IN THIS ISSUE:

The North Platte River and its many tributaries are Carbon County’s most valuable resource.  If you enjoy the important benefits provided as fisheries, wildlife habitat, and water recreation and most importantly if your livelihood depends on adequate water resources we urge you to become informed of the filing of the Change of Use Petition by the State of Wyoming.  This petition is to come before the State Board of Control in the  very near future.

This petition requests to change the use of water to be stored in Pathfinder Reservoir as a result of the Pathfinder Modification Agreement.  This agreement will raise the elevation of the existing spillway by 2.4 feet to recapture 53,493 acre-feet of storage space lost to sedimentation.  The petition would change the beneficial use to fish and wildlife and environmental for 33,493 acre-feet, an environmental account, which would be part Wyoming’s contribution to the Platte River Recovery Plan and used for endangered species habitat in central Nebraska.  The remaining 20,000 acre-feet will be a “municipal account” to be used at the discretion of the Wyoming Water Development Commission.  This is a change of use which violates the original irrigation as permitted in 1904.

The threat to Upper North Platte Valley irrigators is the potential to dry up to 40 to 50% of the irrigated acreages caused by increased calls for regulation to meet this increased storage space in Pathfinder Reservoir that will not be managed the same as irrigation storage.  This will be a precedent setting action potentially used on every river system in Wyoming in response to threats regarding endangered water species or U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service environmental actions.

Irrigation practices in the Upper North Platte Valley have vastly improved year round trout habitat due to return flow during the summer and fall months.  When the use of water by irrigators is reduced by this proposed action by the State of Wyoming, the citizens of this state and beneficiaries of the North Platte River water will be greatly damaged.  This change of use will also affect streams flowing into the North Platte River below Pathfinder in Natrona and Converse Counties.

Riparian and irrigated areas will be seriously reduced which will in turn (continued on Page 4)