Economics of Federal Irrigation Projects in the Missouri Basin

A greatly expanded Federal program for irrigation development is planned for the Missouri Basin. Under the Flood Control Act of 1944, nearly 5 million acres were proposed for irrigation; and in addition, about half a million acres under irrigation were to receive supplemental water. Nearly one-half of the new irrigation planned was to be located in North and South Dakota. The Missouri-Souris Unit in North Dakota of more than a million acres and the Oahe Unit in South Dakota of three-quarter million acres are the two largest under consideration. Both units are receiving further study to determine the suitability of the soils for irrigation. The irrigation facilities in the Missouri The irrigation facilities in the Missouri Basin would be built and financed largely by the Federal Government. Consequently, certain questions concerning evaluation, accounting of costs, allocations of costs to various purposes, repayments by beneficiaries and similar questions are of public interest. No less important are factors such as the suitability of soils for irrigation, adequacy of water supplies, repayment capacity and related farm problems. However, much less information has been available to the public on some of the over-all economic aspects of the proposed development, and these are the concern of this report. While it is recognized that there are important benefits from irrigation, these are not taken up here because they have been discussed in other reports. (See more in text