Reclamation Reform Act

Your editorial (April 15), “Leaky Water Law,” while containing some misconceptions, is well captioned. If the intent of the Reclamation Reform Act was, as you contend, to limit the eligibility of all farm operations to no more than 960 acres, then the law is truly leaky. The new law does set some limitations but leaves many farm ownership and management practices unrestricted.

Your editorial notes that the law raised the entitlement limit for low-cost water to 960 acres in order to recognize reality without penalizing the “true family farm.” Congress did not use or define, the term “family farm,” true or otherwise. Congress did not say that two brothers, each entitled to 960 acres, could not share the same equipment, the same accountant or even the same residence. Congress did not empower the Bureau of Reclamation to limit legal trusts in such a way as to prevent a father from conveying portions of his farm to his sons or daughters. Congress did consider limiting “farm management arrangements” but did not chose to include these limitations in the law.

Lacking these restrictive prohibition in the law, the Bureau of Reclamation could find no defense for the argument that it should impose them arbitrarily. Restrictions were largely imposed in the law through limitations placed on ownership and leasing. Restrictions on leasing are the principal feature of the new law.

Congress did instruct us to carry out the “provisions” of the act, rather than using the more common phrase “intent and purposes” of the act. Thus it was necessary, and good public policy, for us to prepare rules and regulations which are responsive to the provisions of the law as required by Congress. Your newspaper has every right to consider the law “leaky,” but in all fairness, should recognize the language of the law. The Reclamation Reform Act is complex legislation that the Bureau of Reclamation intends to administer based on its provisions. The bureau has not winked at the law in the past nor does it intend to do so in the future.

C. DALE DUVALL

Commissioner

Bureau of Reclamation

Washington