The House will vote on whether to approve start-up funding to construct the $481 million pork-barrel Animas-La Plata irrigation project (ALP) in Colorado when the Energy and Water Appropriations bill comes to the floor this week.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s Animas-La Plata project squeals of pure pork, benefiting a handful of ranchers and growers at the expense of federal taxpayers and downstream water users. ALP would construct an octopus of 2 major reservoirs, 7 pumping plants and 200 miles of canals and pipes in order to pump irrigation water 1,000 feet uphill to crops that already get federal subsidies.

ALP will return only 36 cents for every dollar invested according to a July 1995 analysis by the Bureau of Reclamation. In addition, analyses by both the Interior Department’s Inspector General and the Bureau of Land Management found the project to be economically unjustifiable.

ALP should probably be called “Another Losing Proposal.” This irrigation giveaway works out to approximately $5,000 per acre — twice the value of the irrigated land itself. With an average hand-out of $2 million per farm, the total irrigation subsidy exceeds $200 million.

Project beneficiaries proclaimed in a local Colorado newspaper ad that “We should support Animas-La Plata…because someone else is paying most of the tab! We get the water….They pay the bill.”

Although the project is being touted by some as a solution to an Indian water rights claim, two-thirds of the water welfare would go to non-Indian, low-value, surplus crops. The remaining one-third of the water would not reach tribal land, falling about 10 miles short of the Ute reservation. Native American delivery facilities are reserved for “Phase II” of ALP which receives no federal funding and is unlikely to be ever built.

Reps. Thomas Petri (R-WI) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) will offer an amendment to eliminate all funding for ALP. Rep. Petri is so enraged by the project that he awarded it his Porker of the Week Award, calling it “behemoth” and “wasteful.” Almost 60 national and local taxpayer and environmental groups oppose ALP.

Bringing Home the Bacon

On July 18 and 22, The Washington Post reported that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) instructed Rep. John Myers (R-IN) to add $15 million for four Army Corps of Engineers projects to his subcommittee’s Energy and Water bill. The projects are intended to boost re-election prospects of three Republican freshmen, and also a senior Democrat whose support for the bill was considered essential.