That giant sucking sound

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

By Bill Sniffin

The expression “that giant sucking sound” was first uttered by independent presidential candidate Ross Perot in the 1990s to describe how money and jobs would be lost to the country if NAFTA were passed. Today in Wyoming, we can use the same expression to describe what is happening to our water resources.

It seems that everybody on all sides of the state is lusting after our water. If we do not figure out how to use it and keep it here, it is destined to flow to other, more thirsty places.

Wyoming has millions of dollars socked away for water reservoir development, but few projects are on the drawing board. Meanwhile, Wyoming is under attack from downstream communities wanting ever more water.

Recently, a Montana senator introduced legislation that could turn Bighorn Canyon reservoir near Lovell into just a canyon, as he wants to keep more water flowing north to maintain his state’s fisheries.

The reservoir is the terminus of one of Wyoming’s most impressive mountain rivers, whose headwaters start in the Wind River Mountains near Dubois. This river has two famous names: South of Wind River Canyon it’s the Wind River, and from Thermopolis to Montana it’s called the Bighorn. Oddly, people named the same river two different names as they looked at the river from different areas.

It is hard to be a citizen of Wyoming and not be aware of water. Most of the state qualifies as semi-arid, receiving little rainfall each year. Our high altitude and low humidity provide mild summers and sunny, dry winters, which can be quite tolerable to the human condition. However, it is not a good environment for preserving water.

Perhaps the biggest problem in Wyoming when it comes to conserving water is our wind. Persistent winds cause water used for irrigation to evaporate into the dry atmosphere. It is incredible to imagine how much of Wyoming’s water vanishes into thin air because of our wind and dry, thirsty airshed.

When you think about how productive farmers are downriver, you might understand the argument that it makes little sense to have large ag projects here in Wyoming. Our growing seasons are short, the soil is not that productive, and huge amounts of water are required to make anything grow.

Large federal farming/irrigation projects in Powell, Riverton and Farson make sure farmers have lots of water. But critics ask if it’s efficient to attempt such farming in Wyoming when the same water can do much more good downstream.

But why shouldn’t Wyoming have its own farmers and develop its own farm land? This is economic diversity, after all.

In recent months, we have been hearing about Nebraska screaming for more water out of Wyoming’s Platte River system. A Colorado engineer has come up with a fantastic scheme to pull water out of Flaming Gorge south of Green River and ship it to Colorado cities.

Some years ago, three of the state’s most beautiful and scenic boating lakes were Boysen, Bighorn and Glendo. Each have seen its water recede dramatically, with Boysen and Bighorn becoming severely depleted.

Demand from Idaho potato farmers saw the Snake River draw Jackson Lake down to precipitous levels in 2005, though last summer that lake bounced back considerably.
As we look to the future, we need to build more and enlarge current reservoirs.

But such development is daunting. We also need to conserve water. We need to work on providing covered irrigation systems. We need to seriously look at ways to conserve Wyoming’s water being used for irrigation.

The Midvale system outside of Riverton could be used as a model for best practices with the efforts recently made to conserve irrigation water.

But here in Wyoming, it’s safe to predict that we will continue to just talk about water. And talk. And talk.
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That giant sucking sound | Planet JH News Article: Left Wing Local

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