Source: https://www.lexenergy.net/water_council.php
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:29:42+00:00

Document:
I write regarding the Council’s fall meeting. The proposed agenda for the 2013 fall Meeting of the Western States Water Council (WSWC) in Deadwood will address, among other topics, recent developments in Indian Reserved Water Rights Claims and of the Missouri River Natural Flows. It is my understanding that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter Corps) will also be sending representatives to attend the Deadwood meeting, and intends to meet with the WSWC to discuss the Missouri River Water Storage Reallocation Study. I provide comments regarding the study and the project it entails. The comments will focus on certain important aspects of the Oahe Dam Reallocation Study, which is one of the several sites for the study conducted by the Corps. My comments will not include other important issues that might otherwise be considered during review of the study, such as NEPA, the NHPA, pending legislation, or constitutional questions regarding reserved rights and the taking of water. While I am a member of the South Dakota State Bar Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment, however, the comments in this letter are my own and do not reflect those of the Committee. Additionally, although I attempted to confer with the author of the Corps’s 204 page Oahe Dam Water Storage Reallocation Study before submitting this letter, he has declined to speak with me on the subject.
On August 6, 2013 the WSWC provided a position paper on this subject to the Corps. The paper discussed states’ legal rights to the natural flows of water as affected by the Corps’ project. This letter, and my comments, address additional matters which were not discussed in the WSWC August 6 paper. I will review the Oahe Dam Reservoir Report, one of several reservoir reports put forth by the Corps on the various dam sites. The “Oahe Dam/Lake Oahe Project Surplus Water Report” (hereinafter Report) is a 204 page document detailing the Corps’ proposal to first identify and then subsequently designate surplus reservoir water—with the purpose of making surplus reservoir water available for municipal and industrial water use. The Report provides information on existing uses and identifies the various contemporaneous users of Missouri River water. These users include private parties, the state governments whose borders run along the Missouri River, and various Indian Tribes. The Report reflects that the project is granted legal authority under Section 6 of the 1944 Flood Control Act, which permits the Corps to enter into surplus water agreements and issue easements for yet-to-be-determined, undistributed surplus water.
The Corps is a federally created ‘regulatory monopoly’ in its particularized areas of authority. The Corps is in effect the world’s largest civil engineering firm. The Corps is the Nation's largest, single producer of hydroelectricity. In the United States alone, the Corps operates 75 hydropower projects which house 349 generator units, with a total capacity of 20.7 million kilowatts, or about 3.5 percent of the Nation's total electric power production. Along the Missouri River, the Corps operates a total of 36 generator units capable of producing approximately 2.4 million kilowatts of power. These power plants and dams along the Missouri River—authorized by Congress in the Flood Control Act of 1944, commonly called the “Pick-Sloan Act”—include the Oahe Dam. The Act authorized the managing of Missouri River to provide for flood control, navigation, municipal and industrial water supply, recreation, and hydropower generation. The management of Missouri River water, however, was not delegated to the Corps.
The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) is the federal agency that markets and delivers the power produced at the Missouri River power plants within a 15-state region of the central and western United States. WAPA buys and sells power from 56 hydropower plants around the nation. WAPA markets this power to rural electric cooperatives, municipal and public-owned systems. The Missouri River reservoirs are WAPA's largest producer of energy. The Oahe Dam near Pierre, South Dakota and the Garrison Dam—which creates Lake Sakakawea in western North Dakota—are the two biggest power producers in the Missouri River system. According to the 2012 Corps’ Mainstem Reservoir Report, the Oahe Dam produced 2,908,388 kWh of electricity in 2012. WAPA is mandated to sell this energy at "the lowest cost consistent with sound business principles" which is generally understood to be at the "cost of production.” This includes repayment to the U.S. Treasury, costs associated with construction, and operation and maintenance costs for the Pick-Sloan Project facilities. These power plants and dams produce revenue for the US government. The Corps now proposes to produce revenue for the US government by selling surplus water from the reservoirs.
The existing rights here include the contemporary use of reservoir water as well as any current and future legal rights to use the water. The Report provides statistics, projections, and data, but is absent of analysis on the existing water rights of the parties to be affected by the project. Stated differently, the Report does not examine the first question. For example, on page 4-8 the Report acknowledges South Dakota’s claim that the natural flows of the Missouri River water are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction and authority of the states.1 Nevertheless, the Missouri River’s waters are being impounded by the Corps’ reservoirs; the Corps does not consider this claim in its calculation of surplus water, neither does it incorporate the claim in its analysis, nor quantify the claim amount. The underlying authority by which the Corps proceeds with the project does not legally authorize the Corps to dismiss such a claim. Such substantive property right determinations of the states and Tribes are left to separate legislation, court decision, compact, or treaty.2 The Corps’ rulemaking authority does not extend to superseding legal claims to water rights by Indian Tribes or the states.
In support of the project the Corps provides an annual cost comparison chart indicating that a savings of $10.7M could be realized.12 The Report, however, is silent on whom the beneficiary of these savings might be. Moreover, the Corps miscalculated savings when it applied a volume of 57,317 acre-feet/year in its valuation. The proper measurement of “surplus water” volume would be 5,211 acre-feet/year, because this figure distinguishes between the "No Action" alternative (new groundwater) and the "Proposed Action" alternative (the surplus water).13 Furthermore, the unit cost of groundwater and additional Lake Oahe water in the annual cost comparison chart is created using USGS water usage data,14 which is not consistent with water usage data provided by the permit issuing authorities in North Dakota and South Dakota.15 Use of the USGS water usage date leads to an inflated calculation of savings.
The foregoing comments indicate issues concerning the Corp’s Report and its implementation. Please feel free to circulate this letter to interested parties. General Counsel for WSWC has requested a copy of this letter. Please contact me if you would like to discuss this matter further. Thank You.
1. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District, Draft, Oahe Dam/Lake Oahe Project South Dakota & North Dakota Surplus Water Report, vol.1 at 4-8 (Aug. 2012) [hereinafter Report].
5. Id. at 3-33 (emphasis added).
6. Id. at 3-34 (emphasis added).
7. Id. at 3-33 (emphasis added).
8. Id. at 3-28 (emphasis added).
9. Flood Control Act, at § 6.
10. See Report, at 3-33 (identifying the South Dakota and North Dakota water databases, and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as among the various data sources).
11. See US Army Corps of Engineers, Master Water Control Manual 2–3 (1996).
12. See Report, Table 3-19, at 3-62.
13. See Report, Table 3-9, at 3-49.
14. See Report, Table 3-5, at 3-34.
15. See Report, Table 3-6, at 3-44.
16. Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908).
18. Flood Control Act, at § 6.
19. See Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 600 (1963) (“[T]he United States did reserve the water rights for the Indians effective as of the time the Indian Reservations were created. This means . . . that these water rights, having vested before the Act became effective on June 25, 1929, are ‘present perfected rights’ and as such are entitled to priority under the Act.”).
20. United States v. Ahtanum Irrigation District, 236 F.2d 321 (9th Cir. 1956).
21. State of New Mexico ex rel. State Eng’r v. Comm’r of Public Lands for the State of New Mexico, 2009-NMCA-004.

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