§1573 Construction and Maintenance of Well Fields; Land Acquisition; Land Replacement; Nonreimbursable Costs

Summary

The Secretary may build, run, and keep up well fields that can supply approximately 160,000 acre-feet of water each year for use in the United States and to deliver water to Mexico to meet the 1944 Mexican Water Treaty under Minute No. 242. The Secretary may acquire, by buying, using eminent domain, or trading, approximately 23,500 acres of land near the Mexican border on the Yuma Mesa (about five miles of border). Land now owned by the State of Arizona may be bought or swapped for federal land. Any lands taken out of the Yuma Mesa Irrigation and Drainage District that had been available under the Gila Reauthorization Act must be replaced with similar lands inside or next to the Yuma Mesa division. When developing those replacement lands or other Gila project lands, the Secretary may allow full use of the Gila Gravity Main Canal. Effective October 1, 1979, and only to the extent and in the amounts provided in advance in appropriation Acts, the Secretary may enter into contracts under the Reclamation Act to deliver well-field water to U.S. cities, industries, or farms. Municipal and industrial contracts must include terms like those in section 485h(c)(1). Contracts that replace irrigation water for privately developed lands must charge no more than if those users had kept pumping their own wells, and the usual Reclamation Law acreage limits will not apply to those private lands. No contract may reduce the United States’ ability to continue delivering approximately 140,000 acre-feet per year to Mexico at San Luis and the Limitrophe Section, as required by Minute No. 242. The cost of the work, including water sent to Mexico, is nonreimbursable except for the portion of the water that is used in the United States.