The Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project, one of the water development programs on President Carter’s “hit list,” faces tough going in the congressional effort to preserve its funding. This became evidentin action in the House of Representatives Tuesday. The House voted 356 to 54 to approve the public works appropriations bill containing money for 17 water projects on which President Carter wants to slash funding. But the margin in an earlier vote rejecting an amendment to cut the water projects from the $10.2 billion appropriations bill was so small (218 to 194) that serious doubt was raised as to whether the necessary votes could be mustered to override a Carter veto. Rep. Gunn McKay, D-Utah, said he feels that if the President vetos the bill, there’ll be a lot of defections “back to our side because it won’t be a veto of just water projects, but all the rest of the public works projects as well.” It remains to be seen what the Senate will do with the bill, but Rep. McKay said he expected some “radical surgery” to cut off some of the projects and make the bill more appealing to Mr. Carter. The presidential press secretary, Jody Powell, told reporters Carter was pleased by the closeness of the vote. The Herald encourages Utah’s congressional delegates to continue their vigorous fight to save this project. It is lamentable that a project, approved lg Congress in 1956 and supported uring five administrations, must be put to the kind of political test the Bonneville Unit faces. It doesn’t strengthen faith in the govemment when a new president unilaterally seeks to halt a project on which hundreds of millions of dollars already have been spent to insure water for an arid part of the country. What consideration has been given the people of the multicounty area of Utah who approved a repayment contract at the polls, assuming for their part of the bargain the obligation of paying back some 90 per cent of the project’s cost. This is not a government handout or giveaway ‘and never has been. The users of the water will be paying the great majority of the costs back to the government. We do not fault President Carter in his wishes to cut federal spending. Indeed we certainly recommend that goal for Congress and the entire administration. But we feel a program vital to an area’s economy, where the money is to be repaid by the people, is not a good place to focus the fundslashing. We urge Congress to remain consistent in its support of vital water projects – and that President Carter reconsider his own position in the matter.