Issues Paper, Central Utah Project

Page 72

£5T 11 studying wet years. The supplemental water will be pro­vided in all years, wet, dry and average. Its value is established by looking at all of these years or an average year. This is what the Utah Water Research Laboratory did. It found that the value of additional units uf water fell from a high of about $35 per acre-foot to zero as more and more water was made available. They concluded that for any project providing substantial additional amounts of water the value per acre-foot could not be more than $8.50 to $11.25 per acre-foot.* Howe and Young estimate the value of additional units of water (the marginal value of water) at $15.00 per acre-foot.** This figure is quite close to , the $16.00 per acre-foot found in Arizona and Colorado by a number of researchers.*** The BR, in its 1964 Definite Plan Report, provided, without realizing it, the data for estimating the value of additional units of water. It points out that farms drawing on ground water paid $8.60 to $9.60 per acre-foot in pumping costs. "The amount farms are presently paying for irrigation water (from pumping) affords *Mark H. Anderson, op. cit., p. 7; dollar values adjusted to 1978 dollars. ~ ~ **Howe, Charles W. and Jeffrey T. Young, "The Measurement of Regional Economic Effects of Increased Salinity in the Colorado," Center for Water Resources Research, Utah State University, June 197 5. ***See Kelso et al., op_. cit. , and U.S. Forest Service, ,"Chapa-rel Conversion Potential in Arizona: Part II, An Economic Analysis," USDA Forest Service Research Paper, RM-127, August 1974, p. 12. All adjusted to current dollars.