On Feb. 23, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected a
preliminary permit application by Wyco Power and Water, Inc. to
construct a 500-mile water pipeline that would pump more than 250,000
acre-feet of water annually from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to Colorado’s
Front Range.
“It’s hard to imagine a worse idea, in this era of global warming,
than burning fossil fuels to pump already-imperiled rivers hundreds of
miles across mountains to fuel sprawl,” said Taylor McKinnon with the
Center for Biological Diversity, which along with coalition partners,
intervened in the permitting process to challenge the pipeline proposal
back in December. “Today’s decision is a victory for rivers, endangered
fish and people—a victory we hope proves fatal for the pipeline
proposal.”
The proposed pipeline would suck water out of rivers and have
deleterious impacts on the already-imperiled Green and Colorado river
ecosystems, four species of endangered fish (the Colorado pikeminnow,
humpback chub, razorback sucker and bonytail chub) and human communities
dependent on those rivers.
