Monday, AUGUST 18, 2025 |
Wyoming water developers appear to be closing in on a land exchange between the state and the Medicine Bow National Forest to enable construction of a dam and reservoir above the Little Snake River Valley in the Sierra Madres.
Wyoming lawmakers voted on Aug. 7 to transfer $300,000 to the state land office to help complete a swap. The money would enable the Wyoming Office of Lands and Investments and the Forest Service to complete surveys, minerals reports and other elements necessary for the exchange, Wyoming Water Development Office Director Jason Mead told lawmakers.
A land exchange has stirred public interest and opposition. Such an exchange is essential to building the proposed dam and reservoir. “To get our permits, we have to acquire that U.S. Forest Service property,” Mead told lawmakers.
A motion, to approve the transfer, passed without dissent at a joint meeting of the Legislature’s Select Water Committee and Wyoming Water Development Commission earlier this month.
The money comes from $4.2 million allocated to the water office for the proposed dam on the West Fork of Battle Creek.
Forest Service officials appear ready to sign and approve a feasibility analysis and public interest determination that could move the exchange forward, Mead told lawmakers.
The signing of a report affirming the feasibility and public interest of an exchange would advance the process, Mead said. “The next step would be an ‘agreement to initiate’” what will be a lengthy process, involving 64-steps to complete that land exchange.
As the effort advances, forest officials cautioned that tasks so far represent “preliminary steps.” The Forest Service, after consultation with officials in Washington, D.C., stated in an email that it “has not approved or completed a land exchange,” and that “the process is in early stages and subject to further analysis and public review.”
A draft Environmental Impact Statement on the project, announced in 2022, is expected to be published early next year by the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The West Fork Dam is proposed to be a 264-foot-high, 700-foot-long concrete plug in a canyon just south of scenic Wyoming Highway 70 between Saratoga and Baggs. The reservoir would be about 130 acres and cover what is now largely forested land. About 44 irrigators have expressed interest in contracting for late-season water from the planned reservoir. In 2017, water developers estimated the dam would cost $80 million and hold 8,000 acre feet.
