WSP09943

• File Number: 8442.900
• Description: Missouri Basin - Pick Sloan Project - Project Funding
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 7/1/1978
• Title: Review of Repayment Status of Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program and Individually Authorized Projects Bureau of Reclamation
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

Unpaid investment at 2078 in the 1976 study, including approximately

$1.3 billion irrigation assistance, is scheduled for repayment by the

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year 2152. All of the $1.3 billion unpaid aid to irrigation at 2078

relates to currently unauthorized iirrigation development. The Bureau

estimates that power revenues are !expected to repay in excess of

80 percent of the total costs allocated to irrigation,

The criteria for repaying the Federal investment in Pick-Sloan are

contained in a number of laws and !data submitted to the Congress

particularly the Flood Control Ac~ of 1944 (58 Stat. 887), which

authorized construction of the initial stages of Pick-Sloan, and the

Federal Reclamation Law (43 U.S,C, 485). These criteria were amplified

in DOl's December 17, 1963, letter to the Congress and the study

attached to it entitled "Report ori Financial Position, Missouri River
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Basin Project, December 1963" (th~ "1963 Garrison study" included in

this report as appendix I), and b1 subsequent hearings when authoriza-

tion of the Garrison Diversion Unit was being considered. The Bureau

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has taken the position that the Cqngress accepted the repayment criteria

contained in the 1963 Garrison st4dy when it authorized the Garrison

Diversion Unit in 1965. This pos~~ion is supported by a 1973 memorandum

of the then Assistant Solicitor -:Power (eXhibit II), which points out

that the Department also embraced!that position in a June 1, 1967 letter

to the General Accounting Office erom the Director of the Office of

Survey and Review pertinent to a draft report on the Missouri River

Basin Project.

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