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<br />~ <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />II. Financial Arrangements <br /> <br />Increased water supplies will be required soon in the Colorado River Basin <br />because of rapidly expanding population and industrial requirements, environmen- <br />tal and recreational needs, and demand for increased hydroelectric power <br />generation. In addition, the Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 constitutes a <br />national obligation to provide 1.5 million acre-feet of water annually to <br />Mexico. <br /> <br />In order to provide for additional water supplies in the Basin as directed by <br />the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968, the Bureau of Reclamation will <br />accelerate its Colorado River Augmentation Demonstration program to develop <br />and test operational procedures of weather modification for increasinq water <br />resources. This program will verify the techniques of orographic cloud <br />seeding in the Colorado River Basin and quantify its augmentation potential. <br /> <br />Il. <br /> <br />The Bureau of Reclamation is requesting an amendment to the operation and <br />maintenance prOQram for fiscal year 1983. It will increase total obligations <br />by $11 million: $5.3 million to be derived from power revenues collected from <br />the Colorado River Storage Project; $4 million to be collected from power <br />revenues from Hoover Dam and then appropriated from the Colorado River Dam Fund; <br />and $1.7 million to be collected from power revenues on the Parker-Davis Project <br />and then appropriated from the Reclamation Fund. <br /> <br />An increase in power rates of less than one mill on Colorado River System <br />hydropower can finance the demonstration completely. The annual power production <br />for the Colorado River Storage Project, Hoover Dam, and the Parker-Davis <br />Project averaged about 12 billion kilowatt hours for the years 1980 and 1981. <br />Therefore~ an approximate 5/6 mill per kilowatt-hour increase in the Bureau's <br />operation and maintenance fee will finance the initial 3-year phase completely. <br />Financial requirements will be reduced to a 5/8 mill levy for the 5-year <br />demonstration project. <br /> <br />A <br /> <br />It is estimated that an operational program could produce an increase of 1.5 <br />billion kilowatt-hours in new hydroelectric power sales, far exceeding opera- <br />tional costs. The operational weather modification program would be self-financing <br />with a very high benefit-to-cost ratio. For every dollar spent, the project <br />would return between seven and ten dollars in benefits. A Basin-wide operational <br />program could be expected to produce 1.3 million acre-feet of additional water <br />in the Upper Colorado River Basin, 298,000 acre-feet in the Lower Colorado River <br />Basin, and 533,000 acre-feet in adjacent basins. <br /> <br />Colorado River Enhanced Snowpack Test financing is based on an equitable appli- <br />cation of the "beneficiary pay" principle. Thus far, the Bureau has invested <br />approximately $56 million in General Investigation funds, with Congressional <br />approval, to investigate and develop the particular weather modification techno- <br />logy to be demonstrated in the Colorado River Basin. Consequently, it is <br />appropriate that the financing for the final adaptation and application of this <br />promising new means of water resource augmentation be provided by the re~ion <br />where the benefits will be realized. The Basin states have expressed their <br />support for the program. <br /> <br />-3- <br /> <br />