Million's pipeline: Stick a fork in it

Developer Aaron Million is trying to sell state and federal officials and Front Range water utilities on his grandiose scheme to pump water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Utah-Wyoming border 550 miles from the Front Range.

If they buy this pipedream, I've got some riverfront land in the Mojave Desert to sell them.

This project is a huge distraction for Colorado — a colossal waste of time for a state that needs to find pragmatic, cost-effective options for meeting diverse water needs. For a host of reasons, the Flaming Gorge pipeline project does not make basic sense.

This will be the most expensive water in Colorado history. The project, estimated by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to cost $7 billion to $9 billion (far higher than Million's $3 billion estimate), would provide water two to 10 times more expensive than water from other proposed or recently developed water projects, according to an analysis by Western Resource Advocates. A project of this magnitude would require state subsidies and saddle taxpayers with an unfair burden.

Million has identified irrigators as his primary customers. But water from the pipeline would cost