BIA’s irrigation program was initiated in the late 1800s, as part of the federal government’s Indian assimilation policy, and it was originally designed to provide economic development opportunities for Indians through agriculture. The Act of July 4, 1884, provided the Secretary of the Interior $50,000 for the general development of irrigation on Indian lands. Over the years, the Congress continued to pass additional legislation authorizing and funding irrigation facilities on Indian lands. BIA’s irrigation program includes over 100 “irrigation systems” and “irrigation projects” that irrigate approximately 1 million acres primarily across the West. BIA’s irrigation systems are non revenue-generating facilities that are primarily used for subsistence gardening and they are operated and maintained through a collaborative effort which generally involves other BIA programs, tribes, and water users. In contrast, BIA’s 16 irrigation projects charge their water users an annual operations and maintenance fee to fund the cost of operating and maintaining the project. Most of BIA’s irrigation projects are considered self-supporting through these operations and maintenance fees. The 16 irrigation projects are located on Indian reservations across the agency’s Rocky Mountain, Northwest, Southwest, and Western regions (see fig. 1). BIA’s management of the 16 irrigation projects is decentralized, with regional and local BIA offices responsible for day-to-day operations and maintenance. Table 1 provides the tribe or tribes served by each of the 16 irrigation projects along with the year each project was originally authorized. The irrigation facilities constructed by BIA included a range of structures for storing and delivering water for agricultural purposes. Figure 2 highlights an example of the key structural features found on BIA’s irrigation projects. The beneficiaries of BIA’s projects have evolved over time and at present are quite diverse. Over the years, non-Indians have bought or leased a significant portion of the land served by BIA’s irrigation program. As a result, current water users on BIA’s projects include the tribes, individual Indian landowners, non-Indian landowners, and non-Indian lessees of Indian lands. The extent of non-Indian landownership and leasing ranges significantly across BIA’s irrigation projects (see table 2). For example, 100 percent of the land served by the Colorado River Irrigation Project is Indian owned, while only about 10 percent of the land served by the Flathead Irrigation Project is Indian owned. Federal regulations and internal BIA guidance require that BIA collaborate with water users, both Indian and non-Indian, in managing the irrigation projects. For example, federal regulations state that close cooperation between BIA and water users is necessary and that the BIA official in charge of each project is responsible for consulting with all water users in setting program priorities. In addition, BIA’s manual requires that BIA “provide opportunities for water user participation in matters relating to irrigation project operations” and that BIA’s officer-in-charge “meet regularly with water users to discuss proposed [operation and maintenance] assessment rates … general operations and maintenance.” Although BIA guidance does not define “regularly,” BIA’s Irrigation Handbook explicitly recommends that project staff meet at least twice annually to discuss work performed over the course of the year and allow for water user feedback and suggestions for the coming year. Furthermore, BIA’s Irrigation Handbook states that, at a minimum, BIA should discuss annual project budgets and work plans with water users. Since their inception, BIA’s 16 irrigation projects have been plagued by maintenance concerns. Construction of the projects was never fully completed, resulting in structural deficiencies that have continually hindered project operations and efficiency. In addition, water users and BIA have reported that operations and maintenance fees provide insufficient funding for project operations. Due to insufficient funding, project maintenance has been consistently postponed, resulting in an extensive and costly list of deferred maintenance items. Such deferred maintenance ranges from repairing or replacing dilapidated irrigation structures to clearing weeds from irrigation ditches. In addition, concerns regarding BIA’s management of the projects have been raised for years, particularly in regard to its financial management practices. For example, problems concerning BIA’s billing practices for its operations and maintenance fees have been raised by many, prompting independent review on more than one occasion. We and the Department of the Interior’s Inspector General have both identified serious problems with the land use records BIA has used to develop its annual operations and maintenance bills. In response, BIA instituted a new financial management system called the National Irrigation Information Management System, which has begun to address some of the billing errors. However, concerns still exist regarding the accuracy of the data in the billing system. The accuracy of some of the information in the irrigation billing system is dependant on the irrigation program receiving accurate and timely information from other BIA programs, such as land ownership and leasing information from BIA’s Real Estate Services program. In 2001, the Yakama tribe and individual tribal members filed appeals challenging the Wapato Irrigation Project’s operation and maintenance fees for