A private company’s plans to dam a river on Wyoming’s
Bighorn National Forest has not found many fans – even among
government agencies.
Sheridan-based Little Horn
Energy Wyoming wants to build two reservoirs: a 140-acre
impoundment on the Dry Fork of the Little Bighorn River, and a
73-acre pond on a ridge about 2,400 feet above the river. The
scheme would use cheap power in the middle of the night and on
weekends to pump water from the first reservoir to the upper pond.
Then, during business hours, when high electricity demand drives
prices up, the upper reservoir would release water through turbines
to produce electricity for sale. The operation would provide energy
when it is needed most, though overall, it is designed to use more
electricity than it produces while still making a
profit.
Says Liz Howell of the Wyoming Outdoor
Council, “We’re going to kill it. It’s such a huge sacrifice for
what they’d get – only to benefit private moneymakers.”
Howell and other critics, including the Forest
Service, say a dam would sacrifice a roadless area where mossy
canyon walls and a clear stream provide habitat for Canada lynx,
endangered peregrine falcons and, possibly, Yellowstone cutthroat
trout. The Crow Tribe, 15 miles downstream, worries that the
reservoir will leave it with reduced flows and muddy irrigation
water.
The Environmental Protection Agency says
it’s trying to figure out whether the project will increase
pollution from coal-fired generators, since it would consume
electricity faster than it produces it. Little Horn Energy, which
refused interviews, has not provided the EPA much information, and
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that must
grant the project’s license, has been slow in asking for
it.
EPA’s Wes Wilson says FERC has “a history of
ignoring other agencies.” Despite uncertainty about the company,
FERC is paying an estimated $500,000 for an environmental impact
statement, due in the spring.
*Gabriel
Ross
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Private dam planned on public land.
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