Volume 82 · 854
Public Law 90–503
To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the Mountain Park reclamation project, Oklahoma, and for other purposes.
Approved September 21, 1968
Statutory text
AN ACT
To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the Mountain Park reclamation project, Oklahoma, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and Howe of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That the Secretary
Mountain Park reclamation project, Okla.
of the Interior is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain the Mountain Park reclamation project, Oklahoma, under the Federal reclamation laws (Act of June 17, 1902: 32 Stat. 388, and Acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto) for the principal purposes of
storing, regulating, and furnishing water for municipal, domestic, and industrial uses, conserving and developing fish and wildlife resources, providing outdoor recreation opportunities, and controlling floods. The principal features of the project shall consist of a dam and reservoir on Otter Creek, a diversion dam on Elk Creek, a canal from the diversion dam to a storage reservoir on Otter Creek, aqueducts from the storage reservoir to the cities of Altus and Snyder, Oklahoma, a wildlife management area, and basic public outdoor recreation facilities. Construction of the project may be undertaken in such units or stages as in the determination of the Secretary will best serve project requirements and meet water needs.
Sec. 2.
Costs of the project, or any unit or stage thereof, allocated
Repayment period.
to municipal water supply, shall be repayable, with interest, by the municipal water users over a period of not more than, fifty years from the date that water is first delivered for that purpose, pursuant to contracts with municipal corporations or other organizations, as defined in section 2(g) of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 (53 Stat. 1187). Such contracts shall be precedent to the commencement of
construction of any unit or stage of the project. The contracting organization shall be responsible for the disposal and sale of water surplus to its requirements, but revenues therefrom shall be used only for payment of operation and maintenance costs, interest, and retirement of the obligation assumed in the contract. Contracts may be entered into with water users’ organizations pursuant to the provisions of this Act without regard to the last sentence of subsection 9(e) of the Reclamation
Project Act of 1939 (53 Stat. 1187).
The interest rate used for computing interest during construction and interest on the unpaid balance of the costs of the project allocated to municipal water supply shall be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, as of the beginning of the fiscal year in which construction is commenced, 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, and by adjusting such interest rate to the nearest multiple of one-eighth of 1 per centum if the computed average interest rate is not a multiple of one-eighth of 1 per centum.
Sec. 3.
The Secretary is authorized to transfer to a water users’ organization the care, operation, and maintenance of the project works, and, if such transfer is made to credit, annually against the organization’s repayment obligation that portion of the year’s operation and maintenance costs which, if the United States had continued to operate the project, would have been allocated to flood control, fish and wildlife, and recreation purposes. Prior to assuming care, operation, and maintenance of the project works the water users’ organization shall obligate itself to operate them in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Army with respect to flood control, and by the Secretary of the Interior with respect to fish and wildlife and recreation. Upon complete payment of the obligation assumed, the water users’ organization, its designee or designees, shall be conveyed title to such portions of the aqueducts and related facilities as are used solely for delivering project water to water users, and shall have a permanent right to use that portion of project reservoir capacity which is or may be allocated to municipal and industrial water supply purposes by the Secretary of the Interior, so long as the space designated for those purposes may be physically available, taking into account such equitable reallocation of reservoir storage capacities among the purposes to be served by the project as may be necessary due to sedimentation, subject, if the project is then operated by the United States, to payment to the United States of a reasonable annual charge to cover operation and maintenance costs and a fair share of administrative costs applicable to the project.
Sec. 4.
Expenditures for the Mountain Park project may be made without, regard to the soil survey and land classification requirements
of the Interior Department Appropriation Act of 1954 (67 Stat. 266).
Sec. 5.
The conservation and development of the fish and wildlife resources and the enhancement of recreation opportunities in connection with the Mountain Park reclamation project shall be in accordance
Appropriation.
with the Federal Water Project Recreation Act (79 Stat. 213).
Sec. 6.
There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for construction of the Mountain Park Reclamation Project the sum of $19,978,000 (January 1965 prices), plus or minus such amounts, if any, as may be justified by reason of ordinary fluctuations in construction costs as indicated by engineering cost indexes applicable to the type of construction involved herein. There are also authorized to be appropriated such additional sums as may be required for the operation and maintenance of the project.
Approved September 21, 1968.