sedimentation in Arrowrock Reservoir were made in 1947 after the reservoir had been in operation 32 years. The measurement showed that 7,700 acre-feet of silt accumulated in 32 years, which is about 4.1 percent of the capacity of 186,000 acre-feet. The Boise River Basin has a sediment rate much higher than will ever be the case above Burns Creek because of early-day placer mining and less watershed cover. At rates estimated by the Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, as applying to the specific area, the estimated sediment deposition in 100 years from the 4,300 square mile drainage area above Palisades would not exceed 50,000 acre-feet in Palisades Reservoir, which is about 3.6 percent of the total capacity of 1,400,000 acre-feet. In other words, it will be about 400 years before sedimentation exceeds the dead storage capacity of 200,000 acrefeet. Burns Creek Reservoir will have a river level outlet which will prevent the accumulation of any significant sediment deposit. Question 4: Did not the Bureau estimate Palisades project at $76 million and then build it for $63 million? Answer: The answer is essentially yes. However, the difference is not all savings; 124 miles of transmission lines and 3 substations originally authorized as a part of the original product and a part of the $76.6 million estimate were not built from Goshen to American Falls because of the execution of wheeling contracts with the Idaho and Utah Power Cos. These facilities account for about $3.8 million of the total. The balance is essentially savings reflected in extremely favorable bid prices. Question 5: Will you try to achieve a reduction from your present estimate for the Burns Creek project? Answer: Yes. Cost estimates are based on the best current data available on material, labor, and contract costs prevailing on the date of the estimate. In addition, suitable contingency factors are applied, in this case 20 percent, for construction of the dam and reservoir, 25 percent for the powerhouse. Naturally, final construction designs will take advantage of any favorable site conditions. Further than that, final costs will depend upon bid prices received and the extent to which unforeseen conditions do or do not develop within the contingency factors assumed. Question 6: If Burns Creek project is authorized, will the Bureau try to find a profitable market for the added peaking capacity that will be available at Palisades after it is integrated with Burns Creek? Answer: Yes. The present Burns Creek-Palisades payout schedules are conservative in that they are predicated on returns from the existing rate schedules with no added return assumed for the additional peaking capacity that will accrue to the system. Peaking capacity does have added value. For example, a premium payment for peaking service at Anderson Ranch Dam on the Boise project is being paid by the Idaho Power Co. Over a 50-year payout period it is expected that peaking capacity will gain in value as the area load develops and to the extent that these values are realized, payout will be improved over that now assumed. Question 7: What is the long-range outlook for integrating thermal power into the power systems of the Pacific Northwest? Answer: The Snake River power systems are a part of the Pacific Northwest area covered by long-range power market surveys conducted both by the Federal Power Commission and the Bonneville Power Administration. One such important long-range outlook for peakload and dependable capacity as published in the Army Engineers 308 Review Report is attached as a part of this answer. (See p. 388.) It will be observed that FPC peakload estimate shows that by 1970 1 million kilowatts of new thermal capacity will be required; by 1975 this jumps to 3 million kilowatts; by 1980, 6 million kilowatts; and by 1985, 10 million kilowatts. In other words, by 1985, 40 percent of the new capacity will be thermal and available hydro will not only drop off but the operation of all hydro will be changed to make possible effective integration with new thermal. In my opinion, holding back feasible hydro developments because of possible competition with coal in the Pacific Northwest creates a highly artificial situation that cannot long prevail in view of the dominant role that awaits thermal power from here on out. A better long-range answer is for feasible hydro to be developed as a basis for a more widespread integrated use of thermal to go along with it. Question 8: What do you have in mind in the way of fish and wildlife and recreation facilities in connection with the Burns Creek project? Answer: I cannot, of course, speak for the Bureau of Sports Fisheries or the National Park Service other than to say that I am unaware of any planning that was not confined to the Burns Creek Reservoir area and upstream and downstream areas on Snake River. At the time our planning studies were being completed for the Burns Creek reregulating dam and reservoir, the Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that a minimum release of 1,000 cubic feet of water per second be provided at all times immediately below the Palisades reregulating dam and that additional detailed studies of fish and wildlife resources be made. The Fish and Wildlife Service has continued their studies and have contacted us from time to time. Based on these discussions, we had in mind that the modifications for fish and wildlife would consist of facilities in the vicinity of Burns Creek and Palisades. Such things as artificial spawning areas below both dams, streambed improvements on the small tributary streams between the dams, and