Rate Adjustments for Indian Irrigation Projects

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Indian Affairs</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[245A2100DD/AAKC001030/A0A501010.999900]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Rate Adjustments for Indian Irrigation Projects</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) owns or has an interest in irrigation projects located on or associated with various Indian reservations throughout the United States. We are required to establish irrigation assessment rates to recover the costs to administer, operate, maintain, and rehabilitate these projects. We are notifying you that we have adjusted the irrigation assessment rates at several of our irrigation projects and facilities to reflect current costs of administration, operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The 2025 Irrigation Assessment Rates are effective on January 1, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Leslie Underwood, Program Specialist, Division of Water and Power, Office of Trust Services, (406) 657-5985. For details about a particular BIA irrigation project, please use the tables in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section to contact the BIA regional or local office where the irrigation project is located. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Notices of Proposed Rate Adjustment were published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 8, 2024 (89 FR 8707) and May 6, 2024 (89 FR 37238) to propose adjustments to the irrigation assessment rates at several BIA irrigation projects. The public and interested parties were provided an opportunity to submit written comments during the 60-day period that ended April 8, 2024, and July 5, 2024, respectively. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Did BIA defer or change any proposed rate increases?</HD> No. BIA did not defer or change any proposed rate increases. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Did BIA receive any comments on the proposed irrigation assessment rate adjustments?</HD> Yes. BIA received five (5) written comments related to the proposed 2025 irrigation assessment rate adjustment for the BIA Colorado River Irrigation Project (CRIP). Comments were received by letter and email. <HD SOURCE="HD1">What issues were of concern to the commenters?</HD> Comments received relate specifically to the proposed 2025 rate adjustment for CRIP and other issues associated only with CRIP. BIA's summary of the issues and responses are provided below. <E T="03">Comment:</E> Four commenters state a general opposition to the proposed CRIP 2025 rate increase because commenters believe basic services, such as water delivery, maintenance, and measurements are not being provided. The fifth commenter, Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), generally supports the proposed 2025 rate adjustment and recommends BIA increase future rates because CRIT believes CRIP's operations and maintenance (O&M) are underfunded. CRIT further requests that the additional revenues from the rate increase be used to improve system performance and reliability. <E T="03">Response:</E> As noted when rates were proposed in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 8, 2024 (89 FR 8707) and May 6, 2024 (89 FR 37238), BIA is required to establish irrigation assessment rates that recover the costs to administer, operate, maintain, and rehabilitate our projects. As owner of CRIP, BIA assesses rates to ensure adequate resources are made available to meet the requirements noted above. BIA's authority to assess rates is codified at 25 U.S.C. 381 <E T="03">et seq.</E> and is addressed in BIA's regulations at 25 CFR part 171. <E T="03">See also</E> February 29, 2008 (73 FR 11028). The procedures followed by BIA in adjusting its irrigation assessment rates are consistent with applicable law and past practice, and the methodology used by BIA to determine the O&M assessment rates for CRIP is reasonable. The proposed 2025 irrigation assessment adjustments for CRIP's basic per acre rate categories are necessary and justified due to the increased costs associated with administering, operating, maintaining, and rehabilitating CRIP. In accordance with BIA financial guidelines and 25 CFR part 171, BIA developed the CRIP budget for 2025 expenditures and income approximately two years in advance. BIA relied on financial reports generated by the Financial and Business Management System and procurement files to review past expenditures and project a future budget. The CRIP Project Manager also used his discretion to assess and anticipate upcoming financial needs and priorities. The 2025 expenses were then divided by the total assessable acres within CRIP. The $5.00 per acre assessment increase for the “basic per acre” rate category is necessary to ensure CRIP can pay its anticipated expenses for 2025. The BIA Colorado River Agency