Volume 71 · 373
Public Law 85–152
To provide for the construction by the Secretary of the Interior of the San Angelo Federal reclamation project, Texas, and for other purposes.
Approved August 16, 1957
Statutory text
AN ACT
To provide for the construction by the Secretary of the Interior of the San Angelo Federal reclamation project, Texas, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain the San Angelo Federal reclamation project, Texas, for the principal purposes of furnishing water for the irrigation of approximately ten thousand acres of land in Tom Green County and municipal, domestic, and industrial use, controlling floods, providing recreation and fish and wildlife benefits, and controlling silt. The principal engineering features of said project shall be a dam and reservoir at or near the Twin Buttes site, outlet works at the existing Nasworthy Dam, and necessary canals, drains, and related works.
Sec. 2.
In constructing, operating, and maintaining the San
Authority.
Angelo project, the Secretary shall be governed by the Federal
reclamation laws (Act of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 388, and Acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto), except as is otherwise provided in this Act.
Actual construction of the project shall not lie commenced, and
Contract.
no construction contract therefor shall be awarded, until a contract or contracts complying with the provisions of this Act have been entered into for payment of those portions of the construction cost of the project which are allocated to irrigation and to municipal, domestic, and industrial water.
In furnishing water for irrigation and for municipal, domestic,
Water rates.
and industrial uses from the project, the Secretary shall charge rates with the object of returning to the United States over a period of not more than forty years, exclusive of any development period for irrigation, all of the costs incurred by it in constructing, operating, and maintaining the project which the Secretary finds to be properly allocable to the purposes aforesaid and of interest on the unamortized balance of the portion of the construction cost which is allocated to
Intere st.
municipal, domestic, and industrial water. Said interest shall lie at the average rate, which rate shall be certified by the Secretary of the Treasury, paid by the United States on its marketable long-term
Storage space.
securities outstanding on the date of this Act. When all of the said costs allocable to said purpose incurred by the United States in constructing, operating, and maintaining the project, together with said interest on the said unamortized balance, nave been returned to the United States, the contracting organization or organizations which have thus reimbursed the United States shall have a permanent right to use that portion of the storage space in the project thus allocable to said uses.
Any contract entered into under section 9, subsection (d), of
Repayment contract prerequisites.
the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 (53 Stat. 1197, 1193, 43 U. S. C., sec. 485h (d)) for payment of those portions of the costs of constructing, operating, and maintaining the project which are allocated to irrigation and assigned to be paid by the contracting organization may provide for repayment of the portion of the construction cost of the project assigned to any project contract unit or, if the contract unit be divided into two or more irrigation blocks, to any such block over the period specified in said section 9, subsection (d), or as near
43 USC 485h.
thereto as is consistent with the adoption and operation of a variable payment formula which, being based on full repayment within said period under normal conditions, permits variance in the required annual payments in the light of economic factors pertinent to the ability of the irrigators to pay: Provided, That for a period of ten years from the date of enactment of this Act, no water from the project shall be delivered to any water user for the production on newly irrigated lands of any basic agricultural commodity. as defined in the Agricultural Act of 1949, or any amendment thereof, if the
63 Stat. 1051.
total supply of such commodity for the marketing year in which the bulk of the crop would normally be marketed is in excess of the normal supply as defined in section 301 (b) (10) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, as amended, unless the Secretary of Agriculture
52 Stat. 41.
calls for an increase in production of such commodity in the interest of national security.
Contracts relating to municipal, domestic, and industrial water supply may be entered into without regard to the last sentence of section 9, subsection (c), of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, and
such contracts may recognize the relative priorities of domestic, municipal, industrial, and irrigational uses.
Upon request of a contracting organization, the Secretary may
Project works.
Maintenance, etc.
at any time and shall, after payment of the reimbursable costs of the project has been completed, transfer to the requesting organization, or to another organization designated by it and satisfactory to him, the care, operation, and maintenance of any project works which serve the requesting organization and do not serve any other contracting organization. The care, operation, and maintenance of project works which serve two or more contracting organizations may or shall, as the case may be, be transferred in like circumstances to an organization satisfactory to all of said organizations and to the Secretary. Any transfer made pursuant to the authority of this section shall be upon terms and conditions satisfactory to the Secretary, and the works transferred shall be operated and maintained without further expense to the United States. If the transferred works serve a flood control or fish and wildlife function, they shall be operated and maintained in accordance with regulations with respect thereto prescribed by the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Interior, respectively, and upon failure so to operate or maintain them they shall, upon demand, be returned immediately to the Secretary of the Interior.
Sec. 3.
The Secretary is authorized to construct minimum basic
Recreational facilities.
recreational facilities at the Twin Buttes Reservoir and to operate and maintain or arrange for the operation and maintenance of the same. The costs of constructing, operating, and maintaining such facilities, and like costs of the San Angelo project allocated to flood control and to the preservation and propagation of fish and wildlife shall, except as is otherwise provided in this Act, be nonreimbursable and nonreturnable under the reclamation laws. The Secretary shall, upon conclusion of a suitable agreement with a qualified agency and subject to such conditions as may be set forth in the repayment contracts, permit said agency to construct, operate, and maintain additional public recreational facilities and parks in connection with the project to the extent determined by the Secretary to be consistent with its primary purposes and subject to terms and conditions satisfactory to him.
Sec. 4.
There are hereby authorized to be appropriated for construction
Appropriations.
of the works authorized by this Act $32,220,000 plus or minus such amounts, if any, as may be justified by reason of ordinary fluctuations in construction costs as indicated by engineering cost indices applicable to the type of construction involved herein. There are also authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be required for the operation and maintenance of said works.
Approved August 16, 1957.