Bureau of Reclamation

GAO concludes that the Department of the Interior exceeded authorized spending limits when it built recreation facilities at both the Boise Project, a series of reservoirs providing irrigation, hydroelectric power, and flood control in Idaho, and the Minidoka Project, a dam and reservoir located in Idaho and Wyoming. The recreation facilities include recreational vehicle and tent campsites, group picnic shelters, trails, and paved roads and parking lots. Plans are also under way to build a marina complex and a visitor center. In addition, Reclamation has not entered into all of the required cost-sharing agreements with nonfederal entities. As a result, the taxpayers and users of Bonneville hydroelectric power have picked up much of the tab to run the facilities, rather than those who have benefitted from them. Reclamation has avoided congressional scrutiny of the costs to build the recreation facilities by identifying them as minimum public health and safety facilities. In GAO's view, Reclamation should be forced to comply with the law or obtain specific congressional authorization to continue running the facilities at taxpayers' expense.

GAO found that: (1) Reclamation has requested funds for minimum public health and safety facilities in its D&MC budget requests, but it has used some of those funds for recreational facilities at the projects; (2) although the Department of the Interior agrees that the recreational facilities do not constitute minimum public health and safety facilities, it believes that they are necessary to prevent the rapid deterioration of project reservoir resources; (3) Reclamation has exceeded authorized funding for recreation facilities at the projects; (4) Reclamation has not entered into all of the required cost-sharing agreements; (5) although Reclamation has shared some construction costs with nonfederal entities, it plans to allocate most of its funds to authorized irrigation and power projects; and (6) Reclamation has funded almost all operation and maintenance costs of the facilities because of its failure to enter into cost-sharing agreements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: