The Wyoming Senate has restored $50 million for the troubled Alkali Dam project near Hyattville after lawmakers clashed over whether the structure would ever be built.
The House had earlier stripped the money from House Bill 117, “Omnibus water bill-construction,” as did the Legislature’s Select Water Committee before it. The Senate restored the funding during the bill’s first reading in the Senate on Monday with 19 of 31 members in favor.
There was no effort to challenge the appropriation on second reading Tuesday. By press time Tuesday evening, the Senate had not posted a schedule for Wednesday when the bill could be heard for a third and final time.
At issue is whether the Nowood Watershed Improvement District can obtain the easements necessary for the construction of the $80 million proposal. Legislators argued over whether removing the funding would encourage parties to resolve the easement disputes or further stiffen resistance to the plan, which was once estimated to cost $113 million.
“I’ve been sitting on select water and listening to this saga and it’s a mess.”
Sen. John Kolb
The 100-foot high, half-mile long earthen structure would provide 6,000 acre-feet of water to 35 irrigators plus flat water fishing in the reservoir and other things. Ranchers seek late-season flows that could benefit some 13,000 acres, backers say. Wyoming would pay for most of the project and lend the benefitting landowners $2.1 million, their only financial obligation.
“I’ve been sitting on select water [committee] and listening to this saga and it’s a mess,” Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, said on the Senate floor Monday. “There’s huge problems with the right of ways. It’s gone nowhere. It’s costing us multiples of what it was first projected to cost.”
Sen. Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep, who represents the landowners who would benefit, fought back against his colleague from across the state. “It’s a long way from his county to mine,” Cooper said. “There is a path forward, and we’re really close to closing on this.”
Restoring the appropriation will send a message to easement holdouts that the state is serious about pursuing the project, Senate supporters said. Money from the account will revert to other projects if the parties don’t reach an agreement by July 1, 2026, according to the bill’s latest version.
“If [a package of easement agreements] doesn’t happen, then the money reverts,” Cooper said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Critic Tim Gardiner, a landowner whose property is just below the dam, said downstream users have not been considered in the planning process. In the case of problems or failures “I’m not offered any mitigation or insurance,” he said.
My guess if this project were proposed in a blue state there would be an outcry claiming waste and inefficiency, if not fraud. What State in its right mind spends $113 million that has economic benefits (an extra cutting of hay?) for only 35 marginal businesses.
I get the State supports existing irrigation ponds/reservoirs. But as the LePrele Dam situation shows, there comes a point where this no longer makes sense. And it certainly doesn’t make sense to build new dams when there is so much infrastructure need elsewhere in Wyoming.
What an obscene waste of state money (which we all know will balloon), for 35 irrigators and 13,000 acres. The state would be better off purchasing each acre for $3846 so at least we have something to show for it, and the dam be damned.