Utah's cup runneth full for water projects in President Reagan's 1990 budget, which he sent to Congress on Monday.
It includes $140.9 million for construction of the Central Utah Project, $11.3 million for construction of the Little Dell Dam east of Salt Lake City and funding for a variety of other smaller flood control and water storage projects statewide.The budget for the CUP is expected to keep construction of the Jordanelle Dam near Heber on schedule. That dam is a key feature of the CUP's Bonneville Unit, which will deliver water from eastern Utah to the Wasatch Front.
The CUP's budget was $1.5 million less than Congress voted for the CUP last year, but congressional aides said they thought Utahns would be happy with the budgeted figures.
The budget, however, does not fund irrigation and drainage works of the CUP. Congress must authorize additional spending for irrigation and drainage work before that part of CUP work can begin.
The Bonneville Unit received the lion's share of funding for CUP - which has five units, some already completed, to serve different areas from Vernal to the Wasatch Front.
The Bonneville Unit has $116.2 million budgeted for 1990, $18 million less than for fiscal 1989. Money for fish and wildlife work there jumped, however, from $5 million to $19.1 million, reflecting needs to deal with environmental effects of the project.
The CUP's Jensen Unit is budgeted to receive $122,000 for construction. The Uintah Unit of the CUP would receive a minimal $50,000 for design work to keep that yet-to-be-built unit alive.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which is constructing the CUP, also has several smaller projects budgeted for Utah.
They include $1.2 million for rehabilitation work at Hyrum Dam, $2 million on the Ogden River Project, $2.1 million on the Weber Basin Project, $1.1 million for operation and maintenance of bureau projects and $100,000 for a Utah Metropolitan Area Water demand model to determine Wasatch Front water needs.
The total 1990 budget for Bureau of Reclamation work in the state is $148,124,000 compared to $147,813,000 this year.
In a separate area of the budget, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is to receive $11.3 million for construction on Little Dell Dam, if Congress approves.
"That's about the amount we expected," said LeRoy W. Hooton Jr., director of Salt Lake City Public Utilities. "The corps has already finished its trench and fill work (at the dam site). We hope to put out the bid for the major work on the dam this March."
Although the dam had been proposed since the 1930s, the main impetus for the dam - located in Dell Canyon upstream from Mountain Dell Reservoir in Parleys Canyon - really began after the major 1983 floods in Salt Lake County.
Then-County Flood Control Director Terry Holzworth said the flooding that turned 13th East Street into a sandbagged river would never have happened if Little Dell had been built.
While the corps is building the dam, major funding and land is also being provided by Salt Lake County, the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake City and the city itself.
Hooton said the dam is scheduled to cost a total of $51.3 million and be completed in 1991.
Little Dell Reservoir is designed to have seven times the capacity of nearby Mountain Dell Reservoir. It is also designed to produce an average of 8,000 acre-feet of drinking water a year - enough to supply the annual needs of 40,000 people.
In other Corps of Engineers projects, the budget proposes $400,000 for preliminary engineering and design of a detention basin on Mill Creek in Salt Lake County. It will be located about Ninth East and 42nd South, said Les Dixon, chief of corps planning in Utah.
The budget also proposes $400,000 for a new corps survey of the Weber River and its tributaries to recommend possible flood control work that may be needed. Dixon said that study would be a joint venture with the State of Utah.
The budget also calls for $225,000 to continue research of the Bear River and its tributaries on how to develop its water, reduce bank erosion, control floods and reduce sedimentation of Bear Lake and reservoirs on the river.
Dixon said that study is also looking into seven potential dam sites on the river. He said the research is a joint venture with Utah, Wyoming and Idaho.