Rate Adjustments for Indian Irrigation Projects

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Indian Affairs</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[256A2100DD/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 request your comments on the proposed rate adjustments. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Interested parties may submit comments on the proposed rate adjustments on or before February 24, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> All comments on the proposed rate adjustments must be in writing. You may send comments via email to <E T="03">comments@bia.gov.</E> Please reference “Rate Adjustments for Indian Irrigation Projects” in the subject line. Or you may submit comments to the Program Specialist, Division of Water and Power, Office of Trust Services, 2021 4th Avenue North, Billings, Montana 59101. <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 irrigation project, please use the table in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section to contact the BIA regional or local office where the project is located. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The first table in this notice provides contact information for individuals who can give further information about the irrigation projects covered by this notice. The second table provides the proposed rates for calendar year (CY) 2026 for all irrigation projects. <HD SOURCE="HD1">What is the meaning of the key terms used in this notice?</HD> In this notice: <E T="03">Administrative costs</E> mean all costs we incur to administer our irrigation projects at the local project level and are a cost factor included in calculating your operation and maintenance assessment. Costs incurred at the local project level do not normally include agency, region, or central office costs unless we state otherwise in writing. <E T="03">Assessable acre</E> means lands designated by us to be served by one of our irrigation projects, for which we collect assessments in order to recover costs for the provision of irrigation service. ( <E T="03">See also</E> “total assessable acres.”) <E T="03">BIA</E> means the Bureau of Indian Affairs. <E T="03">Bill</E> means our statement to you of the assessment charges and/or fees you owe the United States for administration, operation, maintenance, and/or rehabilitation. The date we mail or hand-deliver your bill will be stated on it. <E T="03">Costs</E> means the costs we incur for administration, operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation to provide direct support or benefit to an irrigation facility. ( <E T="03">See</E> administrative costs, operation costs, maintenance costs, and rehabilitation costs). <E T="03">Customer</E> means any person or entity to whom or to which we provide irrigation service. <E T="03">Due date</E> is the date on which your bill is due and payable. This date will be stated on your bill. <E T="03">I, me, my, you</E> and <E T="03">your</E> mean all persons or entities that are affected by this notice. <E T="03">Irrigation project</E> means a facility or portion thereof for the delivery, diversion, and storage of irrigation water that we own or have an interest in, including all appurtenant works. The term “irrigation project” is used interchangeably with irrigation facility, irrigation system, and irrigation area. <E T="03">Irrigation service</E> means the full range of services we provide customers of our irrigation projects. This includes our activities to administer, operate, maintain, and rehabilitate our projects in order to deliver water. <E T="03">Maintenance costs</E> means costs we incur to maintain and repair our irrigation projects and associated equipment and is a cost factor included in calculating your operation and maintenance assessment. <E T="03">Operation and maintenance (O&M) assessment</E> means the periodic charge you must pay us to reimburse costs of administering, operating, maintaining, and rehabilitating irrigation projects consistent with this notice and our supporting policies, manuals, and handbooks. <E T="03">Operation or operating costs</E> means costs we incur to operate our irrigation projects and equipment and is a cost factor included in calculating your O&M assessment. <E T="03">Past due bill</E> means a bill that has not been paid by the close of business on the 30th day after the due date as stated on the bill. Beginning on the 31st day after the due date, we begin assessing additional charges accruing from the due date. <E T="03">Rehabilitation costs</E> means costs we incur to restore our irrigation projects or features to original operating condition or to the nearest state which can be achieved using current technology and is a cost factor included in calculating your O&M assessment. <E T="03">Responsible party</E> means an individual or entity that owns or leases land within the assessable acreage of one of our irrigation projects and is responsible for providing accurate information to our billing office and paying a bill for an annual irrigation rate assessment. <E T="03">Total assessable acres</E> mean the total acres served by one of our irrigation projects. <E T="03">Water delivery</E> is an activity that is part of the irrigation service we provide our customers when water is available. <E T="03">We, us,</E> and <E T="03">our</E> mean the United States Government, the Secretary of the Interior, the BIA, and all who are authorized to represent us in matters covered under this notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Does this notice affect me?</HD> This notice affects you if you own or lease land within the assessable acreage of one of our irrigation projects or if you have a carriage agreement with one of our irrigation projects. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Where can I get information on the regulatory and legal citations in this notice?</HD> You can contact the appropriate office(s) for the irrigation project that serves you. Please use the table in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section to contact the regional or local office where the project is located. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Why are you publishing this notice?</HD> We are publishing this notice to inform you that we propose to adjust our irrigation assessment rates. This notice is published in accordance with the BIA's regulations governing its operation and maintenance of irrigation projects, found at 25 CFR part 171. This regulation provides for the establishment and publication of the proposed rates for annual irrigation assessments as well as related information about our irrigation projects. <HD SOURCE="HD1">What authorizes you to issue this notice?</HD> Our authority to issue this notice is vested in the Secretary of the Interior by 5 U.S.C. 301 and the Act of August 14, 1914 (38 Stat. 583; 25 U.S.C. 385). The Secretary has in turn delegated this authority to the Assistant Secretary—Indian Affairs under part 209, Chapter 8.1A, of the Department of the Interior's Departmental Manual. <HD SOURCE="HD1">When will you put the rate adjustments into effect?</HD> We will put the rate adjustments into effect for CY 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD1">How do you calculate irrigation rates?</HD> We calculate annual irrigation assessment rates in accordance with 25 CFR 171.500 by estimating the annual costs of operation and maintenance at each of our irrigation projects and then dividing by the total assessable acres for that particular irrigation project. The result of this calculation for each project is stated in the rate table in this notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">What kinds of expenses do you consider in determining the estimated annual costs of operation and maintenance?</HD> Consistent with 25 CFR 171.500, these expenses include the following: (a) Personnel salary and benefits for the project engineer/manager and project employees under the project engineer/manager's management or control; (b) Materials and supplies; (c) Vehicle and equipment repairs; (d) Equipment costs, including lease fees; (e) Depreciation; (f) Acquisition costs; (g) Maintenance of a reserve fund available for contingencies or emergency costs needed for the reliable operation of the irrigation facility infrastructure; (h) Maintenance of a vehicle and heavy equipment replacement fund; (i) Systematic rehabilitation and replacement of project facilities; (j) Contingencies for unknown costs and omitted budget items; and (k) Other expenses we determine necessary to properly perform the activities and functions characteristic of an irrigation project. <HD SOURCE="HD1">When should I pay my irrigation assessment?</HD> We will mail or hand deliver your bill notifying you (a) the amount you owe to the United States; and (b) when such amount is due. If we mail your bill, we will consider it as being delivered no later than five (5) business days after the day we mail it. You should pay your bill by the due date stated on the bill. <HD SOURCE="HD1">What information must I provide for billing purposes?</HD> All responsible parties are required to provide the following information to the billing office associated with the irrigation project where you own or lease land within the project's assessable ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━