Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 76.djvu/682

 634

PUBLIC LAW 87-706-SEPT. 27, 1962

[76 STAT.

Public Law 87-706 September 27, 1962 [H. R. 575]

Baker Federal reclamation project, Oreg. Construction authorization.

43 USC 371note.

Repayment period, extension. 53 Stat. 1193; 72 Stat. 542,

Public recreation facilities.

Fish and wildlife conservation.

60 Stat. 1080.

AN ACT To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the upper division of the Baker Federal reclamation project, Oregon, 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 providing irrigation water, controlling floods, conserving and developing fish and wildlife, and providing recreational benefits, 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 facilities of the upper division of the Baker Federal reclamation project, Oregon. The principal works of the project shall consist of a dam and reservoir, pumping plants, and related facilities. SEC. 2. (a) The period provided in subsection (d), section 9, of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, as amended (43 U.S.C. 485h), for repayment of the construction cost properly chargeable to any block of lands and assigned to be repaid by irrigators, may be extended to fifty yearsj exclusive of any development period, from the time water is first delivered to that block or to as near that number of years as is consistent with the adoption and operation of a variable repayment plan as is provided therein. Costs allocated to irrigation in excess of the amount determined by the Secretary to be within the ability of the irrigators to repay, within the repayment period or periods herein specified, shall be returned to the reclamation fund within such period or periods from revenues derived by the Secretary of the Interior from the disposition of power from the McNary project power facilities. (b) Any lands in the upper division of the Baker project, Oregon, which are held in private ownership by a person whose holdings exceed the equivalent of one hundred and twenty acres of class 1 land shall, to the extent they exceed that acreage, be deemed excess lands. No water shall be furnished to such excess lands from, through, or by means of project works unless (1^ the owner's total holdings do not exceed one hundred and sixty irrigable acres or (2) said owner shall have executed a valid recordable contract with respect to the excess in like manner as provided in the third sentence of section 46 of the Act of May 25, 1926 (44 Stat. 636, 649, 43 U.S.C. 423e). In computing "the equivalent of one hundred and twenty acres of class 1 land" under the first sentence of this section, each acre of class 2 land shall be counted as seventy-five one-hundredths of an acre, each acre of class 3 land shall be counted as fifty-five one-hundredths of an acre, and each acre of class 4 land shall be counted as thirty-eight one-hundredths of an acre. SEC. 3. (a) The Secretary of the Interior is authorized, in connection with the upper division of the Baker project, to construct minimum basic public recreation facilities and to arrange for the operation and maintenance of the same by an appropriate State or local agency or organization. The cost of constructing such facilities shall be nonreimbursable and nonreturnable under the reclamation laws. (b) The Secretary may make such reasonable provision in the works authorized by this Act as he finds to be required for the conservation and development of fish and wildlife in accordance with the provisions of the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (48 Stat. 401, as amended; 16 U.S.C. 661-666C, inclusive), and the portion of the construction costs allocated to these purposes and to flood control, together with an appropriate share of the operation, maintenance, and replacement costs

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