An Act to authorize the construction, operation, and maintenance by the Secretary of the Interior of the Fryingpan Arkansas project, Colorado
PL 87-590 (H.R.2206), enacted 08/16/1962

76 STAT.] 
PUBLIC LAW 87-590-AUG. 16, 1962 
389 
any development period, from the time water is first delivered to that 
block. 
Costs allocated to irrigation in excess of the amount deter-
mined 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 dis-
position of power marketed through the Federal power system in 
southern Idaho. 
SEC. 3. (a) The Secretary of the Interior is authorized, in connec- 
Recreation fa-
tion with the Mann Creek project, to construct minimum basic public ainV^^' °°"'^*'^*^ 
recreation facilities, and to acquire such lands as may be necessary 
for that purpose, substantially in accordance with the plan in the 
report of the Secretary of the Interior, but such facilities (other than 
those necessary to protect the project works and the visiting public) 
shall not be constructed until an agreement has been executed by the 
State of Idaho, an agency or political subdivision thereof, or an appro-
priate local agency or organization to assume the management and 
operation of the facilities. 
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 provi-
sions of the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (48 Stat. 401, as 
amended; 16 U.S.C. 661, and the following), and the portion of the 
construction costs allocated to these purposes, together with an appro-
priate share of the operation, maintenance, and replacement costs 
therefor, shall be nonreimbursable and nonreturnable. 
Before the 
works are transferred to an irrigation water users' organization for 
care, operation, and maintenance, the organization shall have agreed 
to operate them in such fashion, satisfactory to the Secretary, as to 
achieve the benefits to fish and wildlife on which the allocation of 
costs therefor is predicated, and to return the works to the United 
States for care, operation, and maintenance in the event of failure 
to comply with his requirements to achieve such benefits. 
SEC. 4. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for construe- 
Appropriation, 
tion of the works herein authorized the sum of $3,490,000 (April 1961 
prices). 
There are also authorized to be appropriated such sums 
as may be required for the operation and maintenance of said works. 
Approved August 16, 1962. 
Fish and wild-
life, conservation. 
60 Stat. 
72 Stat. 
1080; 
563. 
Public Law 87-590 
AN ACT 
To authorize the construction, operation, and maintenance by the Secretary of 
the Interior of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project, Colorado. 
August 16, 1962 
[H, R. 2206] 
Be it enacted hy the Senate and Tlou^e of Representatives 
of the 
United States of America in Congress asserabled^ That for the pur- 
interior Depart-
poses of supplying w^ater for irrigation, municipal, domestic, and '"^p'ryingpan-
industrial uses, generating and transmitting hydroelectric power and Arkansas project, 
energy, and controlling floods, and for other useful and beneficial pur- 
"construction 
poses incidental thereto, including recreation and the conservation and authorization. 
development of fish and wildlife, the Secretary of the Interior is 
authorized to construct, operate, and maintain the Fryingpan-Arkan-
sas project, Colorado, in substantial accordance with the engineering 
plans therefor set forth in House Document Numbered 187, Eighty-
third Congress, modified as proposed in the September 1959 report of 
390 
PUBLIC LAW 87-590-AUG. 16, 1962 
[76 STAT. 
43 u s e 371 
note. 
Report to Presi-
dent and Congress. 
43 u s e 620-
620o. 
Water delivery 
faculties. 
Repayment con-
tracts. 
72 Stat. 542, 
543. 
43 u s e 485 h. 
the Bureau of Reclamation entitled "Ruedi Dam and Reservoir, Colo-
rado", with such minor modifications of, omissions from, or additions 
to the works described in those reports as he may find necessary or 
proper for accomplishing the objectives of the project. 
Such modi-
fications or additions as may be required in connection therewith shall 
not, however, extend to or contemplate the so-called. Gunnison-Arkan-
sas project; and nothing in this Act shall constitute a commitment, 
real or implied, to exportations of water from the Colorado River 
system in Colorado beyond those required for projects heretofore or 
herein authorized. 
In constructing, operating, and maintaining the 
Fryingpan-Arkansas project, the Secretary shall be governed by the 
Federal reclamation laws (Act of June 17, 1902; 32 Stat. 388, and 
Acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto). 
