CHEYENNE, Wyo.—The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended its evaluation of a proposed pipeline to carry water from southwestern Wyoming to the Front Range of Colorado while the developer apparently considers whether to ask a different federal agency to carry on the work.
Aaron Million of Ft. Collins has applied to pipe up to 250,000 acre feet of water a year several hundred miles from the Green River at Flaming Gorge Reservoir to as far south as Pueblo, Colo.
The pipeline proposal has met with strong opposition from Wyoming state government and several communities and groups in Wyoming and Utah that rely on the Green River. Yet some Colorado irrigators and municipalities have expressed interest in the pipeline concept in the face of increasing population projections on the Front Range and heavy water demand there.
The Corps of Engineers has been overseeing a detailed environmental study of Million’s proposal for the past couple of years while he’s been footing the bills for a consultant that’s been working with the federal agency. The Corps of Engineers had been scheduled to release a draft study in 2016.
Rena Brand, project manager for the Corps of Engineers in Littleton, Colo., said Wednesday that Million wrote to her agency last month asking it to suspend its environmental review of his pipeline proposal. She says Million wants to consider whether his project could generate electricity and, if so, whether the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should be leading the review.
“The alternative energy produced from the project may become a major focus and benefit,” Million wrote in an e-mail to the Corps of Engineers last month. “Discussions with other federal agencies indicate that there may need to be a realignment of the lead federal agency.”
The Corps of Engineers responded to Million early this month and agreed to stop work on the study for 60 days. Brand said that if her agency doesn’t hear back from Million in that time, it will have to decide whether to drop the study entirely.
The proposed pipeline would have to lift water over the Continental Divide. Brand said Million hasn’t given her agency any details about how the project could possibly produce a net energy gain.
The Corps of Engineers has been conducting interviews with Colorado irrigators and others who expressed interest in using water from the pipeline to assess the need for the project, Brand said. She said that work has now stopped.
Attempts to reach Million for comment on Wednesday were unsuccessful. The Coloradoan newspaper reported this week that Million was arrested Saturday on a Texas warrant accusing him of stalking an ex-girlfriend.
John Schulz, public information officer with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, said Wednesday that Million was being held without bail in jail in Ft. Collins until Texas authorities come to pick him up. Schulz said his agency’s policies prohibited Million from talking with a reporter.
Mike Purcell, director of the Wyoming Water Development Commission, is the state of Wyoming’s contact for the Corps of Engineers on the pipeline project.
Purcell said Wednesday he hasn’t received any notice from the Corps of Engineers in 18 months about meetings concerning the project. “I can only conclude that things are being slowed down by Mr. Million himself, and for what reasons I can’t really tell you,” he said.
Purcell said that the longstanding conceptual design of the pipeline project has called for installing small turbines to generate electricity in locations where the water would flow downhill to help defray pumping costs.
“That has been a concept for I believe quite a while,” Purcell said. “But if he’s now saying it would generate power over and above the demands of the project, I would find that unlikely.”
