§617 — Title 43 Public Lands | U.S. Code

Summary

Authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to build, operate, and maintain a dam and related works on the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon that can hold at least 20 million acre-feet of water. The project is for flood control, better river navigation, regulating flow, storing and delivering water for reclaiming public lands and other useful purposes inside the United States, and for producing electricity so the project can pay for itself. Work must follow the Colorado River compact. Also authorizes a main canal inside the United States to connect Laguna Dam (or another diversion dam the Secretary decides is needed) with the Imperial and Coachella Valleys in California. Canal costs are reimbursable under the reclamation law and cannot be paid from power or energy sales or used to pay for potable water outside those valleys. Water for irrigation or drinking in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys must be provided without charge. The Secretary can build a power plant at the dam and can acquire necessary lands, rights-of-way, and property by purchase or by legal proceedings if needed.

Title 43, §617

Public Lands — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

For the purpose of controlling the floods, improving navigation, and regulating the flow of the Colorado River, providing for storage and for the delivery of the stored waters thereof for reclamation of public lands and other beneficial uses exclusively within the United States, and for the generation of electrical energy as a means of making the project herein authorized a self-supporting and financially solvent undertaking, the Secretary of the Interior subject to the terms of the Colorado River compact hereinafter mentioned in this chapter, is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon adequate to create a storage reservoir of a capacity of not less than twenty million acre-feet of water and a main canal and appurtenant structures located entirely within the United States connecting the Laguna Dam, or other suitable diversion dam, which the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to construct if deemed necessary or advisable by him upon engineering or economic considerations, with the Imperial and Coachella Valleys in California, the expenditures for said main canal and appurtenant structures to be reimbursable, as provided in the reclamation law, and shall not be paid out of revenues derived from the sale or disposal of water power or electric energy at the dam authorized to be constructed at said Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon, or for water for potable purposes outside of the Imperial and Coachella Valleys: Provided, however, That no charge shall be made for water for the use, storage, or delivery of water for irrigation or water for potable purposes in the Imperial or Coachella Valleys; also to construct and equip, operate, and maintain at or near said dam, or cause to be constructed, a complete plant and incidental structures suitable for the fullest economic development of electrical energy from the water discharged from said reservoir; and to acquire by proceedings in eminent domain, or otherwise, all lands, rights-of-way, and other property necessary for said purposes.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

The reclamation law, referred to in text, is defined in section 617k of this title.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Change of Name

Act Apr. 30, 1947, ch. 46, 61 Stat. 56, restored the name Hoover Dam to the dam on the Colorado River in Black Canyon known previously as Boulder Dam, and provided that any law, regulation, document, or record in which that dam is designated or referred to as Boulder Dam shall be held to refer to that dam under and by the name of Hoover Dam.

Construction

With Other Laws Pub. L. 98–381, title I, § 103(b), Aug. 17, 1984, 98 Stat. 1334, provided that: “Except as amended by this Act [amending section 617a and 617b of this title], the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (45 Stat. 1057, as amended, 43 U.S.C. 617 et seq.), as amended and supplemented [this subchapter], shall remain in full force and effect.” Act Aug. 4, 1939, ch. 418, § 18, provided that nothing in that act should be construed to amend the Boulder Canyon Project Act (this subchapter). See note set out under section 485j of this title. Gila project, Arizona, as not amending this subchapter, see section 8 of Act July 30, 1947, ch. 382, 61 Stat. 628, set out as a note under section 613 of this title.

§617 Colorado River Basin; protection and development; dam, reservoir, and incidental works; water, water power, and electrical energy; eminent domain