My Grandpa once gave away a classic Model T. It would be valuable today, but he wasn’t using it and someone else was. In fact, it costs money to keep such things, so he just said, “I didn’t need it anymore.” If only the government were that wise.
We have often discussed the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), an agency that hasn’t had a serious mission for 50 years, one the government clearly doesn’t need anymore. Established in 1902 to build water projects, but languishing because Congress hasn’t funded one in a half-century, BOR nevertheless spends $1.4 billion annually and has 5,373 employees. It owns 7.8 million acres of land, 2117 buildings, 290 bridges, 3008 miles of public roads and 1327 miles of hiking trails, 590 campgrounds, 518 boat ramps, 53 power plants, 338 reservoirs, 489 dams, 53 powerplants, and 10,000 miles of canals.
Congress’s original plan was to fund projects by selling public lands, not spending tax dollars. Sellable land was never unlimited, so the mission was never considered permanent. Congress no longer funds major water projects, so BOR’s mission is little more than owning these water and power structures. Aside from giant projects like Lakes Powell and Mead, BOR doesn’t even manage most of its projects; they are mainly contracted to water users and power utilities.
Most projects were financed by the government, with water and power users obligated to repay the taxpayers over the next 40-50 years through service contracts. Most of those repayments were completed decades ago. Users also pay operation and maintenance costs annually, yet taxpayers remain on the hook for BOR’s own budgets. In 2019, Congress finally gave the Interior Department a way out, the discretionary authority to transfer title to such facilities to “qualifying entities” without congressional approval. “Qualifying entities” include state, local, and tribal governments, and the water and power users themselves.
In other words, the government does not have to own these facilities forever; it can give them to those who run, maintain, and need them. There are hundreds of perfect opportunities in all 17 states where BOR operates. Consider the Grand Valley Project, for example. Dating from 1912, it includes the Roller Dam, 3 tunnels, a small hydroelectric generator, and the Price, Stub, Orchard Mesa and Highline Canals which irrigate 30,000 acres and supply municipal water. The canals are managed by the Grand Valley Water Users Association, and the Mesa County, Palisade, and Orchard Mesa Irrigation Districts.
Another local example is the Uncompahgre Project, which includes the Gunnison Tunnel, seven diversion dams, 128 miles of canals, and Taylor Park Reservoir. It irrigates 76,000 acres in Montrose and Delta Counties, and provides important recreation and tourism resources. The government spends at least $887,000 a year to run the Uncompahgre Project and over $2 million at the Grand Valley Project – even though the operational costs of both are mostly paid by the water users themselves. There are 24 such federal projects, including 14 power plants and 60 dams, in Colorado alone.
As important as the Highline Canal, Gunnison Tunnel, and these other facilities are, why in the world do they require federal employees and congressional appropriations? Answer: they don’t. The local districts can well run these systems, as they have been doing for decades. The Orchard Mesa Irrigation District does not need federales to maintain its canals. And if these districts owned the canals, they would unquestionably manage them more efficiently. That should be a no-brainer for a new Interior Secretary looking for ways to eliminate billions in wasteful spending and run his department more efficiently.
The 2019 law, known as the John Dingell Conservation, Management and Recreation Act (Public Law 116-9) includes Title VIII, which gives the Secretary such discretionary authority when he determines it is in the Department’s interests. That might include saving a billion dollars a year. The law suggests that entities taking title to such facilities must pay the “fair market value,” but there is a great deal of latitude in determining what that might be, especially when the water users have essentially paid the construction costs already (decades ago), still pay the annual operating costs, and by taking title would save the government a small fortune.
Under this authority, Interior has already transferred title to a couple dozen hydropower plants to the utilities that run them. It should do the same with dams, canals, headgates, ditches, laterals, and pipes all across the West. The government simply doesn’t need them, any more than Grandpa needed the old Model T.
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