WILD RIVERS UPDATE: A Small Victory On World Rivers Day!

Hello Friends of Wild Rivers,

Today is World Rivers Day, a space to celebrate the rivers across Colorado, the U.S., and the planet. We are delighted to announce a small but important victory last week for our work to protect the rivers in the Colorado River basin.

One of the proposed dam projects that we are tracking and opposing is the so-called “West Fork Dam” on the West Fork of Battle Creek in Wyoming. While the project may seem obscure, it’s one of the wilder spots in the Colorado River basin — Battle Creek flows into the Little Snake River which flows into the Yampa River in Colorado which flows into the Green River in Utah which flows into the Colorado River in Utah, all without a dam until the Colorado River reaches Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona!

Last year, the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), which is the federal agency leading the permitting for the project, initiated the “Scoping” process for the Environmental Impact Statement during which we put in aggressive comments about how the cost estimate for the 264-foot-tall, 700-foot-wide, concrete dam was drastically underestimated to be $80 million. The good news is that last week, the NRCS announced that they agreed with our comments and are requiring the project to get an updated cost estimate, which we believe should be 4 times higher than $80 million.

We notified the media and were also delighted to see the Public News Service (story here) pick up the story and share it with their affiliates across the Western U.S.

The cost estimate of a project is a critical piece of the analysis required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) because it drives the consideration of alternatives and the final decision about whether a project is feasible. Our work enforcing NEPA is a likewise critical piece of our advocacy fighting against proposed dams and protecting rivers, and this decision by the NRCS to update the cost estimate means that the NEPA law is still functioning  and that enforcement work like ours really matters.

On World Rivers Day, try to go outside and visit your local river! And, remember that organizations like ours protecting rivers and enforcing laws are what helps keep your local river alive and healthy.

You can donate online here to support our work.

Thank you!