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Show -14- project cost of $596,000,000 ($708,780,000), Bluff Dam and Reservoir would cost $24,900,000 ($29,628,000); Coconino Dam and Reservoir would cost $6,300,000 ($7,487,000). The estimate of Bridge Canyon firm power production appearing on page 176 of House Document 136, Eighty-first Congress, first session, is based upon Bluff Reservoir and Coconino Reservoir being available as adjuncts to Bridge Canyon Reservoir, and as a matter of conservative estimating, upon the expectation that the upper basin will increase its stream depletions during the 50 years following completion of Bridge Canyon to the point where the flow of the Colorado River at Lee Ferry during the minimum 10-year period will be 75,000,000 acre-feet. Answering this question directly, upstream storage costing $31,200,000 ($37,115,000) would assure the production at Bridge Canyon power plant of firm power in the amount estimated on page 176 of House Document 136. The Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, in its report on S. 75, proposed elimination of Bluff Dam because- * * * Glen Canyon Dam in the opinion of the committee, should and will be authorized and constructed at an early date as a separate and distinct project not alone for silt control, but is essential in the development of the river for two additional primary reasons: (a) To provide for the regulation of the flow of the Colorado River which would permit the upper basin States to meet their obligation under the Colorado River compact to deliver 75,-000,000 acre-feet of water to the lower basin States every 10 years; and (b) To help meet the acute power shortage in that area. S. 75 as passed by the Senate does not authorize construction of Bluff Dam. |