COLORADO RIVER:
Jennifer Yachnin, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, December 3, 2015
Utah pushed ahead this week on plans to construct its Lake Powell pipeline, a billion-dollar project that could divert more than 86,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River to cities in the state's southern end.
The Utah Department of Natural Resources Division of Water Resources filed a preliminary licensing proposal with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, starting the clock on a 90-day public review of the draft document.
A final application is expected to be filed in April.
Environmentalists who have long criticized the proposed pipeline -- which would stretch from Lake Powell to Sand Hollow Reservoir near Hurricane, Utah -- reiterated their objections this week, asserting that the project would further stress the Colorado River.
"The Lake Powell Pipeline is a complete nightmare," Utah Rivers Council Executive Director Zach Frankel said in a statement. "The biggest proposed diversion of the Colorado River during an epic drought, going to the nation's most wasteful water users, with a staggering price tag, just to keep communities outside Utah from using this water."
The Utah Rivers Council has also disparaged the pipeline based on statistics that show residents of St. George, Utah, who would benefit from the pipeline, currently use about 294 gallons per capita -- about twice the daily water use of people who live in Phoenix; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Denver.
Although the preliminary licensing proposal filed this week does not indicate the final cost of the project -- state officials have suggested it is a $1 billion project, while environmentalists assert it could cost twice that amount -- critics have also questioned its cost and how the pipeline will be funded.
Washington County Water Conservancy District General Manager Ron Thompson told the Salt Lake Tribune late last month that he is confident water districts will find a way to repay a 50-year loan from the Utah Division of Water Resources by raising either impact fees or water rates.
Thompson also told the newspaper that how and where the pipeline is built -- factors that have yet to be finalized -- could also change the cost of the project by as much as 25 percent.
"Until we know which options they're going to allow us to use, it's a little hard to put a price on this project," Thompson said.
Utah legislators first approved the Lake Powell pipeline project in 2006, and critics note that the Division of Water Resources has already spent $27 million on the application process.
"Adjusted for inflation, the Lake Powell Pipeline will cost as much as it did to make Hoover Dam operational," Colorado Riverkeeper's executive director, John Weisheit, said in a statement.
Twitter: @jenniferyachnin
Email: jyachnin@eenews.net
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MORE INFORMATION
PRESS RELEASE
CLICK HERE to read our overview of why the proposed pipeline project is unnecessary
CLICK HERE to read the prepared documents to FERC
THE INDIVIDUAL FILES ARE COMBINED HERE:
Preliminary Licensing Proposal (combined). UDWR. (large download)
Draft Study Reports (combined). UDWR. (large download)
MAPS (combined).
A Performance Audit of Projections of Utah's Water Needs. Legislative audit.
Utah Submits Application for Massive Colorado River Diversion
$2 Billion Pipeline Being Proposed for America’s Most Wasteful Water Users
Colorado River, USA: The State of Utah submitted its application today to the federal government for approval of the largest new diversion of water from the Colorado River.
The proposed Lake Powell Pipeline would divert 86,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water for municipal use in Southwest Utah. The multi-billion dollar pipeline would pump this water 2,000 feet uphill across 140 miles of desert to deliver the equivalent annual water usage of 700,000 average Americans to just 180,000 people in St. George, Utah.
This water use inequity can be explained by the extremely high water use of St. George lake-powell-pipeline-routeresidents, who are using 294 gallons per capita/day, roughly twice the water use of Phoenix, Albuquerque and Denver residents, per person.
The proponent of the pipeline, the Utah Division of Water Resources, has spent 8 years and $27 million on the application and claims the pipeline is needed to prevent St. George from running out of water. Critics are lining up to question this claim:
"The Lake Powell Pipeline is an unnecessary and grotesquely expensive waste of taxpayer money,” said former Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Dan Beard. “Southwest Utah has hundreds of alternatives for addressing their future water problems and the justification for the pipeline is based on fictitious and bloated water consumption figures that even the experts at the Utah Legislature dispute.”
“The Lake Powell Pipeline is a complete nightmare,” said Zach Frankel, Executive Director of Utah Rivers Council. “The biggest proposed diversion of the Colorado River during an epic drought, going to the nation’s most wasteful water users, with a staggering price tag, just to keep communities outside Utah from using this water.”
“The Lake Powell Pipeline is a billion-dollar boondoggle that would have disastrous environmental impacts on the Colorado River,” said Gary Wockner, Executive Director of Save the Colorado. “The Colorado is already stretched to the breaking point – water supplies are at the brink in Las Vegas, Arizona, and Southern California. Taking more water out of this river is completely nonsensical.”
Located immediately upstream of the Grand Canyon, the diversion would reduce flows available for fish and wildlife species over hundreds of miles of the Colorado River and make restoration efforts at the Colorado Delta much more difficult. It would also impact the millions of residents throughout the Southwest who are much more conscientious with their water use.
“The pipeline is unfortunate, and incredibly irresponsible considering drought conditions across the West, for Utah to spend billions of dollars to deliver Colorado River water to America’s most wasteful water users,” said Pete Nichols, National Director for the Waterkeeper Alliance.
The would-be recipients of pipeline water have some of the cheapest water rates in the nation, paying only a small fraction of the price for water that Los Angeles residents pay. These cheap rates explain why St. George has some of the highest per-person water use in the entire U.S.
“Adjusted for inflation, the Lake Powell Pipeline will cost as much as it did to make Hoover Dam operational,” said John Weisheit, Executive Director of Living Rivers the Colorado Riverkeeper. In 1934, there was about 8 million acre-feet of surplus in the Colorado River basin. That surplus vanished in 2003.”
Critics also point to the inflation of water use data by the Division of Water Resources as one of many reasons why the pipeline isn’t necessary, as well as the many inexpensive alternatives which are being ignored. These alternatives are documented in a May 2015 Legislative Audit which found that water conservation is not being implemented as aggressively as many other western cities, including Las Vegas.
For example, while California is trying to reduce water use by 25% this year, Utah is trying to reduce municipal water use by just 1%, even though Utah residents are America’s biggest users of municipal water (per person), according to the U.S.G.S.
The Division is submitting their application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the decision making process is anticipated to take several years.
“The LPP proposal should be immediately withdrawn. If not, FERC should kill the project,” said Beard.
