CENTRAL ARIZONA PROJECT

TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1963

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 3110, New Senate Office Building, Senator Frank E. Moss presiding. Present: Senators Moss, Hayden, Anderson, Burdick, Kuchel, Allott, and Jordan.

Also present: Senators Goldwater and Bible.

Jerry Verkler, staff director; Roy M. Whitacre, professional staff member; and Stewart French, chief counsel.

Senator Moss. The subcommittee will come to order.

The meeting this morning is to consider S. 1658, introduced by Senators Hayden and Goldwater to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the central Arizona project, Arizona-New Mexico, and for other purposes.

This project has had a long history before the committee and the Congress. The Bureau of Reclamation's original planning report was completed in December 1947, and was published as House Document No. 136, 81st Congress, 1st Session.

Hearings on bills to authorize the project were conducted in both the Senate and House in 1949. It was approved in the Senate in 1950 and again in 1951, but hearings were indefinitely postponed by the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee in 1951.

An updated report was issued by the Bureau of Reclamation in January 1962. Based on the information contained in this report, a fact sheet outlining the salient points in the proposal has been prepared and is now before the committee members for their information.

This meeting has been called to hear testimony from officials of the Department of the Interior. No outside witnesses will be heard at this time. Ample time will be made available at a later date to make a complete record on the proposal.

Before calling on other members of the committee for statements, a copy of the bill and such comments as are available from the executive departments will be included in the record at this point.

1

(S. 1658 and departmental statements are as follows:)

[S. 1658, 88th Cong., 1st sess.]

A BILL To authorize, construct, operate, and maintain the Central Arizona project, Arizona-New Mexico, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That for the purposes of furnishing supplemental irrigation water and municipal water supplies to the waterdeficient areas of Arizona and western New Mexico, through direct diversion or exchange of water, generation and sale of electric energy, control of floods, conservation and development of fish and wildlife resources, enhancement of recreation opportunities, and for other purposes, the Secretary of the Interior acting pursuant to the Federal reclamation laws (Act of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 388, and Acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto), is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain the Central Arizona project, Arizona-New Mexico. The principal works of the project shall consist of the Bridge Canyon Dam, Reservoir, and Powerplant; Maxwell Dam, Reservoir, and power-pumping plant; Buttes Dam and Reservoir; Hooker Dam and Reservoir; Charleston Dam and Reservoir; Granite Reef Aqueduct and pumping plants; Tucson Aqueducts and pumping plants; Salt-Gila Aqueduct; canals; electrical transmission facilities, and related water distribution and drainage works.

SEC. 2. (a) Contracts to repay the portion of the cost of the Central Arizona project allocated to irrigation and assigned to be repaid by irrigation water users which are entered into pursuant to subsection (d), section 9, of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 (53 Stat. 1187) as amended, shall provide for a basic repayment period of not more than fifty years after initiation of water service to any block of land plus a development period, if any, not to exceed ten years as determined by the Secretary.

(b) Rates charged for commercial power and for water for municipal, domestic, or industrial use shall be designed to return to the United States, within not more than fifty years from the completion of each unit of the project which serves those purposes, those costs of constructing, operating, and maintaining that unit which are allocated to said purpose and interest on the unamortized balance of said construction allocation and, in addition, within the time specified in subsection (a) of this section, so much of the irrigation allocation for each block as is beyond the ability of the water users to repay.

(c) The interest rate to be used for purposes of computing interest during construction and interest on the unpaid balance of those portions of the reimbursale costs which are properly allocable to commercial power development and municipal and industrial water supply shall be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, as of the beginning of the fiscal year in which this bill is enacted, on the basis of the computed average interest rate payable by the Treasury upon its outstanding marketable public obligations, which are neither due nor callable for redemption for fifteen years from date of issue. If the interest rate so computed is not a multiple of one-eighth of 1 per centum, the rate of interest to be used for these purposes shall be the multiple of one-eighth of 1 per centum next lower than the rate so computed: Provided, however, That as to Indian lands payment of construction costs within the capacity of the land to repay shall be subject to the Act of July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 564).

SEC. 3. (a) The Secretary is authorized as a part of the Central Arizona project to investigate, plan, construct, operate, and maintain public recreation facilities including access roads, to acquire or to withdraw from entry or other disposition under the public land laws such adjacent lands or interests therein as are necessary for present and future public recreation use, and to provide for public use and enjoyment of the same and of the water areas of the project in a manner consistent with the other project purposes. The Secretary is authorized to enter into agreements with State or local public agencies or other public entities for the operation, maintenance, or additional development of project lands or facilities to State or local agencies or other public entities by lease, transfer, exchange or conveyance, upon such terms and conditions as will best promote their development and operation in the public interest for recreation purposes. The cost of the undertakings described in this section, including costs of investigation, planning, operation, and maintenance and an appropriate share of the joint costs of the Central Arizona project shall be nonreimbursable.