Superintendent and CRIP Project Manager routinely attend the CRIT Irrigation Committee's monthly meetings to provide project updates and explain proposed rate increases. BIA also met with CRIT's Tribal Council on March 25, 2024. On March 28, 2024, BIA held a water user meeting and attendees included individual water users, CRIT's legal counsel, CRIT's farm director, and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological science technician. During all of these meetings, BIA presented details supporting the 2025 budget, upcoming expenses, and the proposed O&M assessment increase from $64 to $69 per acre. BIA also explained it provides irrigation service commensurate with its resources, meaning the $5.00 per acre assessment increase is needed to improve the project's quality of service. BIA agrees with commenters that CRIP's water measurement devices can be operated and maintained better to meet water delivery requirements, and BIA is working to resolve this issue with our contractors and experts. BIA is addressing priority deferred maintenance projects at CRIP by providing supplemental funding, engineering, design, and construction resources to CRIP. From 2022 through 2024, BIA allocated over $17 million in supplemental funding for deferred maintenance projects, such as Lateral 73-36 Check 1 and Main Canal Check rehabilitation. BIA provided this supplemental funding in addition to revenues collected from CRIP's assessable acres. We appreciate water users' participation in our meetings and comments, and we have sent a follow-up letter to CRIT in response to their unique questions and concerns. <E T="03">Comment:</E> Commenters state CRIP is chronically understaffed due to its lengthy hiring process and Indian preference requirements, and request BIA hire more staff to improve water deliveries along with a specific concern that the project is understaffed and personnel costs should not increase until vacant positions are filled. <E T="03">Response:</E> Due to a variety of reasons, recruitment for CRIP positions has proved to be challenging. The BIA Western Regional Director and Human Resources team remain committed to filling vacancies in CRIP's 78-position organizational chart as rapidly as possible. We are currently seeking applicants for the following 13 positions: 2 Maintenance Workers, 3 Engineering Equipment Operators, 7 Irrigation System Operators, and 1 Accounting Technician. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and all positions are open until filled. Preference in filing vacancies is given to qualified Indian candidates in accordance with the Indian Preference Act of 1934 (25 U.S.C. 5116). Given our difficulties with filling the Irrigation System Operator positions, BIA's Human Resources opened these positions to the public in April and authorized recruitment or relocation incentives. All applicants must apply online at <E T="03">www.usajobs.gov</E> (search for BIA positions in Poston, Arizona). BIA also posted application information in local newspapers, and the Superintendent will be attending job fairs at local colleges to recruit. CRIP's 2025 budget can support personnel salary, benefits, and overtime for up to 45 employees, which is an increase of 17 CRIP employees above the current 2024 staffing levels. The remaining 33 vacant positions in CRIP's organizational chart are not accounted for or funded in the 2025 budget. The quality of irrigation service will improve as vacancies are filled, while also retaining and increasing experience levels of existing CRIP staff. <E T="03">Comment:</E> Commenters state BIA should have anticipated lost revenue from 2023 excess water sales and is punishing irrigators for using less water. <E T="03">Response:</E> All presently assessable acres within CRIP must pay an annual basic per acre charge for up to 5.75 acre-feet of water. If additional water is available, irrigators may request more water and pay our per acre-foot fee for “excess water.” Because the availability of excess water fluctuates year-to-year along with irrigators' demands, CRIP's excess water revenue fluctuates. In calendar years 2020, 2021, and 2022, CRIP's excess water revenues were around $480,000, $830,000, and $650,000, respectively. Based on prior revenues, BIA budgeted for 2023 excess water revenues of $580,000. This estimate, however, fell short, and the actual excess water revenue was around $170,000 for 2023. While we do not know why irrigators ordered less excess water in 2023 than in prior years, we believe it might be in part due to the unusually wet spring in 2023. Given the difficulties of predicting an upcoming year's rainfall and the amount of excess water irrigators will order, BIA's budgets will no longer rely on excess water revenues to fund operational expenses. Accordingly, BIA's budgeted excess water revenue for 2024 and 2025 has been reduced to $150,000 per year. If the revenues from e ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━