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UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN FUND <br />Legal Background <br />Section 5 of the Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956 (CRSP Act) establishes a <br />separate fund in the U. S. Treasury called the Upper Colorado River Basin Fund (hereinafter <br />Basin Fund). The purpose of the Basin Fund is to finance the construction of water projects in <br />the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to develop those States' shares of the <br />waters of the Colorado River apportioned by the Colorado River Compact and the Upper <br />Colorado River Basin Compact. <br />The second Executive Director of the Upper Colorado River Commission (Commission), <br />Ival V. Goslin was extensively involved in the writing and passage of the CRSP Act. In 1979, <br />Mr. Goslin wrote an article entitled Federal Participation in Irrigation and Use of Power <br />Revenues, published in Public Policy Monograph Series, Industrial Economics Division, Denver <br />Research Institute, University of Denver, March 1979. That article contains the following <br />summary of the operation of Section 5 of the CRSP Act, explaining that Section 5 provides: <br />for the creation of an Upper Colorado River Basin Fund to which all appropriations <br />from the general fund of the U. S. Treasury shall be credited as advances, except <br />those for recreational purposes, which are nonreimbursable; <br />2. that all revenues (power, irrigation, municipal water, ad valorem taxes or other) <br />derived from storage units or water -using participating irrigation projects shall be <br />credited to the Basin Fund and shall be available for paying operation, <br />maintenance, repair, and emergency costs, and costs of power and municipal water <br />features of both storage units and participating projects within 50 years with <br />interest, and interest due shall be the first charge; <br />3. that each participating water -use project must pay its own operation, maintenance, <br />and emergency charges from its own revenues; <br />4. that the cost of the storage units (Glen Canyon, etc.) allocated to irrigation shall be <br />returned to the U. S. Treasury from revenues in the Basin Fund within 50 years; <br />5. that revenues in the Basin Fund in excess of amounts needed to defray costs under <br />(2), (3), and (4) above shall be apportioned within the Basin Fund to the credit of <br />the States: <br />Colorado 46.0% <br />Utah 21.5% <br />New Mexico 17.0% <br />Wyoming 15.5% <br />for the specific purpose of returning, within 50 years, the costs of irrigation <br />allocations of participating projects that are beyond the ability of the water users to <br />repay; <br />6. that if a participating irrigation project has power and /or municipal water facilities in <br />addition to irrigation facilities, it must pay from its own revenues the operation, <br />maintenance, repair and emergency charges for all of its facilities, repayment of its <br />