(b) The Secretary may make such reasonable provision in connection with the Central Arizona project as, upon further study in accordance with section 2 of the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (48 Stat. 401, as amended; 16 U.S.C. 661, 662), he finds to be required for the conservation and development of fish and wildlife. An appropriate portion of the cost of the development shall be allocated as provided in said Act and it, together with the Federal operation and maintenance costs allocated to this function, shall be nonreimbursable.

(c) The Secretary is authorized to recognize area redevelopment as defined in Public Law 87-27 as a project function and to allocate such costs to this function as appropriate. The costs so allocated shall be nonreimbursable.

SEC. 4. Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to alter, amend, repeal, construe, interpret, modify, or be in conflict with the provisions of the Boulder Canyon Project Act (45 Stat. 1057), the Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act (54 Stat. 774), the Colorado River compact, the Upper Colorado River Basin compact, the Rio Grande compact of 1938, or the Treaty with the United Mexican States (Treaty Series 994).

SEC. 5. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sums as may be required to carry out the purposes of this Act.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT,

Hon. HENRY M. JACKSON,

BUREAU OF THE BUDGET, Washington, D.C., August 21, 1963.

Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in reply to your letter of June 6, 1963, requesting the views of the Bureau of the Budget on S. 1658, a bill to authorize, construct, operate, and maintain the central Arizona project, Arizona-New Mexico, and for other purposes.

The purpose of this bill is clearly stated in its title.

The Department of the Interior has not submitted a report on the project proposed for authorization in this bill to the Bureau of the Budget under procedures set forth in Executive Order No. 9384. Until a report is received, together with the views and comments of the concerned States and Federal agencies, the Bureau of the Budget has no basis for appraising the merits of the proposed development.

Accordingly, it is recommended that action on S. 1658 be deferred until a report is submitted to the Congress in accordance with established procedures. Sincerely yours,

PHILLIP S. HUGHES,

Assistant Director for Legislative Reference. Senator Moss. The subcommittee has, as a member, Senator Hayden, one of the authors of the bill. And I will ask Senator Hayden if he has any statement he would care to make at this time. Senator HAYDEN. I do, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF HON. CARL HAYDEN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

Senator HAYDEN. I appreciate this opportunity to make a statement in support of S. 1658, the bill which my colleague, Senator Goldwater, and I have introduced to authorize the central Arizona project. My statement at this time will be brief.

Arizona is at a crisis point. Arizona urgently needs more water, without which she faces a slowly withering economy as her groundwater bank account shrinks. She does not seek water to expand her irrigated agriculture. There is not sufficient water available to her to even permit maintenance of that agriculture which is now extant.

Arizona seeks only to meet her rapidly expanding domestic requirements and to maintain her irrigated agriculture as near as possible to present levels.

I anticipate, Mr. Chairman, that the testimony we shall hear today will be largely technical in nature and will be presented by the officials of the Bureau of Reclamation. Following the conclusion of that phase of the testimony, I expect that about the middle of September further hearings be set for the purpose of receiving testimony from Arizona witnesses; and that additional hearings be held soon after for others who may wish to testify in order that a complete record will be available to the committee to permit it to report this legislation favorably to the Senate at the earliest possible moment.

For 40 years I have witnessed the frustrating of Arizona's effort to put to use its full share of the Colorado River water. At every turn Arizona has encountered the deliberate delaying tactics of southern California and there is every reason to believe that this plan of obstruction will continue.

For example:

1. California refused to accept the division of water recommended by the Colorado River Basin Governors in 1924, and insisted on endless negotiations among the lower basin States.

2. California's unjustified interpretation of the tristate compact authorized by the Boulder Canyon Project Act defeated its adoption by the lower basin main-stream States.

3. Arizona's first three attempts to secure a Supreme Court decision regarding the Colorado River were successfully resisted by California.

4. California strenuously resisted and delayed ratification of the treaty which settled Mexico's rights to Colorado River water.

5. California consumed 11 months instead of the 90 days required by law in commenting on the Interior Department's central Arizona project report of December 1947.

6. From the time that the central Arizona project bill was first introduced in 1947, California succeeded in preventing a vote on the bill in the House and in 1951 terminated further consideration of the project by Congress by prevailing upon the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs to postpone further consideration of the project until the extent of Arizona's water rights had been adjudicated or agreed upon.

7. While the central Arizona project was before Congress, California represented to Congress that litigation determining Arizona's rights in Colorado River water could be adjudicated upon briefs and oral arguments, that it would not be necessary to take interminable. testimony as to factual matters, that the issues could be disposed of in a reasonable time not to exceed 2 years, and that California saw no occasion for and did not intend to involve the upper basin States in the case.

After Arizona initiated proceedings in the Supreme Court in 1952, California, contrary to her previous representations to Congress, attempted to bring the upper basin States into the litigation, delayed the course of such litigation by numerous requests for additional time, and made an elaborate and time-consuming presentation of her case before Judge Rifkind, the special master, all of which prolonged completion of the case until 1963.