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- - - - State/Region --- Page 20 - Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colo. Wednesday. May 23. 1984 CF' - Lo;6. K. ~. ~aA:~ - --- --Mr'JI Lamm airs water project funding plan , would be "totally acceptable." Lamm would prefer that Congress fund the seven Colo. rado projects it a~thorized years ago in the traditional way. But so lar it has decided to pop for only two: Dolores and Dallas Creek. And with huge federal d('ficjts looming for years to come, Colorado could wait forever for the other five to be funded. "My feeling Is the good old days are gone," Lamm said in an interview. Instead he wants to change the funding pattern - "new wine in old wineskins," he called it. His proposal is patterned alter a bill now pending in Congress that would allow Arizona to levy a surcharge on federal power (or its own water projects. The measure has passed the Senate but is e:lpected to have trouble in the House. \\lhat Arizona and Lamm are .looking at is the estimated $2 billion annual subsidy enjoyed by customers of public hydroelectric power. That is the estimate of how much less they pay than they would If they had to buy from private utilities. Colorado would be the major beneficiary of Lamm.s proposal, according to David Getehes, dirC!Ctor of the state's NatuI:"al Resources Department. It would earn about $30 million a year from the surcharge, wilh the remaining $41 million going to the other thrt'e states in the uppt'r basin. By PETER BLAKE Rocky Mountain News Cllpitol BUfeau PALM SPHINGS, Calif. - P':"oposed water projects in the upper Colorado Hivcr basin can be financed by a surcharge on federal power revenue, Gov. Hichard Lamm told the Western Governors' Association meeting Tues- \ day. Lamm's proposal, borrowed from an idea already being pushl'd by Arizona, calls for a uniform surl'llargc of a half. cent on every kilowatt hour sold to Colorado Hivcr Star. age Project customers. The upper basin states - Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico - could impose an additional surcharge of a half-cent. Since an extra cent would about double the current rate being paid to the federal government for h)'droclcctrie power, Lamm's proposal drew a cool reception from ('l('ctric cooperatives. "We like the status quo," said Ge()rge M. Sheldon of the Colorado River Energy Development A$Socialion, the co- operatives' umbrella group. And Lamm convinced ill! his ft'Jlow governors in lhe upper basin, although Gov. Scott Matheson said, "I have ....~mc skcfltkism about its applicability to Utah." en Hut Malheson dId declare that a study of the proposal N -t"<') -- <::> <::> That could fund the Animas-LaPlat.a project and others awaiting federal money. If the states built their own projects they would cost much less, Celches m.:linlained. "The federal government is notorious for over.dt'sign- ing power projects," he said. For instance, the "frills" on the proposed San Miguel project in soulhwestern Colorado include dC('orative facing slone. A doubling of the l-ccnt per kilowatt hour charged cooperatives by .the federal govt'rnmcnt for power wouldn't double the rale paid by the retail consumer. But it would add 20-30 percent, and the cooperatives think that's too much. The favorable rates enjoyed by the cooperatives aren't going to last long in any case, Lamm said. "It's $2 billion a year on the lable." Earlier this month the House almost approved an amendment that would require the federal government to auction off all its power to the highest bidder. The extra money would have gone to the U.S. Treasury. That caused shock waves throughout the West, and Lamm hopes to forestall similar moves later with his own plea. "Let's use tho:>c revenues to build the water projects promised to us by tbe federal government," he said. "I'm not trying to steal from the federal treasury. I'm trying to get them to fulfill their obligations," - ~ - -