(b) A reservoir at the Ruedi site on the Fryingpan River with an 
active capacity of approximately one hundred thousand acre-feet shall 
be constructed in lieu of the reservoir on the Roaring Fork River at the 
Aspen site contemplated in House Document Numbered 187, Eighty-
third Congress. The Secretary shall investigate and prepare a report 
on the f 
easibilitv of a replacement reservoir at or near the Ashcrof 
t site 
on Castle Creek, a tributary of the Roaring Fork River above its 
confluence with the Fryingpan River with a capacity of approximately 
five thousand acre-feet, but construction thereof shall not be com-
menced unless said report, which shall be submitted to the President 
and the Congress, demonstrates the feasibility of said reservoir and 
is approved by the Congress. The Secretary shall expedite completion 
of his planning report on the Basalt project, Colorado, as a partic-
ipating project under the Act of April 11, 1956 (70 Stat. 105), and 
said report shall have the priority status of the reports to which refer-
ence is made in section 2 of said Act. 
(c) No part of the single purpose municipal and industrial water 
supply works involved in the Fryingpan-Arkansas project shall be con-
structed by the Secretary in the absence of evidence satisfactory to him 
that it would be in feasible for the communities involved to construct 
the works themselves, singly or jointly. 
In the event it is determined 
that these works, or any of them, are to be constructed by the Secre-
tary, a contract providing, among other things, for payment of the 
actual cost thereof, with interest as hereinafter provided, as rapidly 
as is consistent with the contracting parties' ability to pay, but in any 
event, within fifty years from the time the works are first available 
for the delivery of water, and for assumption by the contracting par-
ties of the care, operation, maintenance, and replacement of the works 
shall be a condition precedent to construction thereof. 
SEC. 2. (a) Contracts to repay the portion of the cost of the Frying-
gan-Arkansas project allocated to irrigation and assigned to be repaid 
y irrigation water users (exclusive of such portion of said cost as 
may be derived from temporary water supply contracts or from other 
sources) which are entered into pursuant to subsection (d), section 9, 
of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 (53 Stat. 1187^, as amended, 
shall provide for a basic repayment period of not more tnan fifty years 
after completion of construction and shall not provide for any de-
velopment period. 
Such contracts shall be entered into only with 
organizations which have the capacity to levy assessments upon all tax-
able real property located within their boundaries. 
(b) Rates charged for commercial power and for water for mu-
nicipal, domestic or industrial use or for the use of facilities for the 
storage and/or delivery of such water shall be designed to return to the: 
United States, within not more than fifty years from the completion of 
each unit of the project which serves those purposes, those costs of 
constructing, operating and maintaining that unit which are allocated 
76 STAT. ] 
PUBLIC LAW 87-590-AUG. 16, 1962 
391 
to said purposes and interest on the unamortized balance of said con-
struction allocation and, in addition, within the period fixed by sub-
section (a) of this section, so much of the irrigation allocation as is 
l)eyond the ability of the water users and their Organizations to repay. 
(c) The interest rate on the unamortized balance of the commercial 
power and municipal, domestic, and industrial water supply alloca-
tions shall be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, as of the 
beginning of the fiscal year in which construction is initiated, on the 
basis of the computed average interest rate payable by the Treasury 
upon its outstanding marketable public obligations, which are neither 
due nor callable for redemption for fifteen.years from the date of issue. 
SEC. 3. (a) The Fryingpan-Arkansas project shall be operated under 
the direction of the Secretary in accordance with the operating prin-
ciples adopted by the State of Colorado on December 9, 1960, and 
reproduced in House Document Numbered 130, Eighty-seventh Con-
gress. 
(b) The Secretary may appoint the two representatives of the 
United States to the Commission referred to in paragraph 19 of said 
principles and may, upon unanimous recommendation of the parties 
signatory to the operating principles, adopt such modifications therein 
as are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act. 
(c) Any and all benefits and rights of western Colorado water users 
in and to water stored in the Green Mountain Reservoir, Colorado-Big 
Thompson project, as described, set forth and defined in Senate Docu-
ment Numbered 80, Seventy-fifth Congress, shall not be impaired, 
prejudiced, abrogated, nullified, or diminished in any manner what-
ever by reason of the authorization, construction, operation, and main 
tenance of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project. 
