New Wyoming Damn Proposed & Many Hate The Idea

A state like Wyoming needs to capture all the water it can get.

But where to build a dam is often a subject of controversy.

How about a 264-foot-high concrete dam in the Medicine Bow National Forest of Carbon County?

The answer depends on who is asked.

Local ranchers say they need the water.

On the other side is the 96% of comments against it.

Some 899 of the 936 submissions to the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Forest Service urged the agencies not to permit the dam, or the associated state-federal land swap to facilitate it on the West Fork of Battle Creek above the Little Snake River valley, according to calculations. (Wyofile).

The dam was proposed by Wyoming and Colorado irrigators and the Wyoming Water Development Commission.

The idea is to capture 10,000 acre feet in a 130-acre reservoir to be used mainly for late-season irrigation.

The dam, if built would be located on the Little Snake River Basin in Southwest Wyoming.

Folks who live in Baggs, Savery, and Dixon near the Colorado border would be right up against it.

All totaled those communities have about 500 people.

The "comment period" does not decide what will happen. Though these comments are supposed to be taken into consideration.

Fisheries and other wildlife would see a benefit but there is the argument that it would prevent native cutthroat trout from migrating up and down the streams.

The idea behind the dam is to create another water storage area for our dry seasons when we need to have as much on hand as we can store up.