OCR Text |
Show tive use of water remaining in each State from its apportionment in the Upper Colorado River Compact, with modifications to allow for exceptional conditions existing in any particular State. These percentages were based upon the assumption that under the terms of the Colorado River Compact of 1922 there would be 7,500,000 acre-feet of water available per year to the Upper Basin. This latter proposition is incorporated in Public Law 485. Therefore, we now have a Law on the books providing for the authorization of a federal water resources development program which provides for a comprehensive basin-wide development of the water and power resources by large main-stem power-producing and river-regulating dams and reservoirs, but which guarantees the use of excess revenues for the repayment of costs of water-use projects in individual States. # LAW IS DIFFERENT The repayment features and accounting and funding requirements for the Colorado River Storage Project differ greatly from those for reclamation projects previously authorized by Congress. In summary, Public Law 485 provides: 1. for the creation of an Upper Colorado River Basin Fund to which all appropriations from the general fund of the U. S. Treasury shall be credited as advances, except those for recreational purposes, which are nonreimbursable; 2. that all revenues (power, municipal water, irrigation or other) derived from Storage Units or water-using participating projects shall be credited to the Basin Fund and shall be available for paying operation, maintenance and repair and emergency costs, and costs of power and municipal water features of Storage Units and participating projects within 50 years with interest; 3. that each participating consumptive-use project must pay its own operation, maintenance and emergency charges from its own revenues; 4. that costs of Storage Units allocated to irrigation shall be returned from revenues in the basin fund within 50 years; -33- |