(d) Except for such rights as are appurtenant to lands which are 
acquired for project purposes, no valid right to the storage or use of 
water within the natural basin of the Colorado River in the State of 
Colorado shall be acquired by the Secretary of the Interior through 
eminent domain proceedings for the purpose of storing or using out-
side of said basin the water embraced within that right, and no water, 
the right to the storage or use of which is so acquired by anyone other 
than the Secretary, shall be transported through or by means of any 
works of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project from the Colorado River 
Basin to the Arkansas River Basin. 
SEC. 4. (a) The Secretary is authorized and directed (1) to investi- 
Recreational 
I 
J 
-i 
• 
• 
1 1 * 
• 
_
_
,
,
*
-
* 
— 1 1 1 * 1 - . - . 
gate, plan, construct, operate, and maintain public recreational facili-
ties on lands withdrawn or acquired for the development of said 
project, (2) to conserve the scenery, the natural, historic, and arche-
ologic objects, and the wildlife on said lands, (3) to provide for public 
use and enjoyment of the same and of the water areas created by this 
project by such means as are consistent with the purposes of said 
project, and (4) to investigate, plan, construct, operate, and maintain 
facilities for the conservation and development of fish and wildlife 
resources. The Secretary is authorized to acquire lands and to with-
draw public lands from entry or other disposition under the public 
land laws necessary for the construction, operation, and maintenance 
of the facilities herein provided, and to dispose of them to Federal, 
State, and local governmental agencies by lease, transfer, exchange, 
or conveyance upon such terms and conditions as will best promote 
their development and operation in the public interest: Provided^ ^^^ationai forest 
That all lands within the exterior boundaries of a national forest 
acquired for recreational or other project purposes which are not deter-
mined by the Secretary of the Interior to be needed for actual use in 
connection with the reclamation works shall become national forest 
lands: Provided 
further^ That the Secretary of the Interior shall 
facilitie! 
lands. 
392 
PUBLIC LAW 87-590-AUG. 16, 1962 
[76 STAT. 
45 Stat. 1057. 
43 u s e 6l7t, 
54 Stat. 774. 
43 u s e 6l«o. 
70 Stat. 105. 
43 u s e 620-6200. 
59 Stat. I2i§, 
45 Stat. 1.057. 
43 u s e 617t. 
54 Stat. 774. 
43 use 618o. 
70 Stat. 105. 
43 use 620-
620o. 
59 Stat. 1219. 
make his determination hereunder within five years after approval 
of this Act or, in the case of individual tracts of land, within five years 
after their acquisition by the United States: And provided 
further. 
That the authority contained in this section shall not be exercised by 
the Secretary of the Interior with respect to national forest lands with-
out the concurrence of the Secretary of Agriculture. 
(b) The costs, including the operation and maintenance costs, of 
the undertakings described in subsection (a) of this section shall be 
nonreimbursable and nonreturnable under the reclamation laws. 
The 
funds appropriated for carrying out the authorization contained in 
section 1 of this Act shall, without prejudice to the availability of 
other appropriated moneys for the same purpose, also be available for 
carrying out the investigations and programs authorized in this 
section. 
SEC. 5. (a) The use of water diverted from the Colorado River sys-
tem to the Arkansas River Basin through works constructed under 
authority of this Act shall be subject to and controlled by the Colo-
rado River compact, the Upper Colorado River Basin compact, the 
Boulder Canyon Project Act, the Boulder Canyon Project Adjust-
ment Act, the Colorado River Storage Project Act, and the Mexican 
Water Treaty (Treaty Series 994), and shall be included within and 
shall in no way increase the total quantity of water to the use of which 
the State of Colorado is entitled and limited under said compacts, 
statutes, and treaty, and every contract entered into under this Act 
for the storage, use, and delivery of such water shall so recite. 
(b) All works constructed under authority of this Act, and all 
officers, employees, permittees, licensees, and contractees of the United 
States and of the State of Colorado acting pursuant thereto, and all 
users and appropriators of water of the Colorado River system di-
verted or delivered through the works constructed under authority of 
this Act and any enlargements or additions thereto shall observe and 
be subject to said compacts, statutes, and treaty, as hereinbefore pro-
vided, in the diversion, delivery, and use of water of the Colorado River 
system, and such condition and covenant shall attach as a matter of 
law whether or not set out or referred to in the instrument evidencing 
such permit, license, or contract and shall be deemed to be for the 
benefit of and be available to the States of Arizona, California, Colo-
rado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming and the users of water 
therein or thereunder by way of suit, defense, or otherwise in any 
litigation respecting the waters of the Colorado River system. 
