Editor’s note: Last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected an application for a proposed 500-mile pipeline project that sought to pump water from Wyoming to the Front Range. This is the developer’s argument in favor of the pipeline. 


The Flaming Gorge Project, a 548-mile pipeline from southwest Wyoming, has the potential to bring a new water supply to the region and capture part of Colorado’s remaining compact allocation in the Upper Basin, which includes Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

The argument that no further Upper Basin water projects be developed, which is a position some have taken, by default and in the simplest terms means California, Nevada and Arizona all benefit to the detriment of this region.

Colorado faces a massive water supply shortfall, projected to be between 500,000 to 700,000 acre-feet over the next 20 years.

New water and new storage, one of Gov. Hickenlooper’s keystone policy objectives and a long-standing objective for Colorado, can basically be accomplished with a pipe connection.

This project would divert less than 5 percent annually out of the massive Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which is 25 times larger