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Show APPENDIX VI VI-57 ,52 colorado river storage project House of Representatives, Committee ox Interior and Insular Affairs, Office of the Chairman, Washington, D.C., July IS, 1961. lion. Stewart L. Udall, Stcrctary of the Interior, Dijtnrthuhi of the Interior, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Secretary: This letter is in reply to yours of June 13, 1961, requesting my views with reference to a recommendation that you have received from Mr. Floyd E. Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation, concerning the operation of Glen Canyon Dam and Reservoir during the initial filling period. I appreciate your courtesy in permitting me to review the proposed criteria. AVliile I am higlilj7 critical of some portions of the proposed criteria, I fully appreciate the complexities of the problem that the forthcoming operation of the Glen Canyon Reservoir poses for your Department. I shall therefore attempt to analyze the criteria in terms of constructive criticism. As Commissioner Dominy stated in his letter of June 13, 1961, the fundamental objections of the upper basin States are to the proposed principle No. 5. This principle requires the United States, through the Department of the Interior, to reimburse Hoover Dam power contractors for so-called power "deficiencies" in Hoover generation at the expense of the Upper Colorado River Basin fund. This point was comprehensively discussed in memorandums of March 20 and April 12, 1961, by Mr. Ival V. Goslin to Under Secretary* James K. Can*. The fundamental guidelines to be followed in this case are contained in the Colorado River compact of 1922. There is nothing in that compact nor in any subsequent compact or act of Congress that places a power delivery servitude on the upper basin in favor of lower basin power contractors. At a hearing held in Washington, D.C, on April 8, 1941, with Secretary Ickes presiding, Mr. James H. Howard, general counsel, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and chairman of Conference of Power Contractors, spoke at some length regarding the relation of kilowatt-hours of firm energy to the amortization period, extracted as follows: (i* * * ^o one asked the United States to 'guarantee' the presence of water in the required amount [to produce defined firm energy]. That would be obviously absurd." [Italic supplied.] <t*-« * to agree t0 pay for tne works * * * regardless of the amount of energy actually delivered was not considered good business, particularly in view of the fact that upstream diversions, which might contribute to the reduction in firm energy, were not within the control of the power contractors." [Italic supplied.] 1 am therefore in disagreement with the premise that the United States is under any obligation to supply a fixed amount of energy to Hoover Dam at the expense of the upper basin fund. Such presumption, as above noted, was correctly described by the power contractors a«? "obviously absurd" at the very inception of their contractual relationships with the United States. As you know, I am one of the authors of the Colorado River Storage Project Act. The purposes of the act and the allocations of revenues accruing to the basin fund therein established are fully self-explana- |