(c) None of the waters of the Colorado River system shall be I 
exported from the natural basin of that system by means of works 
constructed under authority of this Act, or extensions and enlarge-
ments of such works, to the Arkansas River Basin for consumptive 
use outside of the State of Colorado, and no such waters shall be made 
available for consumptive use in any State not a party to the Colorado 
River compact by exchange or substitution; nor shall the obligations 
of the State of Colorado under the provisions of the Arkansas River 
compact (63 Stat. 145) be altered by any operations of the Fryingpan-
Arkansas project. 
(d) No right or claim of right to the use of the waters of the Colo-
rado River system shall be aided or prejudiced by this Act, and the 
Congress does not, by its enactment, construe or interpret any provision 
of the Colorado River compact, the Upper Colorado River Basin com-
pact, the Boulder Canyon Project Act, the Boulder Canyon Project 
Adjustment Act, the Colorado River Storage Project Act, or the Mexi-
can Water Treaty or subject the United States to, or approve or dis-
approve any interpretation of, said compacts, statutes, or treaty, any-
thing in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding. 
76 STAT. ] 
PUBLIC LAW 87-591-AUG. 16, 1962 
393 
(e) In the operation and maintenance of all facilities under the 
jurisdiction and supervision of the Secretary of the Interior author-
ized by this Act, the Secretary of the Interior is directed to comply 
with the applicable provisions of the Colorado River compact, the 
Upper Colorado River Basin compact, the Boulder Canyon Project 
Act, the Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act, the Colorado River 
Storage Project Act (and any contract lawfully entered into by the 
United States under any of said Acts), the treaty with the United Mex-
ican States, and the operating principles, and to comply with the laws 
of the State of Colorado relating to the control, appropriation, use, 
and distribution of water therein. 
In the event of the failure of the 
Secretary of the Interior to so comply, any State of the Colorado River 
Basin may maintain an action in the Supreme Court of the United 
States to enforce the provisions of this section and consent is given 
to the joinder of the United States as a party in such suit or suits, as a 
defendant or otherwise. 
SEC. 6. The Secretary of the Interior is directed to continue his 
studies of the quality of water of the Colorado River system, to ap-
praise its suitability for municipal, domestic, and industrial use and 
for irrigation in the various areas in the United States in which it is 
used or proposed to be used, to estimate the effect of additional devel-
opments involving its storage and use (whether heretofore authorized 
or contemplated for authorization) on the remaining water available 
for use in the United States, to study all possible means of improving 
the quality of such water and of alleviating the ill effects thereof, and 
to report the results of his studies and estimates to the Congress on 
January 3, 1963, and every two years thereafter, the expense of said 
studies to be no part of the financial obligation of the Fryingpan-
Arkansas project. 
SEC. 7. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for construc-
tion of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project, the sum of $170,000,000 
(June 1961 prices), plus or minus such amounts, if anyj as may be 
justified by reason of ordinary fluctuations in construction costs as 
indicated by engineering cost indexes applicable to the types of con-
struction involved herein. 
There are also authorized to be appro-
priated such additional sums as may be required for operation and 
maintenance of the project and for future costs incurred under section 
4 of this Act. 
Approved August 16, 1962, 9:45 a. 
Report to 
Congress. 
Appropriation. 
m. 
Public Law 87-591 
AN ACT 
To amend chapter 31 of title 38, United States Code, to afford additional time 
during which certain veterans blinded by reason of a service-connected dis-
ability may be afforded vocational rehabilitation training. 
August 16, 1962 
[S. 2869] 
Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled^ That chapter 31 of 
title 38, United States Code, is amended by adding after section 1502 
the following new section: 
"§ 1502A. Blinded veterans 
"A veteran who is found to be in need of vocational rehabilitation 
to overcome the handicap of blindness resulting from a service-con-
nected disability which affords basic eligibility for vocational rehabili-
tation under section 1502(a) of this title may be afforded such voca-
tional rehabilitation after the termination date otherwise applicable 
to him, but not beyond June 30, 1975, if— 
Blinded veterans. 
Vocational re-
habilitation, 
72 Stat. 1171. 
38 u s e 1501-
1510.