possible screening of downstream diversions were envisioned. Planned recreation facilities consist of replacement facilities for three forest camps which would be inundated within Burns Creek Reservoir area and minimum basic facilities. These latter include picnic facilities at the Burns Creek, Black Canyon, and Dry Canyon areas, and launching facilities and parking areas at both the lower and upper end of Burns Creek Reservoir. Question 9: How much summer firm power will be made available by the addition of Burns Creek Dam? Answer. Expressed in terms of kilowatt-hours, it is estimated that the inte grated Burns Creek-Palisades operation will add 143.6 million kilowatt-hours of year-round firm energy, and 154.6 million kilowatt-hours of so-called irrigation season firm power over that available from Palisades powerplant operating alone. The term "irrigation season" firm may be a term unique to people accustomed to conventional power terms. Both Palisades and Burns Creek will be passing large quantities of stored irrigation water from Jackson Lake and Palisades Reservoirs during the irrigation season. This water is required to be released for downstream irrigation use. We have then the ideal combination of large water releases during the irrigation season which in turn can generate proportionate blocks of energy that fit the irrigation release pattern. Neither this water nor the energy are available outside of the irrigation season but a fixed part of both are firm during every irrigation season. Of course, the water and the energy go separate ways after leaving Burns Creek because the water is largely used in gravity canals by old developments along the river. As mentioned by Mr. Naughton in his testimony, however, it happens that there is a large underground waterflow, particularly north of Snake River, all the way from the Mud Lake area to the Thousand Springs area near Hagerman. No natural stream of any consequence enters Snake River from the north in almost 300 miles because most of the live streams sink into the lava beds after emergence from the mountain ranges to the north. An official of the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that the Snake River Plain may contain as much as 400 million acre-feet of water in storage underground, of which about 5 million acre-feet are discharged annually into the Snake River below most of the present surface diversion points upstream. This tremendous potential was virtually untouched until after World War II. Now, some 300,000 acres of new lands have been developed largely by private initiative. The Minidoka North Side Pumping Division was developed by the Federal Government to open up some 66,000 acres of public domain to veterans of World War II and Korea, and this acreage gets its water supply from underground water using Palisades project summer generation for pumping. This discussion is furnished to bring out the important relationship of Burns Creek-Palisades summer generation to the underground water supply and the potential future irrigation development on Snake River Plain. The Government is not proposing any new large-scale irrigation developments comparable to Minidoka North Side at this time, but several water exchange proposals to aid areas presently distressed by surface water shortage are under study that may use some of this pumping energy if and when available. Since no Federal developments are recommended, no irrigation benefit as such was associated in the Burns Creek project report with the large block of new irrigation season energy. Question 10. Can you give us an estimate of the number of acres that could be developed through the use of this pumping energy based on pumping expe rience to date? Answer. The number of acres that can be irrigated by a given block of kilowatt-hours, of course, would be a function of the pumping lift, amount of water pumped, and some other variables such as size and efficiency of plants, etc. Nonetheless, the Government has acquired some fairly representative data from actual operations to date on the Minidoka North Side Pumping Division previously referred to in the answer to question 9. This development may well be the largest single underground pumping project in the country, if not the world. For calendar year 1958, 588 farms averaging 115 acres each used a total of 123,220 kilowatt-hours per farm at an average delivered cost of $4 per irrigable acre. Average farm delivery was 3.25 acre-feet per acre and average lift for each well was 207 feet. On this basis, the 154 million kilowatt-hours of new irrigation season firm available from the Burns-Creek-Palisades combination would be enough to develop approximately 1,290 like farms, or 148,000 new acres. I am inclined to think that opportunities available elsewhere than on Minidoka North Side would be at a higher head, which would reduce the acreage accordingly. As a practical matter, from 75,000 to 100,000 acres could conceivably develop in the next 10 to 15 years if pumping energy is available at a delivered cost of under $10 per acre. I have attempted to make these answers factually responsive to your questions. Very truly yours, H. T. NELSON, Regional Director. [Subsequently, the following letters from several witnesses were submitted for the record in answer to questions of Hon. John P. Saylor regarding their testimony before the committee.] Hon. WAYNE N. ASPINALL, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR COLLEAGUE: In regard to the two questions of Representative Saylor I would like to have the following answers submitted: Question 1: Do you know of any other instance where a reclamation