SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A dam proposed for the Diamond
Fork River near Provo, Utah, all but died this October. The Central
Utah Water Conservancy District backed off in the face of financial
concerns and rising public opposition, pulling the dam from the
“preferred alternative” in an environmental impact
statement.
One of the last pieces of the
40-year-old Central Utah Project (CUP), the $50 million dam would
have stored water for alfalfa farmers in Juab County (HCN,
7/15/91). In place of the dam, the conservancy district plans to
spend $47 million to pipe the water from an existing reservoir
directly to the farmers.
State and federal
officials were uncomfortable with the dam, says Claude Hicken, a
water conservancy district board member. “Mainly, we decided we can
accomplish the delivery of water without the dam.”
Zach Frankel of the Utah Rivers Council says the
project is still a boondoggle because Salt Lake County, which pays
67 percent of the local cost of the pipeline, gets none of the
benefits.
It’s not that Salt Lake County couldn’t
use the water. “Our water needs are projected to double over 25 to
30 years,” says David Ovard with the county water conservancy
district.
To provide water to Salt Lake’s
swelling suburbs, the state is planning to dam the Bear River to
increase water supply. Some fear a dam would routinely de-water
habitat in the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, which hosts more
than 200 bird species; the refuge is the subject of Terry Tempest
Williams’ book Refuge.
Zach Frankel has a
solution: Instead of piping CUP water to farmers, send it to Salt
Lake County. That way, he says, a Bear River dam won’t be
necessary. As for the farmers, there is plenty of water they can
pump out of the ground, he says.
It’s not that
easy, according to the Central Utah Water Conservancy District’s
Lee Wimmer. The groundwater is already spoken for, and sending CUP
water to Salt Lake County would cause legal and “moral” problems
because the project was meant primarily for agricultural purposes.
*Jeff
Schmerker
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline One dam falls, another rises.
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