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Show 4. On what basis can the public comment on the Draft EIS Jordanelle M & I System which will exclude a water component once considered vital to the development of this System? 5. Are we seeing here a fact that irrigation water may not be needed for that area? IPP is acquiring farmers' water rights in the region. Are we to understand that the once-considered-necessary evaporated-salvage-water is not now needed for irrigation? What does this mean? This leads to another issue. Issue #3 Irrigation as a Project Justification As a benefit from the CUP, the Bureau has consistently included water supply, and supplemental water, as essential goals in Utah. Some 89,000 acres of poor soils (6 W lands) are being irrigated in the Uintah Basin under this policy. Even though farmers are willingly selling water rights in the proposed power development area, and water supply is being denied other farmers in the area^ the proposed diking of Provo Bay would provide an area which could be maintained and drained as irrigated land. If there is such a need for irrigation water as the Bureau claims, and farmers are willing ly selling off water rights to viable farmlands - now in the Nephi/Delta area,and probably in the Uintah Basin area by Ute Indians and non-Indians living there when energy and mineral development change the water value - on what basis will the Bureau determine what to irrigate? On what kind of soils? As viable farm development - until water becomes more salable for other purposes or just to continue to justify Bureau existence? Is the reversing of the Strawberry Collection System to an M & I System, a real recognition of the real purpose of Bureau water development now? TT of Bonneville Unit developed water is for M & I use, according to the Salt Lake County Attorney, Paul Van Dam. Questions 1. Does this shift in purpose constitute a basis for reauthorization? Of the Bonneville Unit? Of the CUP? 2. Does the participation of the Bureau in the purposes of the Colorado River Storage Project Act change the original authorizing purpose of the Bureau in 1902 - that of irrigation of individual farms? 3. While the Bureau will now be releasing.Draft EIS on the Upalco Unit and has already released the Draft on the Uinta Unit - both in the Uintah Basin - with irrigation as a significant purpose now, can we expect a change,of purpose to M & I uses under the coming industrialization of northeast Utah? For_ujWd^_purpose does the public comment? At hearings, the BuRec insists that comment deal only with the Unit, at hand, unrelated to broader CUP develoment. |
