December 6, 2021 |
The West Fork Reservoir Project above Encampment is still alive, and receiving state funding. The legislature’s 12-member Select Water Committee approved funding for a NEPA contractor for the project during a meeting last month with the Wyoming Water Development Office.
In 2016, the price tag to build the 8,500 hundred-acre-foot reservoir on Battle Pass was pegged at around $80 million. One year later, the legislature gutted $40 million in funding to the project.
The state faced big funding shortfalls and the debate over providing a few days of late season water to a handful of irrigators in the Little Snake River Valley was heated. In one floor speech, Senator Bruce Burns of Sheridan summed up how critics felt about spending money on the project while the price of coal and natural gas were collapsing.
In a compromise, lawmakers kept the project afloat with an $11 million lifeline on a promise from supporters to find financial support in Colorado, where much of the water will flow.
Although irrigators in Colorado will enjoy benefits from the reservoir, they aren’t invested the way Wyoming is. Water Commissioner Liisa Anselmi-Dalton raised the question last month when WDO Director Brandon Gebhart and Jason Mead, the deputy director of dams and reservoirs, asked for five more years to develop the project.
Anselmi-Dalton of Rock Springs is one of ten water development commissioners. The members, all by appointed by the governor, are responsible for the coordination, development and planning of Wyoming’s water and related land resources.
The select water committee approved the five-year, Phase III funding extension. It also approved a Memorandum of Agreement between the WDO and the Little Snake River Conservancy District to split funding for project planning and the NEPA process. The irrigators in Baggs and Savery are required to pay a 50 percent match for the state funding. Committee Chair, Rep. Evan Simpson, explained how the MOA will work.
The committee approved the MOA without discussion. The details of what the money would be spent on came during a discussion of another MOA. The second agreement is between WDO and an environmental consulting company, SWCA, Incorporated. WDO Director Gebhart laid out the details for the Select Water committee.
According to the first MOA, the state water development office would pay half, or about $595,000, of the cost to the San Francisco-based company. The Little Snake River irrigators would pay the other half. The lawmakers on the select water committee approved the request.
The full legislature will have the final say next year. The WDO will bundle the recommendations for the West Fork project in it proposed Omnibus Water bill. Last month’s meeting was held in Casper.
