Water officials in southwest Wyoming are warning the towns of Mountain View and Lyman of worrisome storage levels that could threaten municipal water supplies later this year.
The “irrigation storage” level at the Stateline Reservoir is sitting at 20% of normal due to low snowpack this winter, according to the Bridger Valley Joint Powers Board, which serves some 2,200 residents in the two towns. This time last year, the reservoir, which also stores water for agricultural operations with senior water rights, was about 60%. By August, it was drawn down to 6%.
“It’s not looking great,” Bridger Valley Joint Powers Board System Manager Troy Andersen told WyoFile on Monday. “We’re kind of in limbo, waiting for the next month-and-a-half to see what the weather is going to do.”
The board issued a notice in March warning residents that it “anticipates placing a full restriction on all outdoor watering” and that the restriction could come “as soon as May.
“These restrictions will apply to all outdoor watering, including lawns, gardens and landscaping. Because of the limited water supply, we strongly recommend postponing any new planting or landscaping projects.”
The last time Mountain View and Lyman faced such a dire water situation might have been 2003, Andersen said, noting that the towns mostly rely on snowmelt in the Uinta Mountains to feed the Stateline Reservoir just across the border in Utah. He suggested that current snowpack measurements indicating 70% of the median are misleading, because the region’s median gets continually dialed downward.
“It’s not 70% of a median that happened three years ago when we used to get a crap-ton of snow,” Andersen said. “That [average snowpack benchmark] has been depleted.”
The region is tied to the Colorado River Basin, where a severe drought is complicating years-long, arduous negotiations over how to cut water use among some seven states, 30 tribes and Mexico.
Andersen and other local officials noted that the irrigation storage in the Stateline Reservoir — sitting at 20% — includes ag operations, and many of those ranchers are similarly looking at much less water this year. Mountain View and Lyman hold rights to additional storage in the reservoir, but they rely on ag irrigators, via the Bridger Valley Water Conservation District, to help move all of the water to the municipalities’ water treatment intake.
“We’re still highly dependent on agriculture,” Mountain View Mayor Bryan Ayres said of the local economy, noting that the towns have an agreeable relationship with the ag irrigators on water transportation. “We want to do everything we can to help everybody out. You know, we want everyone to have a drink of water, and cows included.”
What the state can do to help, if anything, is unclear, according to Ayres and Andersen. For now, they’ve alerted the State Engineer’s Office to the situation, and they’re holding out hope for a big spring snow dump.
“I haven’t completely given up,” Ayres said. “April and May, historically, have been some of the wetter [months] in this region.”
Well said Bruce Lawson. I could not agree more.
If you’ve ever had to haul water you inherently learned water conservation. Most of today’s society thinks that water is an unlimited resource. You go to the faucet and magically water flows out. But what happens when it no longer does. Do you look back and think maybe a green lawn wasn’t necessary after all. Did you ever consider capturing rain water from your gutter systems and using that for watering your garden. There are an abundance of ways to conserve human water consumption. I sincerely hope that some of you folks enlighten yourselves and start utilizing some of them.
April and may are not years they are months
And all of you that continue to consume the Trump-MAGA Kool-Aid, just keep telling yourself “climate change is a hoax”, “climate change is a hoax” and everything will be fine.
Good luck to those in the ag business. Now on top of having no water for irrigation, thanks to the convicted felon that you put in the White House, you have five dollar a gallon gasoline and diesel prices and sky high fertilizer costs!
This is a typical liberal left rage outburst.
No solutions offered, only condemnation.
Demon-crats in Congress are good at this behavior, that is why nothing comes from Washington DC but obstruction and shutdowns. Please mewl louder.
Richard, actually I think that all politicians (both Democrats and Republicans) are guilty of obstructions. And I also believe that it’s not only the federal level, but all levels of government. We need to work together as a whole, and not a fraction there of. You are right, placing blame never resolves the issue.
Should everyone be waiting for another comment from you proposing solutions? Or, are you just complaining about someone else’s comment?
Do you own a mirror sir?
Our governor and others recently met with data center entrepreneurs in closed door meetings in Jackson to offer Wyoming as a hub for more data centers. Where is the water to cool these vast computer centers coming from? We have none to spare and these deals need to include the public since it is our resources being stripped to feed them.
Sound the general alarm !
All hands on deck,
President trump needs to use the army corps of engineers & declare a water emergency.
Arizona should stop all activity that requires water.
To their credit New Mexico has controlled their economic growth because of lack of water.
Denver,Colorado has implemented tier 1 water restrictions.
California has senior water rights to the Colorado river & would win any court order restricting their water.