Frustrated with years of delays on the proposed Alkali Creek Dam and Reservoir near Hyattville, several state senators tried unsuccessfully last week to enforce a July 1 deadline to secure necessary easements.
The critics also failed, by a smaller margin, to prevent the state from using the power of eminent domain — condemnation — to acquire easements for the controversial project.
The critical senators challenged part of Senate File 70, “Omnibus Water Bill – Construction,” which would give water developers another year — until July 1, 2027, — to obtain the easements. The Wyoming Water Development Office and Commission are also seeking another $1.5 million in House Bill 87, “Omnibus Water Bill — Planning,” to obtain the easements.
The Wyoming Water Development Commission has spent about $8 million on the project, one senator said, but construction has not started. All told, legislators have appropriated $59 million for the proposed Alkali Creek Dam, which has ballooned from estimates of $20 million to as much as $113 million.
Among other things, critics pointed to the need to pay for other Wyoming water projects, which could add up to $700 million in coming years.
“We need to take care of the infrastructure that we have, rather than spend on new or tie up funds on a project that is not progressing,” said Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, a Republican from Torrington. She led the charge to hold to the 2026 deadline, after which the money would revert to other projects.
“There’s been far too many promises made and too many promises broken,” Steinmetz said.
The deadline extension would be at least the third granted for Alkali design, frustrating Sen. Tim French, R-Ralston. “It’s the same old story year after year,” he said.
“I’ve heard it again today,” French said. “‘I’m willing to work with him one more year … by golly, we’re making progress … give us another year.’”
He, Steinmetz and other senators couldn’t block the extension. They lost 18-8 in a Senate floor vote.
“There’s been far too many promises made and too many promises broken.”
Cheri Steinmetz
An attempt to prevent developers from condemning easements on private property for the dam and reservoir got a few more votes but also failed. Critical senators said the threat of condemnation hanging over an easement negotiation was coercive.
“What landowner out there wants to be browbeat?” French asked. “I don’t think anybody in this room would like to be harangued like that.”
That challenge drew support for property rights advocates but also failed, this time on a 17-12 vote.
Hoping and dreaming
The Alkali Creek dam and reservoir would impound 8,000 acre feet from Medicine Bow and Paint Rock creeks, mostly for late-season irrigation for 35 irrigating families. Among other expenditures, the Nowood Watershed Improvement District has spent $1.6 million in state funds for property and easements at the Mercer ranch where the dam and reservoir would be located.
The earth embankment dam would be 100 feet high and almost a half mile long. The reservoir would cover 312 acres when full and always have an area of at least 135 acres for recreation.
Six neighbors to the Big Horn County project have refused to convey necessary easements, stalling the undertaking, which has been in the works for about 15 years.
State money should be spent on projects “we can clearly see a future in,” Republican Sen. John Kolb of Rock Springs said as he criticized the project. “Hoping and dreaming isn’t going to get anything done in this instance.”
Wyoming Water Development Office Director Jason Mead told legislators that some holdout landowners are not downstream of the reservoir and foresee impacts, not benefits. Despite years of stalled negotiations, he said, “We have a good path forward … everybody’s on board as long as we can work out the details.”
Only 13 acres of permanent easements and 34 acres of temporary easements are lacking, Sen. Dan Laursen, a Powell Republican, said as he argued in favor of building the dam. “To drop the ball on them right now would be devastating.”
Such optimism contrasts sharply with one neighboring landowner’s assessment. Tim Gardiner, owner of the Twisted Tippet Ranch just below the proposed dam site, is worried that the dam’s classification as a “high hazard” structure puts his property at risk without appropriate insurance.
“I find it appalling that the sponsors of this dam are asking me to put my property and life savings at risk for their personal financial benefit,” he wrote in comments below a WyoFile story. Dam safety was one of several objections Gardiner has made in interviews and comments.
Wyoming would pay for almost the entire project. Benefitting irrigators pledged to repay a $2.1 million loan as their contribution.
“If the impounded water is for the irrigators’ benefit,” Gardiner wrote, “why won’t they step up to participate in the increased costs? Why are the taxpayers expended to fund the gap, particularly when the public expenditure benefits so few?”
Dam backers argued that the project is of paramount importance. Sen Mike Gierau, a Jackson Democrat, called the Alkali Dam “a water storage facility that this state … is absolutely in dire need of.”
Backers tout the project as one that would benefit more than just irrigators and would contribute more than just late-season irrigation, which is the project’s principal benefit.
“Not only will [it] help the late season, it’ll help the early season,” Laursen said.
The proposed dam fits with Wyoming’s overall plan to spend earnings from non-renewable resources like coal on renewables like water storage, ranching and farming. With more water, more corn, beets and alfalfa — all more profitable than grass — can be cultivated, John Joyce, president of the Nowood Watershed Improvement District, has said.
The two omnibus water bills now face three readings in each of the House and Senate.
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