Line would take Green River Water to Colorado

In Wyoming, Opposition Builds to Pipeline

By Kirk Siegler, KUNC, 7-25-09

This piece first aired on KUNC in Colorado. You can listen to the report here.

Wyoming’s Green River has long been overlooked by water managers in Colorado, or at least if you ask Aaron Million. His proposal to tap into it was actually born out of a graduate thesis he wrote in a resource economics class while attending Colorado State University in Fort Collins in 2002.

“Well, I think what was missed is the Green River, which is actually a larger river system than the Colorado, runs more water volume per mile, was a completely overlooked water opportunity for the region, Colorado and Wyoming included,” Million says over coffee in Fort Collins.

And the Green is actually part of the Colorado River basin; making it subject to long-standing water treaties. One of those permits the transfer of water between upper Colorado River basin states; the tent pole behind Million’s thesis that Colorado is entitled to some of the Green River water. 

“Is it unprecedented?  Absolutely not.  I mean, around the world projects of this size get done every day,” he says. 

Even around the arid West, a 550 mile water pipeline is not unheard of. But a two to three billion dollar project that’s privately financed would be unprecedented, at least for this region. But Million sees the project as a private-public partnership. He plans to sell the water to growing towns and cities.

If built, the pipeline would cut a swath right across southern Wyoming, and right along Interstate 80, near the town of Rawlins, in the middle of a vast terrain, which really speaks to the sheer enormity of the project and just how far some people are willing to go to get water here in the West. 

More than 400 miles away from the Fort Collins coffee shop where this story started, is the town of Green River, Wyoming. 

It’s a good place to meet diehard fishermen like Mike Burd, who’s squinting in the bright sun on this afternoon along the banks of the Green River. Burd’s a miner, a proud union man who’s lived here most his life. He’s also an outspoken conservationist.

“Yeah, and it’s not green!,” Burd says about the River he’s working to protect. “Normally this river’s green…”

Instead, it’s a swollen brown, even now in mid July. Burd says if every year were as wet as this, maybe folks around here wouldn’t have a problem with Aaron Million’s pipeline.

Or maybe they still would. He believes Colorado should look for water in its own state. 

“You’re gonna get it sooner or later, if you want that water, take it when it gets into Colorado, but leave us up here in southern Wyoming and northern Utah alone.”

That’s something you hear a lot in this part of the state. Downstream, the Green does briefly flow into Colorado. Locals also note that water in this basin is already scarce, and possibly already over-allocated to downstream farmers and cities. A few miles away in Rock Springs, local chamber of commerce director Dave Hanks points to another factor, climate change. Hanks says it’s already rearing its head here.  There’s less snow, and less snowpack, the storage mechanism for water in the west.

“We will definitely be opposed to this.  It’s not no, it’s hell no,” he says. 

Hanks says a drop in water – either in the Green River – or the nearby Flaming Gorge reservoir – would have devastating impacts on the environment. And around here he says, that will hurt tourism, and the fishing industry.

“We’re gonna do everything that we can to put up roadblocks to stop this project,” he says. “Everything, because we believe it is that damaging to our communities.  And to the state of Wyoming. 

Wyoming is rich in natural resources, and residents are used to seeing those resources exported. Most don’t seem to mind, except when it comes to water, says University of Wyoming professor and water expert Harold Bergman.

“Wyoming, I think, considers water more precious than fossil fuels,” he says. 

Which is why he says people in the state are fighting the Million project so vehemently.

But not everyone in Wyoming is against the pipeline.  For instance, just a few miles away from where I met Bergman in Laramie, there’s a reservoir that provides water for area livestock farms. Under Aaron Million’s proposal, about a fifth of the total water would be dropped off for members of the local irrigation district. Back in Fort Collins, Million says he believes there is enough water in the Green and the nearby gorge for everybody.

“I think legitimately, the people in that region, Green River, Rock Springs area have concerns about the impact on the system, and I’ve always said, and will say again, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” he says.

Million promises to pull the plug on his proposal, if federal regulators conclude it will stress the system, and hurt the environment.  But he says the whole reason he’s chosen to go through Wyoming and not the fragile, high mountains of Colorado, is because of the environment.  Much of the I-80 corridor is designated for pipelines already.  It’s also mostly downhill to the Front Range.  Not so in his home state.

“When you get up into Summit and Grand counties, you see huge environmental impacts in the high mountain streams and the reservoirs, caused by this push and pull and tug over water resources between western Colorado and eastern Colorado.”

Million actually left CSU before he could formally defend his graduate thesis that got this whole effort started. But he’s having ample chance to defend it these days. An extended public comment period wraps up this Friday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will then launch an exhaustive environmental study on his project.  An up or down vote isn’t expected for at least three years. 

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