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Show ment expenses, which will average from $150 to $200 per acre. Costs exceed the repayment ability of prospective water users on three of the four projects now in construction or authorized. Administrative prac- tice is therefore proceeding on the basis of using interest component of power revenues2 to return in a number of cases a portion of the irrigation construction costs. Approximately 77 percent of the total irrigation cost will be returned through use of the interest component of power revenues. Irrigation construction costs for the 88 potential 2 By law interest must be included in the power rate for power produced by facilities on Federal reclamation projects. According to* opinions of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, the interest component is assignable to the repayment of that part of the investment allocable to irrigation facilities in the same project, and beyond the ability of the water users to pay. projects for which data are available total 1.1 bil- lion dollars, of which water users could be expected to repay about 29 percent. (See table 4 for exam- ples.) The benefit-cost ratio for the 10 develop- ments currently recommended for authorization is 2.44, as determined by the Bureau of Reclamation. Inasmuch as few of these potential developments have immediately associated power features, return of the remaining 66 percent to the Federal Treasury would have to be made from other sources, if the policy of full reimbursement of irrigation construc- tion costs is retained. It is for this reason that the basin account with pooled costs and revenues has been recommended in the Columbia area. Accord- ing to this proposal, the interest component on power investment would be available for repay- ment of part of any irrigation development whether or not power generation was directly associated with the irrigation project. TABLE 4.-Cost of irrigation facilities recommended by Bureau of Reclamation Irrigation project Acres in project i Estimated cost allocated to irrigation Total Per acre Per 160 acre farm Repayment By water users in in- terest-free money' Percent Amount Federal contribution required Percent Amount PROPOSED FOR AUTHORIZATION Upper Star Valley____________ Canby______________________ Bitterroot Valley_____________ Crooked River_______________ Cambridge Bench____________ Council_____________________ Vale, Bully Creek extension____ The Dalles, west unit_________ PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED UNDER WATER CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION ACT Bitterroot Valley, Woodside unit3 Mann Creek__________ Missoula Valley, north side unit- Total_________________ S 21, N 3, N 1, S 48, N 9, S 10, S 2, N 1, S N 720 $3, 270 700 300 990 220 580 656 560 000 826, 800 961, 300 8, 979, 000 3, N 4,530 559, 000 452, 175 477, 000 252, 500 291, 000 $176. 19 293. 98 179. 58 176. 10 175. 26 350. 33 563. 13 505. 74 $28, 190 47, 030 28, 730 28, 180 28, 040 56, 050 90, 100 80, 920 17.6 100 22.2 48.1 45. 1 29.6 7.6 100 $673, 200 961, 300 2, 000, 000 1, 712, 500 204, 000 436, 500 171, 500 2, 291, 000 82. 4 $3, 153, 600 0 77.8 51.9 54.9 70.4 92.4 0 6, 979, 000 1, 846, 500 248, 175 1, 040, 500 2, 081, 000 N 270 S 4,030 S 1,200 1, 878, 000 184, 000 436. 74 153. 33 69, 880 24, 530 20.0 39.1 376, 000 72, 000 80.0 60.9 1, 502, 000 112,000 N 25,416 25,860,775 S 90, 610 222. 88 35, 700 4 34. 4 8, 898, 000 *65. 6 16, 962, 775 1 N-New acreage. S-Supplemental water. 2 Does not include amounts paid by irrigators for development work on individual farms. 8 Included in Bitterroot Valley project above. * Weighted average. 29 |
