannot work out: 1. The irrigators cannot pay one cent of irrigation construction cost, even for their local distribu- tion system or drainage system. 2. Power must pay all reimbursable construction cost. 3. Determination of the repayment period is dele- gated to the discretion of the Secretary of the In- terior. 4. Bridge Canyon power would not pay out the project over the assumed seventy-year period or ever. By the Watkins amendment, Bluff Dam is eliminated from the project. The Bureau esti- mates of Bridge power revenues are predicated on the existence of Bluff Dam. Without it, Bridge Canyon Reservoir would be completely filled with silt in thirty years. The amendment renders the Bureau's revenue estimates totally invalid and the project totally infeasible. VII. All departmental reports except that of Interior are highly critical of economic and engineering features |