the pre-2000 and year 2000 bills. Furthermore, the Wapato Irrigation Project agreed to not send any bills to the tribe or its members since 2001. Although a settlement is under discussion, in the interim the Wapato Irrigation Project has not been able to collect about $2 million, annually, of its expected revenue. According to BIA’s latest estimate, it will cost about $850 million to complete the deferred maintenance on all of its 16 irrigation projects; but this estimate is still being refined. BIA initially estimated its deferred maintenance costs at over $1 billion in fiscal year 2004, but acknowledged that this estimate was preliminary and would need to be revised largely because it incorrectly included new construction items and was developed by non-engineers. BIA revised this estimate downward in fiscal year 2005 based on the implementation of a new facilities management system. However, BIA plans to further refine this estimate since some projects continued to incorrectly count new construction items as deferred maintenance. As part of its ongoing effort to identify the needs and costs of deferred maintenance on its 16 irrigation projects, BIA estimated in fiscal year 2004 that it would cost approximately $1.2 billion to complete all deferred maintenance. This initial estimate was based, in part, on preliminary condition assessments of irrigation structures and equipment for each of BIA’s 16 irrigation projects. These preliminary condition assessments generally consisted of visual inspections to classify each project’s structure and equipment using a scale of good, fair, poor, critical and abandoned based on the apparent level of disrepair. BIA staff then estimated how much it would cost to repair each item based on its condition classification. BIA generally defines deferred maintenance as upkeep that is postponed until some future time. Deferred maintenance varies from project to project and ranges from cleaning weeds and trees which divert water from irrigation ditches, to repairing leaky or crumbling check gates designed to regulate water flow, to resloping eroded canal banks to optimize water flow. Figure 3 shows examples of deferred maintenance on some of the irrigation projects we visited (clockwise from the upper left, figure 3 shows (1) a defunct check gate and overgrown irrigation ditch at the Fort Belknap Irrigation Project, (2) a cattle-crossing eroding a canal bank and impairing water flow at the Wind River Irrigation Project, (3) a crumbling irrigation structure at the Crow Irrigation Project, and (4) a check gate leaking water at the Colorado River Irrigation Project). For detailed information on key maintenance issues for each of the nine projects we visited, see appendix II. BIA officials acknowledged that their fiscal year 2004 deferred maintenance estimate was only a starting point and that it needed to be revised for three key reasons: (1) the individuals who conducted the assessments were not knowledgeable about irrigation projects or infrastructure; (2) not all projects used the same methodology to develop their deferred maintenance cost estimates; and (3) some projects incorrectly counted new construction items as deferred maintenance. BIA’s preliminary condition assessments were conducted by computer specialists, rather than by people with the expertise in irrigation or engineering needed to accurately assess project infrastructure. BIA contracted with geographic information system experts primarily to catalogue the structures on each project. These geographic information system experts also observed the condition of the structures they catalogued and classified the condition of each structure, based on the level of apparent disrepair, as part of the overall effort to inventory and map key structures on each project. Consequently, some items identified as being in “poor” condition may in fact be structurally sound but simply appear cosmetically dilapidated, whereas other structures classified as being in “good” condition may in fact be structurally dilapidated but appear cosmetically sound. For example, according to BIA staff at the Colorado River Irrigation Project, the recent repainting of certain check gates disguised severe rust and structural deterioration of key metal parts. BIA staff used inconsistent methodologies to develop the cost estimates for deferred maintenance. According to BIA staff, the deferred maintenance cost estimates were developed by different people, sometimes using different or unknown methodologies for assigning cost values to deferred maintenance items. For example, some projects developed their own cost estimates and sent them to BIA’s central office for inclusion in its overall figures, while BIA regional staff developed cost estimates for other projects based, in part, on information from BIA’s preliminary condition assessments. Some projects incorrectly included new construction items as deferred maintenance. According to BIA, work that would expand a project or its facilities should not be categorized as deferred maintenance. Therefore, expanding an existing water delivery system or constructing a new building is not deferred maintenance. However, some projects incorrectly counted new construction items as deferred maintenance. For example, the Fort Hall Irrigation Project included increasing the capacity of its main canal for about $15.3 million, the Duck Valley Irrigation Project included building new canals for about $1.3 million, and the Flathead Irrigation Project included building a new warehouse for about $147,000.