American Notes Utah

Life can be dull in tiny Duchesne, Utah (pop. 1,800). The town has three churches and three bars, but the only movie theater is closed and Salt Lake City is almost 100 miles away. Duchesne's sole claim to fame is the nearby Central Utah Project, a federal irrigation program now ten years behind schedule and roughly $1 billion over its original $324 million budget. The 200 CUP employees and their families in Duchesne live in federal trailer camps and therefore pay no local property taxes. In lieu of tax payments, federal and local officials hit on a way to cure the Duchesne doldrums: Uncle Sam could build a bowling alley.

The six-lane alley, complete with snack bar, is due to open next month at a cost of $375,000 to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and $75,000 to Duchesne. California Democrat George Miller, chairman of the House Interior Subcommittee on Water and Power Resources, is enraged by the expenditure. "We charge them to build a dam, we get a bowling alley instead," he said last week. The bureau has proposed that Utah residents who will be served by CUP whenever the project is completed pay back about 75% of the federal cost for the bowling alley through water charges.