43 U.S.C. § 499b — Transfer to municipal corporations or other organizations of care, operation, and maintenance of works supplying water for municipal, domestic, or industrial use

This section is one rule allowing water works to be handed over to local control. Whenever a municipal corporation or other organization that receives municipal, domestic, or industrial water — under a contract with the United States made under federal reclamation law — asks for it, the Secretary of the Interior may transfer to it, or to its nominee, the care, operation, and maintenance of the works that supply that water. The Secretary decides how much of the works to transfer — all of it, or just the part that, in the Secretary's judgment, fits the circumstances. The transfer is subject to whatever terms and conditions the Secretary sets.