project is used to bail out financially a power project of the Bureau of Reclamation? Answer 1: I don't personally know of any. Question 2: Where do you get the figure of $472,000 annually as the tax loss that would develop from the Burns Creek project? Answer 2: The $472,000 annual tax loss is a Bureau of Reclamation calculation as to how much in taxes would be foregone by the Federal, State and local governments by the Burns Creek project being done by the Government rather than by private industry. The Bureau of Reclamation has to calculate these figures as a part of the cost in the benefit-cost ratio for a project. This figure can be found in the Planning Report of the Secretary of the Interior on the Burns Creek Project (H. Doc. 147, 85th Cong., p. 26). Best wishes, H. A. DIXON, Member of Congress. ROCHESTER GAS & ELECTRIC CORP., Hon. WAYNE N. ASPINALL, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subject: Burns Creek testimony, H.R. 1235. DEAR CONGRESSMAN ASPINALL: The following information is submitted as supplementary material to my testimony before your committee and in response to Congressman John P. Saylor's questions contained in your letter of March 2, 1960. Pages 168, 169 Question: What items of subsidy, in your opinion, enter into the cost of power to be produced by a dam such as Burns Creek to be built by the Bureau of Reclamation? How significant are these items of subsidy? Answer: The usual items of subsidy, inherent in any Government electric power project, enter into the Burns Creek project. Out of every gross dollar the customer of an investor-owned electric utility company pays for electric service an average of 23 cents goes for direct Federal, State, and local taxes. Federal power projects pay no Federal or State taxes and the local taxes paid, if any, are only token gestures. In other words, Federal power customers are not paying their proportionate share of Government costs and that share which they avoid must be paid for by other segments of our population. This is a direct subsidy amounting to almost one-quarter of the "preference" customers' electric bill. The Bureau of Reclamation projects are set up on an interest rate of 3 percent. Cost of "long-term money" to the Federal Government is closer to 5 percent. Here again is a direct subsidy that is costing the general taxpayer close to 2 percent for financing charges alone. Testimony on the Burns Creek project based on Bureau of Reclamation figures showed that, based on the Palisades rates, Burns Creek would fall short of paying interest charges alone by approximately $300,000-another direct subsidy for the project. Page 174 In my testimony I asked, "Will the Government then be obligated to supplement hydro by building steam or atomic plants?" Question: On what do you base this question? Have you any information that anyone is contemplating building steamplants to supplement the hydroplants of the Bureau of Reclamation? Answer: Harold Nelson, regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation, while testifying before a Senate subcommittee in May 1959 on Burns Creek and the Snake River, said, "I have enough confidence in the development picture that I see in the Northwest to know that before too many years we are going to have to have a large thermal electric component in order to make better use of our hydro." The inference here is obvious. N. B. Bennett, Assistant Commissioner of Reclamation, testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation in May 1959 in connection with the Burns Creek project as follows: "*** but these people (referring to preference customers) now have contracts for power with the Federal Government, and we believe that they should continue to receive from the Federal Government power to meet their growing loads." This is a clear declaration of "utility responsibility" on the part of a Bureau of Reclamation official. It is obvious that if this policy is to be carried out, when the hydro capacity is used up it will be necessary to supplement it with thermal plants, steam or nuclear. For years the proponents of "public power" have maintained that the Government had a utility responsibility. TVA is an excellent example of steamplants being built to firm up hydro in spite of the fact that TVA was primarily a flood control and navigation undertaking. The justification for the steamplants was based on the "utility responsibility" that TVA assumed without congressional intent. Page 178 Question: Do you have any specific information on studies that the Bureau of Reclamation is making of projects that might involve power to be marketed in the Snake Valley? Answer: The Bureau of Reclamation has spent over $1,050,000 to determine the feasibility of the Bear River project in northern Utah and southern Idaho. The project would have an estimated generating capacity of 45,400 kilowatts. By the end of 1961 the Bureau of Reclamation will have spent $191,900 on the Snake Narrows project in Idaho and Wyoming. This project involves approximately 270,000 kilowatts of added generating capacity. The Bureau has spent close to $1 million on a survey of the Garden Valley division of the Boise project in Idaho which will cost another $1,300,000 to complete. This project involves 360,000 kilowatts of generating capacity. These are but three projects about which I am aware. I am sure there are more if I had the time to ferret them out. I appreciated your courtesy to allow me to be heard out of turn by your committee on the Burns Creek bill and, if I can be of further assistance, please let me know. Sincerely yours, ROBERT E. GINNA, Chairman of the Board. |