§590z–7 Provisions for Furnishing Surplus Power and Municipal or Miscellaneous Water Supplies

Summary

Allows project managers to provide town water or extra electric power when building these projects. Money spent from the specific appropriation named in the law for those town water or surplus power costs cannot be more than $500,000 for any one project. The Secretary must be sure any water or power deals do not hurt the project’s main irrigation work. The Secretary will decide how much of the project’s construction cost should be charged to municipal/miscellaneous water or to surplus power, and those amounts will not be part of the construction costs repaid under the normal repayment contract. Normally, the United States keeps ownership of the water or surplus-power facilities and the money they bring in. Contracts must set rates high enough to pay the share of annual operating and maintenance costs and any fixed charges, including interest. Power-sale contracts may last up to 40 years. Water-supply contracts run for whatever time the Secretary decides and may include renewal options. Preference in sales or leases goes to cities and other public agencies, and to cooperatives and nonprofits that got loans under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. The Secretary may also make leases that let others generate hydropower at these projects. Those leases must follow the same leasing rules used for other federal power leases. No extra findings are needed before making those leases. If a nonfederal party builds power facilities under such a lease, the lessee keeps the installed facilities and the direct revenues, but lease charges are credited back to the project. Nothing here changes any hydropower development or revenue agreements that were already in effect on December 19, 2014.